Although it is wholly neither fiction nor nonfiction, the best-selling book of all times may not be the Bible, but the huangli, or yellow almanac--the "Farmer's Almanac" of China. According to a recent study by Academia Sinica's Institute of Ethnology, 83.6 percent of Taiwan house-holds own at least one copy of the little yellow booklet (borrowed copies not included) and 26.6 percent have two or more. That makes for 120 copies for every 100 families.

Strictly speaking, the yellow almanac should perhaps not be called a book so much as a glorified calendar. But as contents are constantly added--climatic information, horoscopes, dietary advice, metric conversion tables, useful social phrases--the almanac may range anywhere from 20 to 100 pages, a kind of mini-encyclopedia for the home.

Circulation is vast, but the almanac's "rate of utilization" is low, the same study found. Not more than six in ten of those who have the book even look at it, and then it is usually just to flip through and look up their horoscope. As to the abstruse sections on numerology, geomancy, the 24 solar terms, and the like, even if they have the inclination to give it a try, they often cannot make heads or tails of it.

Our ancestors treated the book differently. In ancient times, it was compiled by the imperial astronomer and called the "emperor's almanac." Commoners were forbidden to make private copies on penalty of losing their heads.

Why was it so important? By telling the farmer when to plant various crops, a well-regulated calendar helps ensure an abundant harvest, crucial to an agricultural society.

Possessing this power over society's welfare, to the calendar was ascribed other, more magical powers by the people. An almanac and a bronze mirror placed in a bride's sedan chair were said to ward off evil; placed on the chest of a corpse, they would prevent it from turning into a zombie. An almanac on a nearby table, when people were talking about ghosts by candlelight in the dead of night, would keep away any eerie eavesdroppers. And a prescription in the 16th-century Compendium of Materia Medica by Li Shih-chen states that taking a pill made with rice gruel and the ashes of last year's almanac will cure malaria.

A way of measuring the year was invented during the age of the Three Emperors, 30-50,000 years ago, according to Szu-ma Ch'ien's first-century B.C. Records of the Grand Historian. While prehistoric legends are unverifiable, the first Chinese calendar of which we have firm historical evidence is that of the Han dynasty (206 B.C.--220 A.D.). The Han calendrical system already used the concept of the 24 solar terms, although the present names for them were fixed during the T'ang dynasty (618--907).

The solar terms were tied up with the traditional Chinese calendar, which has always been lunar. A lunar calendar has the advantage that one look at the moon is enough to determine what day of the month it is. But the growth of crops depends on the sun. The solar terms served as an accommodation. Some of their names represent the changes in temperature that take place during the year, such as "summer begins" (4th month), "stopping of heat" (7th month), and "great cold" (12th month). Others refer to various stages in plant and animal life: "insects awaken" (2nd month), "grain buds" (4th month), and "grain in ear" (5th month). The ancients had a mnemonic formula for remembering all 24 and the months in which they occurred.

The earliest imperial almanac held in the ROC at present is dated 1256, from the Sung dynasty. This almanac is already much concerned with the determination of auspicious and inauspicious days--for everything from planting crops, getting married, and starting a war to washing one's hair and clipping toenails. Almanacs from the Ming dynasty (1368--1644) were similar in content, but with an interesting addition: some of them began to make use of the calendrical methods introduced by the Italian priest Matteo Ricci (1552--1610). Further improvements were made during the Ching dynasty (1644--1911). An 18th-century Ching almanac even lists the daily times of sunrise and sunset for various locations around the empire.

With the founding of the Republic in 1912, responsibility for putting out the almanac was taken over by the Central Observatory, under the Ministry of Education. Its contents reveal the aspirations of the early Republic for modernization. The solar calendar was adopted, along with the seven-day week. The information on propitious days was replaced by more on agriculture. Added were charts on the planets, tides, eclipses, climatic zones, and the like.

And with no more emperor, the almanac needed a new name. Since the book's cover was commonly yellow and since the words "emperor" and "yellow" are both pronounced huang in Chinese, it was natural to call it the yellow almanac, a name it retains today.

Yellow almanacs soon recovered from the earnest efforts of the educationalists. In subsequent popular editions, the selection of auspicious days, marriage prognostications, geomancy, fortunetelling, and charts of the Nine Dragons Who Control the Rains were thrown in with The Aphorisms of Chu Hsi and The Filial Piety Classic and wedded to maps, railway schedules, and tips on body building.

Almanacs today are given away more often than sold, by a ratio of 7.5 to 1 according to the Academia Sinica study. Free copies come from financial institutions, newspapers, social groups, temples, business organizations, and so forth. Copies for sale are put out mostly by fortunetellers.

Since people today look at it only to tell their fortunes and farmers have long since had detailed, scientific agricultural information to rely on, is there any reason for the yellow almanac to continue to exist?

Only 1.7 percent of us think it should not. It seems clear that the Chinese almanac, which has existed now for several thousand years, will continue to be a part of Chinese life in the future. How its contents will change with the times we have no way of predicting, but its form is not hard to foresee.

It is 2000 A.D. When people want to pick a lucky day, they need pore over a book no longer. All they have to do is push a button on the family PC. On the screen appear bright Chinese characters: Today--good for weddings, funerals, business, traveling, visiting, shopping, hairdressing, worshipping. Bad for using the computer.

[Picture Caption]

The Central Observatory came out with an almanac based on the solar calendar in 1912. Shown is the cover from the 1916 almanac.

A western-style wedding is diagramed in an almanac from the early years of the Republic. The bride's gown has more of a Chinese flavor than wedding gowns today.

Fortunetellers often put out almanacs for publicity.

In selecting a lucky day, villagers ask a Taoist priest to pray to the Lord of Heaven for his blessing and protection.

An auspicious day was chosen on which to conduct this temple ceremony ofburning paper money for the gods' blessings.

Today must be a propitious day to start up operations, as this farmer isabout to invite the local Earth God to grant a rich harvest.

A western-style wedding is diagramed in an almanac from the early years of the Republic. The bride's gown has more of a Chinese flavor than wedding gowns today.

A western-style wedding is diagramed in an almanac from the early years of the Republic. The bride's gown has more of a Chinese flavor than wedding gowns today.

Fortunetellers often put out almanacs for publicity.

In selecting a lucky day, villagers ask a Taoist priest to pray to the Lord of Heaven for his blessing and protection.

An auspicious day was chosen on which to conduct this temple ceremony of　burning paper money for the gods' blessings.

Today must be a propitious day to start up operations, as this farmer is　about to invite the local Earth God to grant a rich harvest.