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Astrology in Time
and Place

This volume has been made possible with the aid of a
generous grant from the Sophia Centre for the Study of
Cosmology in Culture, School of Archaeology, History and
Anthropology at the University of Wales Trinity Saint
David, and the financial and editorial resources of the
Sophia Centre Press.

http://www.uwtsd.ac.uk/sophia/
http://www.sophiacentrepress.com/
http://www.sophia-project.net/

We gratefully acknowledge permission from Cambridge
University Press to publish extracts from David Pankenier,
Astrology and Cosmology in Early China: Conforming
Earth to Heaven (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2013), pp. 436-40; and David Pankenier, ‘Did Babylonian
Astrology Influence Early Chinese Astral Prognistication?’,
Early China 37 (2014): pp. 1-13 (p. 9) in Chapter 1.

We are grateful to Brill for permission to publish material
from ‘The Zodiac Calendar in the Dead Sea Scrolls (4Q318)
in relation to Babylonian Horoscopes’, from H. R. Jacobus,
Zodiac Calendars in the Dead Sea Scrolls and their
Reception: Ancient Astronomy and Astrology in Early
Judaism, IJS 14 (Leiden: Brill, 2014) in Chapter 11.

Astrology in Time
and Place
:
Cross-Cultural Questions
in the History of Astrology

Edited by
Nicholas Campion
and Dorian Gieseler Greenbaum

Astrology in Time and Place:
Cross-Cultural Questions in the History of Astrology

Edited by Nicholas Campion and Dorian Gieseler Greenbaum

This book first published 2015

Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Copyright © 2015 by Nicholas Campion, Dorian Gieseler Greenbaum
and contributors

All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without
the prior permission of the copyright owner.

ISBN (10): 1-4438-8381-6
ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-8381-8

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface and Acknowledgements ................................................................ vii

Introduction ............................................................................................... ix

THEEAST:TRADITION,RITUAL AND TRANSMISSION

Chapter One ................................................................................................ 3
On Chinese Astrology’s Imperviousness to External Influences
David W. Pankenier (Department of Modern Languages & Literature,
Lehigh University)

Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 27
Ptolemy and Sima Qian in Eleventh-Century Japan:
The Combination of Disparate Astrological Systems in Practice
Kristina Buhrman (Department of Religion, Florida State University)

Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 53
Transformations of the Social and Religious Status of the Indian
Astrologer at the Royal Court
Audrius Benorius (Director of the Center of Oriental Studies,
Vilnius University, Lithuania)

Chapter Four .............................................................................................. 67
Astrology and its Ritual Applications: Propitiation of the Planet
Saturn within the Sun Temple at Suryanaar Koyil (Tamil Nadu, India).
A Case Study from Contemporary Tamil Shaivism
Mario Friscia (University of La Sapienza, Rome)
THEWEST:TEXTUAL ANALYSIS AND TRANSMISSION
Chapter Five .............................................................................................. 95
A Study in the Early Iconography of Gemini
Micah Ross (KyÀto SangyÀ University)

Table of Contents

vi
Chapter Six .............................................................................................. 109
Various Renderings of . in Greek and Demotic at Med¯net M—²i
Dorian Gieseler Greenbaum and Micah Ross (University of Wales
Trinity Saint David and KyÀto SangyÀ University)

Chapter Seven .......................................................................................... 131
Correspondences of the Planets of the Solar System
to Musical Pitches: From Ptolemy to a Twentieth Century
Addition to Kepler’s Harmonices Mundi
Johann F. W. Hasler (Departamento de Música, Universidad de
Antioquia, Medellín, Colombia)

Chapter Eight ........................................................................................... 159 Homocentric Science in a Heliocentric Universe
Liana Saif (The Warburg Institute)

Chapter Nine ............................................................................................ 173
The Difference between Methods of Natural Sciences and Methods
of Religious Studies on Modern Astrology
Gustav-Adolf Schoener (Leibniz Universität Hannover)
TIME:CALENDARS AND TRANSMISSION
Chapter Ten ............................................................................................. 189
The Meaning of Time: Mesopotamian Calendar Divination
Ulla Susanne Koch (Carsten Niebuhr Institute,
University of Copenhagen)
Chapter Eleven ........................................................................................ 217
4QZodiac Calendar in Relation to Babylonian Horoscopes
Helen R. Jacobus (University College London)

