Joseon's Office of Astronomy and the Yin-Yang Exam

Joseon's Office of Astronomy and the Yin-Yang Exam

Joseon Korea ran a government office for the sky. It was called the Gwansanggam, often translated as the Office of Astronomy, and its staff watched the heavens, kept the calendar, judged land for sites and picked lucky days and hours. Some of those royal astronomers and fortune specialists were hired through a state exam called the eumyanggwa, the "yin-yang exam." One of its reading lists included a book built on birth year, month, day and hour, the same raw material saju (Korean four-pillar astrology) uses today. So when people ask about "Joseon astrology," one well-documented answer is this office and this exam, both written into the dynasty's law codes.

This is a look at a historical institution, not a claim that charts can foretell anything.

What the Gwansanggam did

The Encyclopedia of Korean Culture defines the Gwansanggam as the Joseon office set up to handle astronomy, geography, calendar calculation (yeoksu), divination by calculation (jeomsan), weather watching (cheukhu) and timekeeping with water clocks (gangnu). In modern terms, the same entry says, it matches today's weather service and observatory rolled into one.

It had older roots. The encyclopedia notes that Silla built the Cheomseongdae tower for observing the sky, and that the Goryeo kingdom kept an astronomy bureau under several names, ending with Seoungwan. In 1466, under King Sejo, Joseon renamed this body the Gwansanggam and placed it under the Ministry of Rites. Under King Yeonsan it was renamed Saryeokseo, and under King Jungjong the old name came back. The office was closed in 1894 during the Gabo Reform, and a much smaller bureau with a handful of staff replaced it.

The staff list in the Gyeongguk daejeon, Joseon's great law code, shows how seriously the state took this work. The chief state councillor held the top post as a concurrent title. Below him came two supervisors, a director, a deputy director and a ladder of officials down to the ninth rank. There were teaching posts too, including two instructors for myeonggwahak (fate studies). On top of that, the encyclopedia says, many temporary staff were hired across the three fields.

Myeonggwahak: the fate-reading branch

Myeonggwahak was one of the three branches of the Gwansanggam, next to astronomy and geography. One encyclopedia entry calls the three subjects learning of "heaven, earth and people." The Korean dictionary note quoted in that entry explains the word as the study of fate, good and bad fortune, and blessing and trouble.

The Joseon Annals dictionary, run by the Academy of Korean Studies, breaks myeonggwahak into three parts:

PartWhat it covered, per the dictionary
NongmyeongReading a person's inborn fortune and lifespan
BokseoReading whether one matter will turn out well or badly
ChutaekChoosing a good year, month, day and hour for events like weddings, coming-of-age rites, funerals and ancestor rites

In daily practice, the branch's main job was choosing dates and hours. The Encyclopedia of Korean Culture says myeonggwahak officials worked out lucky days and times for royal and court ceremonies, including royal funerals, building royal tombs and the rite held during a solar eclipse. They wrote their picks into a formal date report and sent it up ahead of time. They also sent time-callers to announce the exact hour during court ceremonies.

The dictionary adds that date-picking had two sides: state dates, such as court meetings, royal trips, exam dates and shrine rites, and everyday dates for families, such as weddings, funerals, moving house, building a home, travel and sowing seeds.

According to the encyclopedia, the 1466 reorganization also renamed this subject. It had been called eumyanghak, "yin-yang learning," and became myeonggwahak. The Annals dictionary agrees that the term eumyanghak appears in King Sejong's era, and that every later law code used myeonggwahak.

The eumyanggwa: an exam for star-watchers and fate readers

The eumyanggwa was one of the japgwa, the "miscellaneous" or technical exams, which picked technical staff. The Annals dictionary says a 1392 rule on entering office already listed it, alongside exams for clerks, interpreters and doctors.

Here is how it worked, according to the Encyclopedia of Korean Culture and the Annals dictionary:

  • It was held only in the regular exam years (sikyeonsi) and in additional exams (jeunggwangsi).
  • It had two rounds: a first round in autumn, run by the Gwansanggam, and a second round in spring in the capital, run by the office together with the Ministry of Rites.
  • The first round passed 18 people: 10 in astronomy, 4 in geography and 4 in myeonggwahak. The second round passed 9: 5, 2 and 2.
  • Each subject was graded on three levels, worth 2 points, 1 point and half a point, and the highest totals passed.
  • Passers joined the Gwansanggam as probationers, at the eighth or ninth rank depending on their place.

The books on the myeonggwahak reading list

This is the part that matters most for saju readers. Both sources list the books tested for myeonggwahak in the Gyeongguk daejeon system:

  • Woncheongang: recited from memory and explained
  • Seo Japyeong, Eungcheonga, Beomwisu and Geuktaek tongseo: explained with the book open
  • The Gyeongguk daejeon itself: explained with the book open, as in every track

The Annals dictionary has a separate entry on Seo Japyeong. It says the name belongs both to a person and to a book. As a person, Seo Japyeong was a fortune reader (nokmyeongga) who lived in the late Wu to early Song period. His given name was Geoi, and his school took its name from his courtesy name, Japyeong. As a book, Seo Japyeong was a myeonggwahak exam text for the eumyanggwa and for other Gwansanggam hiring tests. It read a person's inborn fortune from the year, month, day and hour of birth.

The same entry makes a point that saju fans will recognize. Before the Song period, it says, readings were based mainly on the year pillar. This book moved the center to the day stem instead, and that approach became the mainstream of modern saju study. Today we call the day stem the Day Master. The dictionary gives the book's original title as Japyeong sammyeong tongbyeon yeonwon and names its compiler as Seo Daeseung of the Southern Song. Its first volume explains how to read a chart, and its second covers 18 chart patterns.

The reading list did change. Per the Annals dictionary, the later code Sokdaejeon added Siyong tongseo and dropped Geuktaek tongseo. In the final code, Daejeon hoetong, myeonggwahak was cut down to one date-selection book, Hyeopgil tongui. The dictionary links this to the late-Joseon shift toward Western astronomy and a new calendar system. It also notes that the eumyanggwa ranked first among the technical exams in the Daejeon tongpyeon code.

What this tells us about saju in Korea

None of this makes saju a Korean invention. The key text on the list came from China. What the record shows is narrower and still striking: for centuries, the Joseon state trained students in fate reading, tested them on a birth-time text that put the day stem at the center, and gave them official posts to pick dates for the royal court. Saju has roots in old East Asian texts and has been practiced and adapted in Korea for centuries; the Gwansanggam and its exam are one place where that history is recorded.

If you want to see the four pillars these officials studied, start with What Is Saju?, then try our free saju calculator to see your own year, month, day and hour pillars.

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