The Fifth Time Interval

Dear List,

I quite incline towards the idea that 1 Khắc is equal to 15 mins. Hoàng Xuân Hãn in Lịch và Lịch Việt Nam (1982) noted that during the time ruled by the Nguyễn Dynasty, Vietnam used a calendar system called Hiệp Kỷ, which was derived from the Chongzhen or Shixian Calendar that was used by the Qing Dynasty in China. Soma et al (2004) wrote a very detailed paper about the calendar system in China and Japan, in which they indicated that 1 ke (Khắc) before 1628 is equal to 1/100 of one day, and then after 1628 until now, 1 ke = 1/96 of one day, or 15 mins. The word Ke (Chinese) or Khắc was translated into English by several scholars (e.g. Stephenson F. R. Historical Eclipses and Earth’s Rotation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997) as Mark. So the idea that 1 Khắc is equal to 2h20' seems to be apocryphal; and đêm 5 canh ngày 6 khắc, as I said, sounds like a rhetorical expression rather than a fact.

Best,

Quang Anh

P/S: Link to the paper of Soma et al. (2004): http://pasj.oxfordjournals.org/content/56/5/887

Phan Quang Anh, PhD (NUS)

Postdoctoral Research Fellow

Department of Social Anthropology and Cultural Studies (ISEK)

UNIVERSITY OF ZURICH (UZH)

Andreasstrasse 15, CH-8050 Zürich

Switzerland

From: Vsg <vsg-bounces@mailman11.u.washington.edu> on behalf of Ngo Thanh Nhan <nhan@temple.edu>

Sent: Friday, August 21, 2020 4:56:11 PM

To: vsg@u.washington.edu <vsg@u.washington.edu>

Subject: Re: [Vsg] [External] Re: the fifth time interval?

- External Email -

Dear Michele,

Thank you for mentioning the Buddhist bells. When I was young, this was what I heard.

A bit more info, see http://dinhquat.blogspot.com/2014/12/a-co-canh-sao-con-bay-chi-khac.html

It says:

-- Hoàng Xuân Hãn, each khắc is 1/100 of a day or 14'24"

-- Đào Duy Anh, each khắc is 15'.

-- Thanh Nghị, each khắc is 1/6 of the day time, 2 hours 20'.

-- Night time is 5 "canh" long, day time is 6 "khắc" long, missing 2 hours between day and night.

To a peasant, it's like what the Book of Poetry: start working at sun rise, rest at sunset -- the missing hour above.

When the shade of the trees are right under them, that's ngọ [horse], that's midday.

When the mice start to make noise, that's tý [mouse], or midnight.

The time keeper looked at sao hôm, the brightest planet second only to the moon.

It appears at dusk sao hôm, and again at dawn sao mai. It's Venus.

Best,

Nhàn

On 8/21/2020 8:38 AM, Michele Thompson wrote:

Dear Minh,

I can’t answer most of your questions below but going way back to at least the 12th century, and maybe before that, almost any Buddhist institution (monastery, nunnery, pagoda etc) that had people, monks or nuns, actually in residence had a bell that was rung to mark certain divisions of time-when to get up, meditation periods, when to stop morning tasks and come to lunch etc. The importance of these bells is one reason that so many of the premodern inscriptions that we have come from bells. They were one of the most important things a donor could give. See the books below for photos of a lot of these bells and reproductions of the inscriptions.

Phan Văn Các. comp. and ed. Thời Trần (1226-1400) vol. 2, pt. 1 and pt. 2 of Claudine

Salmon and Phan Văn Các comps and eds. Épigraphie en Chinoise du Việt Nam:

Vǎn Khắc Hán Nȏm Việt Nam Paris: École française d'Êxtrȇme Orient, 1998: vol.

2 pt. 1 and pt. 2 published separately Hà Nội: Viện Nghiên Cửu Hán Nȏm and

Chia-Yi, Taiwan: National Chung Cheng University, 2002.

See Thích Nhất Hạnh for a description of monastic life, in the twentieth century, marked in terms of time by the chiming of monastery bells.

Thích Nhất Hạnh, Zen Keys: A Zen Monk Examines the Vietnamese Tradition, Albert Low and Jean Low trans. New York: Doubleday, 1974. pages 135-37 have the most about bells and marking time. Several of the short stories in My Master's Robe:Memories of a Novice Monk, anonymous translator Berkeley: Parallax Press, 2002. also feature bells, their importance, and how monks feel about the sound of bells.

I’ve always imagined that people living near the sound of Buddhist bells used them to mark time themselves much as people in medieval Europe used the sound of church bells in the days before many homes had any kind of clock.

cheers

Michele

Michele Thompson

Professor of Southeast Asian History

Dept. of History

Southern Connecticut State Univ.

On Aug 21, 2020, at 7:19 AM, Minh Nguyen <thiminh@gmail.com> wrote:

This is so interesting!

Based on literary texts, I understand that the "canh" could be monitored by the sounds of a drum (trống canh) or the crows of roosters. What about "khắc"? What did people use to tell the time according to these units? There must have been some kind of time measuring device if the division was so clear-cut. And who was this person charged with sounding the drum to tell the time for others? A romantic job to have, it seems.

Minh

Bielefeld University

On Fri, Aug 21, 2020 at 12:00 PM Ngo, Tam <Ngo@mmg.mpg.de> wrote:

Dear Erik,

This website is rereferred to by my spirit medium friends in Hanoi and Hai Phong as standard to detect the inauspicious hours of the day and night.

http://daovang.free.fr/DemNamCanhNgaySauKhacTinhNhuTheNao.html

The section “Đêm năm canh, ngày sáu khắc” provides detail explanations on canh and khắc.

Best,

Tam

From: Erik Harms <elharms@gmail.com>

Sent: Tuesday, August 18, 2020 4:15 PM

To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>

Subject: [Vsg] the fifth time interval?

Dear List,

I wonder if the wisdom of the list can help me understand what "the fifth time interval" refers to in Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai's book, The Mountains Sing. The phrase appears on page 33 (image attached for context) when the narrator, Grandmother Diệu Lan, is waking up before travelling to Hanoi from Nghệ An with her father and brother to sell some potatoes. The year is 1942, and they wake up to depart for their journey ""At the start of the fifth time interval." Around three in the morning".

Does anyone know what these "time intervals" are?

Thanks in advance!

Erik Harms

Yale Anthropology