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Shi Shen
Warring States astronomer of Wei whose star measurements, preserved in a Tang compendium, give positions for one hundred and twenty-one stars
On an observatory terrace at night, a large bronze armillary sphere stands on a stone base while two people stand with their backs turned facing the view; stars are joined into constellation lines overhead, and a sundial and tiered dripping water vessels stand at the right.
Also known as Shi Shenfu
- Roles
- Scientist
Shi Shen, also called Shi Shenfu, was a Warring States astronomer and astrologer from the state of Wei. The treatise on the heavens in the Records of the Grand Historian (Shiji), listing those who handed down knowledge of the heavens, names Gan in Qi, Tang Mei in Chu, Yin Gao in Zhao and Shi Shen in Wei. His work, later called the Star Manual of Master Shi, is lost, but the Tang compendium Kaiyuan zhanjing, compiled by Gautama Siddha, preserves much of it. Among these fragments are positions for one hundred and twenty-one stars, measured by lunar lodge and distance from the pole, one of the oldest surviving sets of star positions, although scholars disagree on when the observations were made. From the Song onward his writings and those of Gan De were known together as the Gan-Shi Star Manual.
Life and times
Dates Dates unknown; mid–Warring States, of Wei