Chapter Twelve ....................................................................................... 245
Eternity in an Hour: The Astronomical Symbolism of the Era
as the Maya Agricultural Year
Michael J. Grofe (Maya Exploration Centre)

Chapter Thirteen ...................................................................................... 281
The Journey of Calendars, Wind and Life in the Indian Ocean:
A Malagasy Perspective
Christel Mattheeuws (Department of Anthropology, University of Aberdeen)

Index ........................................................................................................ 303

PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book emerges from work coordinated at the Sophia Centre for the
Study of Cosmology in Culture, a research centre in the School of
Archaeology, History and Anthropology at the University of Wales Trinity
Saint David. The Centre has a wide-ranging remit to investigate the role of
cosmological, astrological and astronomical beliefs, models and ideas in
human culture, including the theory and practice of myth, magic,
divination, religion, spirituality, politics and the arts. Much of the Centre’s
work is historical but it is equally concerned with contemporary culture
and lived experience. The Centre is responsible for teaching the University’s
MA in Cultural Astronomy and Astrology, which takes historical and
anthropological approaches to explore humanity’s relationship with the
cosmos.
Special thanks are due to the continued support of Dr Jeremy Smith,
Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and the Performing Arts, Dr Kyle
Erickson, the Vice Dean, Professor Janet Burton, Head of the School of
Archaeology, History and Anthropology, and of all our colleagues in the
University. Lastly, enormous thanks to the diligence and patience of our
editor, Kathleen White.

Dr Nicholas Campion and Dr Dorian Gieseler Greenbaum

INTRODUCTION
C
ROSS-CULTURAL COMPARISON
AND TRANSMISSION IN THE HISTORY
OF ASTROLOGY
N
ICHOLAS CAMPION
AND DORIAN GIESELER GREENBAUM

The chapters in this book are based on the conference on ‘Astrology in
Time and Place’, the tenth conference held by the Sophia Centre for the
Study of Cosmology in Culture, now at the University of Wales Trinity
Saint David, in 2012. The conference title had a double meaning. First, the
practice of astrology depends on the coming together of time and place in
a single experience. Second, the way in which it is practiced varies from
one culture to another, from time to time and from place to place.
Astrology, broadly defined as the practice of relating events on earth to
those in the sky, is increasingly recognised as a global phenomenon. Its
methodologies vary considerably from one culture to another, as from
China to the Near East and to Mesoamerica. Within cultures it can be both
innovative and conservative. In both India and Europe, for example,
multiple schools of practice and philosophy emerged, yet earlier doctrines
were not always discarded but existed concurrently or only changed
slowly. We might then use the word ‘astrologies’ rather than astrology, as
we did in a previous Sophia Centre conference, in 2010.
1

The 2012 conference brought together scholars with different specialities
in order to consider manifestations of astrological theory and practice in a
variety of cultures and periods. Asia is the focal point for four essays.
David Pankenier and Kristina Buhrman consider China and Japan,
respectively, and the extent to which both cultures proved resistant to, or

1
Nicholas Campion and Liz Greene, eds., Astrologies: Plurality and Diversity
(Lampeter: Sophia Centre Press, 2010).

Introduction x
receptive of, influences coming from the West. Audrius Beinorius and
Mario Friscia focus on India: Beinorius from a historical perspective in
discussing the social and religious roles of astrology and astrologers, while
Friscia takes a modern and ethnographic approach, exploring planetary
propitiation rituals in present-day Tamil Nadu.
Five papers explore the nature and transmission of ideas in Western
theory and practice. Micah Ross and Dorian Gieseler Greenbaum explore
the transmission of words and concepts among different Mediterranean
cultures in the Greco-Roman and Late Antique periods. Micah Ross also
provides a chapter comparing the early iconography of Gemini in
Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece and India, considering possible transmissions
among some cultures. Johann Hasler moves from ancient Greece to
modern France in focusing on connections between music and astrology,
specifically the association of musical pitches to planets. Liana Saif
examines the use of Arabic doctrines of astral causation to support a
seventeenth-century defence of English astrology against its critics.
Gustav-Adolf Schoener considers frameworks for understanding modern
Western astrology’s cultural locus.
Lastly, four papers consider calendars. In the venue of the ancient Near
East, Ulla Koch looks at the history and integration of calendar divination
with astrology, while Helen R. Jacobus examines connections between the
Qumran zodiac calendar and the Babylonian calendar used in cuneiform
horoscopes. Michael Grofe discusses cosmological cycles among the
Maya, including astronomy’s role and the mythological significance
involved in these practices, and how a modern epigrapher can best
describe and interpret them. Christel Mattheeuws examines the calendrical
practices of Central East Madagascar and its wider environs, finding that
different versions of these calendars, in terms of relationships between
sun, moon and stars, influence how electional astrology in these areas is
practised.

