Western Branch, at Portland State University, 21-23 October 1994
 

David S. Nivison, Professor emeritus, Dept. of Philosophy,

Stanford University
 

Title:  "Kong Jia of Xia"
 

     This paper ties together certain results in my continuing

investigations into the exact dating of very early Chinese

history.  In Early China 15 (1990), I wrote (with K. D. Pang)

that the eclipse assigned by tradition to the reign of Zhong

Kang, fourth king of Xia, occurred on 16 October 1876 BC, and

that the reign lengths of early Xia kings in the Bamboo Annals

appear to be valid, but that there was always an interregnum of

just two years between reigns (for completion of mourning).  In a

paper presented in Los Angeles in May, 1990, I extended this

hypothesis through to the end of the dynasty, getting as terminal

date 1555 BC (previously established by Pankenier), with more

confirming evidence.  In the "Chinese Identities" conference in

Berkeley in February, 1994, I presented a paper that attempted to

give exact dates for all rulers of the ensuing Shang Dynasty,

arguing that the reign lengths in the Annals for this dynasty too

are for the most part valid, and that the resulting dates explain

the final gan component of the name of each Shang king, the gan

being determined by the gan of the first day of his reign.
 

     In the present paper, I combine these results and test them

by applying them to the one Xia king whose (commonly used) name

ends in a gan, namely the fourteenth Xia king Kong Jia.
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