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= He Chengtian = He Chengtian (370 - 447) born in Tan, Donghai (now Changchengzhen, Lanling County). He was a Chinese philosopher and astronomer of the Liu Song dynasty.

Early Life
He Chengtian born in a family that attached important to education. His uncle was a famous historian and astronomer. As the sister of He Chengtian’s uncle, his mother also loved reading books. That created a good environment for He Chengtian to study.

When He Chengtian was five years old, his father died, then his mother afforded the responsibility of educating him. Under this environment and the education of his mother, He Chengtian had the ability to comment and explain Classical Chinese poetries when he was a child. That became the foundation of the rest of his life.

Atheism
He Chengtian openly promoted atheism and opposed the theism of Buddhism. He expressed his idea by writing a series of articles supporting the opinion of Hui Lin.

Contemporary Hui Lin wrote an article, which caused a big opposition of Buddhists, called Discussion on white and black to oppose the theism of Buddhism. That’s an opportunity for He Chengtian to publish and advocate his idea, so he caught it.

He Chengtian believed that the god is not existent. Every phenomenon of the world, such as the motion of sun and moon, is not arranged by the god but is the natural phenomenon.

The most useful way for He Chengtian to oppose theism is also the natural phenomenon. Based on some natural phenomena, He Chengtian pointed out that the death is similar to the change of season or the disappearance of fire, it will erase the appearance of an object. Although the new life will bear after the death, just like the appearance of new season or fire, this new life will not have any relation to the dead one. This opinion conflicted with the Saṃsāra of Buddhism.

Calendar
“Yuanjia Li” is one of the most important achievements of He Chengtian, it’s a revolution of Chinese traditional calendar.

He Chengtian learned lots of knowledge and formed some habits that were helpful for him to study because of the education that he received during his childhood. Also, He Chengtian’s uncle has pointed out the “Qiyao Li”. Both of them were the basis of He Chengtian’s revolution of the calendar.

In 443 AD, He Chengtian finished the “Yuanjia Li”, which included five reformations of thinking method:

(1) Use the fact that sun, moon, and earth form a line when lunar eclipse appears to determine the location of the sun.

(2) Realize the unreasonable of the rule of calendar --- seven intercalations per 19 years, then point out change the number of intercalation as the time goes on.

(3) Use the Yushui (2nd solar term, Feb. 18, 19, or 20) as the beginning of the calendar.

(4) Change the uniform syzygy method to the actual syzygy method to make sure that the eclipse will happen in syzygy. (abandoned by He Chengtian soon after).

(5) Determine Hou epoch for five stars.

Character
Based on the Book of Song, “He Chengtian was upright and a little self-conceit, so he couldn’t cater the minister and often looked down upon his colleagues”. This special character caused a situation that He Chengtian met lots of obstructions in his political life and can’t finish his lofty aim.