Dr Nicholas Campion and Dr Dorian Gieseler Greenbaum,
Sophia Centre for the Study of Cosmology in Culture,
School of Archaeology, History and Anthropology,
University of Wales Trinity Saint David,
http://www.uwtsd.ac.uk/ma-cultural-astronomy-astrology/
http://www.uwtsd.ac.uk/sophia/

PART ONE
T
HE EAST:
T
RADITION, RITUAL AND TRANSMISSION

CHAPTER ONE
O
N CHINESE ASTROLOGY’S IMPERVIOUSNESS
TO
EXTERNAL INFLUENCES
D
AVID W. PANKENIER

Abstract
Despite claims to the contrary, Chinese astral omenology reveals no discernible
foreign influences on the theory and practice of astromancy. This article briefly
examines the evidence of Babylonian influence put forward a century ago and
concludes that there is no basis for the contention that Chinese astral
prognostication was imported from Western Asia. A number of unique
characteristics of astromancy as practiced in China are illustrated by translated
passages from classical literature. One historical episode in the Tang Dynasty is
cited as the only known occasion when S—s—nian and Chinese planetary astrology
might have intersected, if only briefly.

K
EYWORDS: An Lushan, astral omens, astrology, Babylonia, Bezold, China,
diffusion, planets, portent, S—s—nian, Sima Qian, tianwen

My topic is the imperviousness to foreign influence of early Chinese
astrological theory and practice. Given astrology’s notable resistance to
fundamental change wherever it is found—except in the case of conquest,
colonization, and subjugation—you may have the impression that I am
merely setting up a straw-man which I will then proceed to knock down
‘as easily as pointing to the palm of my hand’, as the ancient Chinese
would say. After all, anyone with a passing acquaintance with the history
of Western astrology knows how great a debt is owed to Babylonian and
Hellenistic traditions now more than two millennia in the past. Why else
would we still preserve in the 21
st
century the bizarre zodiacal Goat-fish,
Capricorn, rather than substituting, say, a Submarine? To begin with, this
paper discusses a long-standing but unexamined claim of Babylonian
influence on Chinese astrology, mainly to show the claim to be baseless.
Then there are some illustrative examples of the staunch resistance in

Chapter One 4
China of basic astrological theory and practice to change of any kind,
despite revolutionary social and cultural transformations. Finally, I will
briefly review the circumstantial evidence for a unique intersection of
Chinese and Western planetary astrology at the very highest political level.
Purported traces of Babylonian Astrology in the ‘Treatise
on the Celestial Offices’ (ca. 100 BCE)
Due to a studied neglect of the role of astrology in early China, for a
century the received wisdom has been that Chinese astronomy and
astrology owe their inspiration to Babylonia. This is because in 1919 Carl
Bezold, a noted Assyriologist, published an article in which he claimed to
identify specific Babylonian influences in Sima Qian’s ‘Treatise on the
Celestial Offices’ (ca. 100 BCE).
1
The ‘Treatise’, a summa of the
accumulated astronomical and astrological knowledge in the early empire,
is in Joseph Needham’s opinion ‘a text of the highest importance for
ancient Chinese astronomy’ (and, I might add, ‘astrology’). Bezold, who
claimed no Sinological expertise, based his study on Édouard Chavannes’
translation of the ‘Treatise’ in Les Mémoires Historiques de Se-Ma-Ts'ien
(Paris, 1895-1905). So we are talking about the early days of European
Sinology.
2

So influential was Bezold’s 1919 paper, and so dominant the
prevailing Eurocentric perspective with respect to China, that his
conclusions have gone unquestioned and no attempt has been made to
confirm his findings. Surprisingly, in his volume on Mathematics and the
Sciences of the Heavens and the Earth in the monumental Science and
Civilisation in China series, even Joseph Needham concurred, even though

