When the Sky Leaned over (in Ancient China)

2016

Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage 16 (2013), 250-260

Mesopotamia and China have long traditions of astronomy and celestial divination, and share some similarities in their approach to these subjects. Some scholars have therefore argued for the transmission of certain aspects of Mesopotamian astronomy to China. In this paper, I compare four aspects of ancient astronomy in these cultures in order to assess whether there is any evidence for transmission. I conclude that the similarities between Chinese and Mesopotamian astronomy are only superficial and there is no evidence for the transmission of Mesopotamian astronomy to China.

Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union, 2011

Study of the role of astronomical alignments in shaping the built environment suggests that centuries before establishment of the Empire in 221 BCE, the Chinese had already developed practical, geometrical applications of astronomical knowledge useful in orienting high-value structures. The archaeological record clearly shows this fundamental disposition was already firmly established by the formative period of Chinese civilization in the early 2nd millennium BCE. The cosmological identification of the imperial center with the celestial Pole and an intense focus on the circumpolar 'skyscape' are manifested in the highly symbolic orientation of early imperial capitals. Certain features of this cosmological world-view may have emerged as early as the Neolithic.

The author offers a point-by-point rebuttal of Douglas J. Keenan's criticism of the use of astronomical records in dating the earliest Chinese dynasties in the 2 nd millennium BCE. Detailed references are provided to the abundant historiographical and archaeological evidence bearing on the early chronology which Keenan ignored in his critique.

Astrology and Cosmology in Early China

Even a remove of nearly five-hundred years has done little to dampen scholarly interest in this signal episode of the intellectual history of the 1500s. What so clearly focused attention at the time was the great fear aroused by the singular alignment of the major planets expected to occur in the sign of Pisces that supposedly portended the coming of a second great flood in February 1524. Indeed, the writings of so many eminent Renaissance scholars even in our own time, a list far too numerous to include in this brief summary of those forebodings for the intellectually curious but non-specialist reader, are a constant reminder of the historical import ascribed to them now, as then. Few would deny that astrology was a serious pursuit of natural science and, more generally, held in high esteem by the educated elite throughout the 1500s and beyond. In effect, it seemed to account as much for changes in the political and social winds as it did for the outbreak of war, famine, pestilence, atmospheric events, the rise of new religions and the fall of old ones, and much else besides. As the Polish historian Krzysztof Pomian has put it: "Until the XVIth century the existence of a connexion between celestial and terrestrial bodies and between celestial and terrestrial events was admitted by everyone as self-evident. But on the nature of this connexion there was no agreement. The augustinian current considered celestial events as signs of terrestrial ones. The former announce the latter, because God conferred upon them such a meaning. And this meaning can be truly understood only by those who are looking on the skies guided by the divinely inspired scriptures. To such an attitude expressed with particular vigour by William of Auvergne, the aristotelians opposed their conviction that celestial events are causes of terrestrial ones. In order to understand their action one has therefore to inquire into their powers in conformity with the principles of natural science. Between these two poles lay an entire spectrum of intermediate positions which tried to reconcile or to synthesize Augustine with Aristotle, theology with physics and astronomy, significance with causality, prophecy with prediction. The most influent among them was that of Aquinas."(1) In a world view shaped by a natural philosophy much imbued with, and indebted to, astrology, the theory of great conjunctions, which was originally formulated by the Arab scholars Messehala (Masha'allah) and al-Kindī and more fully articulated thereafter by Albumasar (Abū Ma'shar) in his De magnis coniunctionibus, played a particularly important role. It was this latter version that subsequently enjoyed such wide currency among a number of European scholars, including most notably Peter of Abano (Pietro d'Abano) and cardinal Pierre d'Ailly. The most important of these conjunctions involved the more slowly revolving planets-Jupiter and Saturn. According to Giuseppe Bezza, "…the doctrine of planetary conjunctions is based on the alignment of the superior planets, especially Saturn and Jupiter. As formulated by Abū Ma'shar, the conjunctions of Saturn and Jupiter are determined by their median movements (moti) and evince a regular pattern of alignments. Early on in De magnis coniunctionibus, Abū Ma'shar states that every 360,000 years Saturn completes 18,138 and Jupiter 30,352 revolutions, the numerical difference between them being 12,214. It therefore follows that their median conjunctions are repeated every 12,214/18,138 x 360° = 242.42144 degrees of the zodiac, i.e. the ninth sign from the initial sign of their conjunction, and that their temporal interval is given by 360,000/18,138 = 19 years, 314 days, 14 hour, 23 minutes and several seconds, which is why it is commonly

