日本藏《混一疆理历代国都之图》初本之考述

Abstract

A great world map under the title of Honil Gangni Yeokdae Gukdo Jido (short name: the Gangnido, or: the Kangnido) dra wn in Chosŏn (Chosun), was found at the Nishi Honganji Tem ple, Kyoto, in Japan a century ago. Researchers and experts i n Britain, Japan and Germany set a high value on this ancien t map. Scholars in Europe have hold even that both the know ledge in global geography and the technology in drawing of th e map had surpassed advanced European and Arabian mappi ng level by a big margin. In1402, a small number of officials of the Joseon Dynasty made the Gangnido which was analytica lly composed of Map of the Extensive Civilized Area (Shengjia o Guangpi Tu) by Li Zemin, Map of the Territory Amalgamate d (Hunyi Jiangli Tu)by Qingjun, both them had been obtained from China, and some supplements of geographical data cove red Korea peninsula and Japan prepared by Korean scholars. The emergence, travel and multiplication of the map in three countries in the Far East were positive significant to transmis sion of science and technology and raising of new world view together with new culture view. Some theses to explore the G angnidoand its source written by Mr. Qian Jian, his penname i s Yulizi, has been published since 1985 before when there wa s not any academic publication about the topic in China. With a new visual field and independent ideas, this paper discusses five subtopics as follows:1. The Gangnido was not based on the Zhu Siben’s map so a judgment made by Joseph Needham was wrong, because the latter did not formally include any foreign territory such as t he lands to the Southeast of South China Sea and to the Nor thwest of the Taklimakan Desert. 2. The reason why had the Gangnido reached a very highle vel of charting performance was depended on its master copi es to a large extent. The plotter Qingjun of the main one of t hose copies had adopted a kind of projection which was simil ar to the subsequent Mercator one and a dictyo-coordinate s ystem composed of meridian lines and transverse lines to hyp othetical acmes supported by advanced theory and technique s. The cartographers of the Gangnidoshould calibrate diverse maps, charts and other geographical features as source of th e Gangnido with the coordinate system otherwise different loc ations of same towns, manors, hills, rivers and borders from variant even disparate atlas and manuscripts would be hardly integrated into one acceptable map, although such a coordina te net was not shown in the completed map Gangnido at last. 3. Map of the Territory Amalgamated (Hunyi Jiangli Tu) and Amalgamated Map of the Great Ming Empire (Daming Hunyi T u) were the referenced patterns but not the headstream of th e Gangnido the two formers were derived from a common atl as or just a map no matter how different in details there was between the both. Why was the situation like that? The part o f the reason is as follows, Eminent Monk Qingjun did not pos sess enough geographical data and conditions to design and c reate a great and meticulous world map. 4. The genuine forebear of the Gangnido should be the Col oured Global Map (Caihua Dili Zongtu) which was drowned by Iranian Jamal al-Din and denominated as the General Global Map (Tianxia Dili Zongtu) later. 5. In medieval times, there were some indirect and direct c onnections in map cartographies of Korea and the remote reg ion to the West of Cathay. The Gangnidoaccepted the achieve ments of the Western cartographies and also employed the Ea stern coordinate structure with four-acmes. Historical facts demonstrated that Korean people in the cent ral area of the North Pacific culture has the amazing capabili ty to absorb alien cultures and make creation. This is an imp ortant reason why the flourishing of the Korea civilization is s o colorful, varied and resplendent.