1
Carl Bezold, ‘Sze-ma Ts’ien und die babylonische Astrologie’, Ostasiatische
Zeitschrift 8 (1919): 42-49.
2
In part, Bezold was drawing on comparisons between Chinese texts and
cuneiform passages earlier made by Morris Jastrow; see Morris Jastrow, Die
Religion Babyloniens und Assyriens (Giessen: Ricker, 1905), 745ff. Of course,
Bezold could know nothing of the late Shang Dynasty oracle-bone divination
inscriptions from the 12
th
to mid-11
th
centuries BCE first excavated in quantity in
the 1930s. It is only within the last decade that the Taosi altar platform (ca. 2100
BCE) designed for solar observations (and presumably worship) was discovered;
see David W. Pankenier, Ciyuan Liu, and Salvo de Meis, ‘The Xiangfen, Taosi
Site: A Chinese Neolithic “Observatory”?’, Archaeologia Baltica: Astronomy and
Cosmology in Folk Traditions and Cultural Heritage 10 (2008): 141-8. This site is
roughly contemporaneous with the earliest date proposed for the famous
Babylonian
MUL.APIN compendium of late-Sumerian astronomical lore.

On Chinese Astrology’s Imperviousness to External Influences

5
his project was conceived to set the record straight on China’s
unrecognized contributions to the world in science and technology. No
less surprising is that a generation later noted China scholars like Roy
Andrew Miller and Edward H. Schafer also uncritically accepted Bezold’s
study as authoritative, perhaps because Needham had explicitly endorsed
Bezold’s view:
3

It seems safe to conclude . . . that on the whole the Chinese nomenclature
of the constellations represents a system which grew up in comparative
isolation and independence. Such, too, was the mature conclusion of
Bezold . . . who pointed out that it does not exclude the transmission of a
body of Babylonian astrological lore to China before the 6th century BCE,
which, as we saw above [vol. 2, p. 354], seems rather probable. Nor would
it militate against the belief that certain basic ideas were transmitted about
a thousand years earlier, e.g., the planispheric ‘roads’ which led to the
system of the hsiu [28 lodges], the use of the gnomon, the recognition of
the position of the pole and the equinoctial points, and so on.
4

I suspect a major reason for the failure to seriously test Bezold’s
conclusions is the Needham imprimatur. Needham must have found
Bezold’s arguments plausible because diffusion in the opposite direction
was a major finding of his study of technology transfer in Science and

3
Roy A. Miller, ‘Pleiades Perceived: From MUL.MUL to Subaru’, Journal of the
American Oriental Society 108.1 (1988): 4; Edward H. Schafer, Pacing the Void:
T’ang Approaches to the Stars (Berkeley, University of California 1977), 10.
4
Joseph Needham, with the research assistance of Ling Wang. Science and
Civilisation in China, vol. 3, Mathematics and the Sciences of the Heavens and the
Earth (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1959), 273 (italics mine). Previously
(Joseph Needham, Science and Civilisation in China, Vol. 2, History of Scientific
Thought [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969], 271), Needham had
concluded, ‘the number of cases in which any parallelism of symbolic
nomenclature can be made out is remarkably small’. See also (Needham, Science,
186) where Needham cites ShinjÀ ShinzÀ’s opinion, and later (Needham, Science,
254) that of Hommel, concluding, ‘the connection, therefore, was not very
striking’ (Needham, Science, 354). For his part, Otto Neugebauer was harshly
critical of Needham’s claim of Babylonian influence; see Otto Neugebauer, A
History of Ancient Mathematical Astronomy (Berlin, Heidelberg, and New York:
Springer, 1975), 1073; also Qiyuan Liu, ‘Yaodian Xi He zhang yanjiu’ (Research
on the Xi-He Chapter of the Yaodian), Zhongguo shehui kexue yuan lishi
yanjiusuoxuekan (Bulletin of the Institute of History, Academia Sinica) 2 (2004),
64ff.

Chapter One 6
Civilisation in China, and the archaeology of the early dynastic period in
the 2
nd
millennium BCE was still largely a blank slate.
5

In essence, Bezold’s conclusion, to which Needham alludes above, was
that 6
th
century BCE Babylonian astral divination,
6
exemplified by the
cuneiform texts from the library of Assurbanipal, left telltale traces in the
Chinese astral omenology as represented in the ‘Treatise on the Celestial
Offices’. Space does not permit me to discuss in detail the errors and false
assumptions that undermine Bezold’s analysis, and in fairness it must be
said that the material he had at his disposal was extremely limited.
7
But for
the sake of illustration, let me quote just one example from among the
small sample of seven passages Bezold cited as dispositive.