The findings outlined in this paper occurred in the course of an international archaeological survey focusing on early representations and accounts of the Big Dipper asterism in Ursa Major. They encompass the tentative identification of three ancient Chinese constellations, namely the sword, the snake and the turtle, which—together with the Big Dipper—surround the pole of the ecliptic at even distances from each other and from the pole itself. In fact they form a cross shape with the ecliptic pole at its center. The sword-constellation consists of the central stars of Cygnus (without the outer ‗wing'-stars). The snake-constellation contains Corona Borealis as the distinct central coil, the four northern stars of Hercules as its head and the three northern stars of Bootes as its tail. The head, shell and tail of the turtle-constellation are accurately matched by the six major stars of Cassiopeia, the feet by two stars immediately south of the celestial W-shape. These representations are found on charm-amulet coins whose obverse script is based on currency coins first issued by the later Han-period (206 B.C.–220 A.D.) without the symbols on the back. Whether the symbols on the reverse side of the coins were added already contemporary with their use as currency or later is as yet an unsettled matter. The representations are all rendered mirror inverted including the angle towards each other and towards the center of the coin. They point towards an independent undercurrent in Chinese astronomy/astrology during the first centuries A.D. which may provide a new impulse for research into the history of art and religion not only in China itself, but also in the countries influenced by its cultural achievements.

Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage, 2025

One of the most celebrated festivals in traditional China was called 'Seventh Night', observed on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month (8 August 2024). The celebration was especially popular among young girls whose responsibility it was to weave cloth for the family. On that date, girls would implore the Weaving Maid, the celestial princess who weaves the varicolored tapestries of the dawn and twilight skies, to grant them exceptional skill at the loom. But there is more to the story. The legend tells how the heavenly Weaving Maid, out of curiosity takes an impermissible break from her task to explore what earthly existence is like. One day, along with her palace attendants, she visits the Earth, and a problematic romance soon ensues. Poetic allusion to the alter-egos of the lovers, the stars Vega and Altair, occurs as early as the first millennium BCE. The astral connections of the tale are particularly intriguing because there is good reason to believe that the usefulness of Vega and Altair in ancient star lore in fact dates from Neolithic times when the two stars aligned exactly on celestial North, at a time when Thuban (𝛼 Draconis) was the bright Pole Star. As the abode of the Supernal Lord in Heaven and the pivot of the cosmos, the celestial Pole played a crucial role in cosmological and metaphysical contexts throughout Chinese history. This paper traces the origin and evolution of the astronomical role of Vega and Altair, and the Weaving Maid and Oxherd in Chinese history, from the earliest times to the imperial period.

In and Outside the Square spans overall 957 pages and includes 194 illustrations. The book is in three volumes, including: • Volume I: The Ancient Eurasian World and the Celestial Pivot • Volume II: Representations and Identities of High Powers in Neolithic and Bronze China, and • Volume III: Terrestrial and Celestial Transformations in Zhou and Early-Imperial China In and Outside the Square attempts to redefine the development of ancient, classical, and early-imperial Chinese religious beliefs and practices and philosophical inquiry with reference to continuous Chinese human interaction with the celestial realm and, within that realm, the northern celestial pole. Although it has long been known that the Chinese engaged from the beginning of the imperial era (from c. 221 BC) in a pole-based astronomy, until the present no study has traced how such an astronomy, and an astrology, both originated and affected continuously the very development of both Chinese religious beliefs and practices and classical Chinese philosophical discourse. Indeed, as this book also demonstrates by way of establishing a Eurasian-and, in fact, world-backdrop for the analyses of Chinese pole-centered beliefs and practices of c. 4500 BC – AD 200, the religions of all major Eurasian civilizations transiting the Neolithic-Bronze shift toward urbanization c. 3500-400 BC likewise were anchored in pole-located high divine powers and pole-centered pantheons, and indeed in many cases it is either certain or very likely that these mostly West Eurasian religions, along with developed Southwest Asian astronomical sciences, Indo-Iranian and other Indo-European languages, writing, bronze technologies, wheeled and horse-draughted transportation technologies, and other cultural tool kits, influenced significantly Chinese developments during the 2 nd millennium BC and forward but probably much earlier. Much of the evidence for detecting the pole-centered nature and focus of the major ancient Eurasian and world religions scrutinized in this study lies in the repeated appearance in ancient art and iconography of the simplest of forms, the circle and the square. In general, this book shows, the circle represents the horizonal circumference of the observed domical heavens, while the square depicts a stellar quadrangle that approached, spun directly on, or circled very near the point of the northern celestial pole circa 5000-1000 BC, precisely when civilizations across Eurasia were urbanizing and, consequently, enormous social and political changes created the need for new and organizationally effective religions of state. The stellar quadrangle, centering on the Neolithic-Bronze pole star Thuban, offered a central and centralizing quadrangular shaping of the high divinity – or high divine structure-on which human societies could model and thus orient their own now-complex organizations on earth. Thus developed across Eurasia during this period quadrangular sacred architecture and design – the city, the temple, the altar, the ritual space, the tomb, tomb goods, personal amulets, and perhaps even the four-wheeled royal cart – that appears

Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage

The author offers a point-by-point rebuttal of Douglas J. Keenan's criticism of the use of astronomical records in dating the earliest Chinese dynasties in the 2 nd millennium BCE. Detailed references are provided to the abundant historiographical and archaeological evidence bearing on the early chronology which Keenan ignored in his critique.