Babylonian text:
‘Wenn sich Irgendwer [Mars] der Großen Zwillingen nähert, wird der
König sterben, und es wird Feindshaft sein’.
‘If someone [Mars] approaches the Great Twins, the king will die and there
will be enmity’.
Chavannes translation from the ‘Treatise’:
‘Quand [la planète du] Feu se trouve dans les Fleuves du Sud [Procyon, ,
du Petit-Chien] et du Nord [Castor et Pollux et ! des Gémeaux], des
guerres s’élèvent et la moisson ne pousse pas’.
Original Chinese from the ‘Treatise’:
Bú.%æ%¦?Bè$`èLÏ œI
Author’s translation:
‘If the F
IRE [STAR = MARS] guards NORTH or SOUTH RIVER, fighting breaks
out and the grains fail to grow’.
8

Assuming Bezold’s identification of M
ARS is correct, and overlooking his
having ignored the Chinese reference to Canis Minor and lack of
equivalence between the asterisms mentioned, the only discernible parallel
is M
ARS’ position in Gemini. This example is not encouraging, and as I
show elsewhere none of Bezold’s remaining six passages is any more

5
E.g., Needham and Wang, 177.
6
I make a distinction between Babylonian astral divination and astral
prognostication in early China, since there was no divinization of celestial bodies
in China prior to the arrival of Buddhism.
7
My close analysis of Bezold’s arguments and examples is found in David W.
Pankenier, ‘Did Babylonian Astrology Influence Early Chinese Astral
Prognostication x¯ng zhàn shù 5Ç#Wû?’, Early China 37 (2014): 1-13.
8
Shiji, ‘Treatise’, 27.1302.

On Chinese Astrology’s Imperviousness to External Influences

7
suggestive of borrowing than this one.
9
At a remove of nearly a century,
what Bezold found so persuasive in these examples is baffling: not one
meets any reasonable standard of proof of cultural contact. To his credit,
Bezold conceded the incongruity between his Babylonian and Chinese
examples, calling it an ‘inexplicable inconsistency’. But convinced as he
was, in spite of the evidence, that the Babylonian zodiac system and astral
divination must have been transmitted to China, Bezold reasoned that the
contradiction resulted from a reformulation of Babylonian astronomy after
it somehow made its way to China prior to about 523 BCE. He ventures
the following rationalization for his findings:

If one rejects the attempt to resolve the discrepancy discussed above, there
remains, as far as I can see, only one way out of the dilemma, which entails
the following explanation. In ancient times the Chinese gave many
constellations original names as groups of stars recognized as such,
including some clearly distinguishable as figures in the sky, and that the
Babylonians had independently embraced those having the same or nearly
the same extension. The Chinese would then have become acquainted with
Babylonian astrology, probably before 523 B.C., and adopted at that time
the received figures as their own as best they could, while maintaining the
ancient native Chinese names and underlying ideas. A legacy of this
amalgamation is found in Sima Qian’s Shiji.

Bezold offers no evidence whatsoever in support of the ethnocentric
conjecture that Babylonian astrological principles and practices had been
adopted wholesale by an intellectually supine Chinese civilization. Neither
he nor Needham asked the obvious question: cui bono? Where has such
substitution ever occurred except in the wake of conquest, forcible
conversion, and/or genocide, such as occurred in the Americas at the
hands of the Conquistadors and missionaries? Bezold’s proposed scenario
of the supplanting of sophisticated age-old Chinese traditions by an utterly
alien scheme, from an unknown foreign entity, transmitted by a handful of
merchants or magicians, beggars the imagination.
10
In the case of the

9
Pankenier, ‘Did Babylonian Astrology Influence Early Chinese Astral
Prognostication’.
10
As John M. Steele concluded: ‘Historically and textually, I see no evidence
Chinese celestial divination originated in Babylonia; nevertheless, in both cultures
the heavens were used to provide portents, and in both cases these portents were at
times exploited for political purposes . . . there were clear differences between how
the Babylonians and the Chinese conceived of celestial measurement . . . this
would make [transmission] harder and does, I think, place the onus on historians
claiming the transmission of Babylonian astronomy to China to explain how this

Chapter One 8
adoption of certain technologies, such as the chariot and early iron
smelting, there was undoubtedly sporadic contact with Western Asia from
mid-2
nd
millennium BCE on.
11
But the rapid adoption of new military
technologies or materials, including the wearing of trousers for fighting on
horseback arising from conflict with steppe-dwelling mounted adversaries
is one thing, throwing out an established theory and practice of astral
omenology in favor of an incommensurate alien system is quite another.
12

Clearly, Bezold was in the grip of an idée fixe regarding the ineluctability
of Babylonian influence on China.
Concerning Mars
In contrast to Bezold’s isolated selections taken out of context, consider
this section from the ‘Treatise’, which summarizes the prognostication
principles concerning M
ARS and what was known about the planet’s
movements.

One observes the punishing materia vitalis (qi) to locate S PARKLING
DELUDER [MARS]. [MARS] is the South, Fire, and governs summer; its stem

problem was overcome’; see John M. Steele, ‘A Comparison of Astronomical
Terminology and Concepts in China and Mesopotamia’, Origins of Early Writing
Systems Conference (Beijing, October 2007) at http://cura.free.fr/DIAL.html#CA
(accessed November 2012). Moreover, David Pingree and Patrick Morrissey
concluded that the evidence ‘argues strongly against a common origin or even
association of the twenty-eight Chinese xiu with the Indian nakúatras; see David
Pingree and Patrick Morrissey, ‘On the Identification of the Yogat—r—s of the
Indian Nakúatras’, Journal for the History of Astronomy 20 (1989): 99-119. See
also F. R. Stephenson’s detailed study of stellar nomenclature with ‘reference to
the Shiji and later star lists, which show that correspondence between Chinese and
Babylonian-Greek names for constellations is rare, emphasizing their independent
origins’; F. R. Stephenson, ‘Chinese and Korean Star Maps and Catalogs’, in J. B.
Harley and David Woodward, eds., The History of Cartography, Book 2,
Cartography in the traditional East and Southeast Asian societies (Chicago:
University of Chicago, 1994), 528. Compare Table 1 and Fig. 1b below.
11
As Needham and others have shown, for most of China’s history the technology
transfer went the other way and included much more than just printing, the
compass, and gunpowder. See, e.g., John M. Hobson, The Eastern Origins of
Western Civilization (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008).
12
David W. Pankenier, Astrology and Cosmology in Early China: Conforming
Earth to Heaven (Cambridge University Press, 2013), traces the history of Chinese
preoccupation with astrology and cosmology from the earliest times through the
early imperial period, revealing the archaic origins of the concepts and practices
briefly outlined here.

On Chinese Astrology’s Imperviousness to External Influences

9
days are b±ng and d¯ng. When propriety is lost, punishment emanates from
M
ARS {and MARS moves anomalously}. When [MARS] appears there is
armed conflict, when it disappears troops disperse. One identifies the
subject state based on the lodge [M
ARS occupies]. MARS is rebellion,
brigandage, plague, bereavement, famine, war. If it retraces its path for two
lodges [1318] or more and then dwells there, within three months there
will be calamities, within five months there will be armed invasion, within
seven months half the territory will be lost, within nine months more than
half the territory will be lost. Accordingly, if [M
ARS] both appears and
disappears together with [a single lodge], that state’s sacrifices will be
terminated. If [M
ARS] occupies a place and calamity promptly befalls it,
though [anticipated to be] great, it ought to be small; [if the calamity is]
long in coming, though it ought to be small, on the contrary, it will be
great. If [M
ARS] is south [of a lodge] there will be male obsequies, if north,
female obsequies. If scintillating rays encircle it, reaching now in front,
now behind, now to the left, and now to the right, the calamity will be even
greater. [If M
ARS] duels with other planets, their gleams touching each
other, it is injurious; if [their gleams] do not touch, it is not injurious. If all
F
IVE PLANETS follow [MARS] and gather in a single lodge, its state below
will be able to attract the entire sub-celestial realm through Propriety.
[1319] As a general rule, [M
ARS] appears in the east and travels through
sixteen lodges before halting, then it retrogrades through two lodges; after
six ten-day weeks, it resumes eastward travel, [to?] ten lodges from where
it halted.
13
After ten months it disappears in the west, then travels for five
months in obscurity before appearing again in the east.
14
When it appears
in the west it is called R
ETURNING BRIGHTNESS, and rulers hate it. Its
eastward motion is quick, each day traveling 1½
d
.
15
Its motion to the east,
west, south and north is rapid. In each case troops gather beneath it. In war
those who comport with it are victorious, those who defy it are defeated. If
M
ARS follows VENUS, the army is beset; [if MARS] departs from it, the
army retreats. If [M
ARS] emerges northwest of VENUS, the army will split;
if [M
ARS] moves southeast of it, generals on the flanks do battle. If during
[M
ARS’] travel VENUS overtakes it, the army will be shattered and its
general killed. If M
ARS enters and guards or trespasses against the GRAND
TENUITY [PALACE], CHARIOT POLE, or ALIGN-THE-HALL (#13), those in

13
The passage literally reads ‘for several tens of lodges from where it halted’,
which is so egregious an error the text must be defective here. M
ARS’S
retrogradation lasts some 75-80 days and covers only about 20°. I suspect the ‘ten
lodges’ has been transposed from the preceding lines, ‘for ten months’ appears to
be missing from the first line.
14
This implies a synodic period of 27 months or some 797 days, compared to the
modern figure of 780 days. As late as the monograph on astrology in the Jin shu
(648 CE), M
ARS’S movements were still held to be problematical, Jin shu, 12.318.
15
Superscript ‘
d
’ stands for Chinese du, of which there are 365 in a circle, not 360
as in Babylonia.

Chapter One 10
command hate it. H
EART (#5) is the HALL OF BRILLIANCE, the TEMPLE OF
MARS – carefully watch this.
16

If one is to investigate seriously the possibility of cross-fertilization
between China and Western Asia, passages like this would be a good place
to begin. My knowledge of Babylonian planetary astrology, however
modest, does not make me sanguine about the prospect of proving any
more than the most superficial resemblance. This is especially true in view
of the fact that prognostications involving not just Mars, but Jupiter,
Venus, and Mercury as well, overwhelmingly concern military conflict.
Portent Astrology and Jupiter in Early China
In order to gain a better appreciation of the flavor of Chinese astral
portentology in the late 1
st
millennium BCE, consider these further
examples from the pre-imperial and early imperial literature. First, a
typical prognostication involving J
UPITER from the Tradition of Zuo
(Zuozhuan), a 4
th
century BCE pseudo-commentary on the canonical
Spring and Autumn Annals (Chunqiu) which chronicles the events of 722-
481 BCE from the perspective of one of the ‘Warring States’ of the age.
In the 8
th
year of Duke Zhao of Lu (533 BCE) the Spring and Autumn
Annals records the destruction of the state of Chen by the southern state of
Chu. The Tradition of Zuo elaborates:

The Marquis of Jin asked the historiographer Zhao, ‘Will Chen cease to
exist after this?’ and was told, ‘not yet.’ ‘Why is that?’ asked the Duke.
[The historiographer] replied: ‘[The house of Chen] is descended from
[legendary pre-dynastic ruler] Zhuan Xu. J
UPITER was in QUAIL FIRE and
[the dynasty of Zhuan Xu] was extinguished; it will be the same with the
extinction of Chen. Now [J
UPITER] is in the [MILKY WAY] FORD AT SPLIT
WOOD [Sgr], [Chen] will be restored again. Moreover, the branch of the
House of Chen which is in [the state of] Qi will obtain the government of
that state and only after that will Chen perish.
17

16
One commentator suggests that the ‘Treatise’s’ pithy conclusion concerning
M
ARS from near the end (Shiji, 27.1347) actually belongs here: ‘M ARS causes
fuzzy stars [tailless comets]. Externally it governs [the use of] military force, and
internally it governs [the conduct of] government’. Therefore, the ‘Treatise’ says:
‘though there may be a perspicacious Son of Heaven, one must still look to where
M
ARS is located’.
17
Translated from William Hung, Combined Concordances to Ch'un-ch'iu, Kung-
yang, Ku-liang and Tso-chuan, Harvard-Yenching Institute Sinological Index
Series, supplement 11 (Taipei: Cheng Wen, repr. 1966), Vol. 1, 623.

On Chinese Astrology’s Imperviousness to External Influences

11
The restoration of Chen by Chu occurred in 529 BCE, its annihilation by
Chu in 479 BCE. A venerable historical-genealogical tradition and
J
UPITER’S location in its 12-year cycle are adduced as the basis for the
prediction that the time of Chen’s demise had not yet come. The
prognostication is explained in the Zuo commentary for the next year, as
follows:
In the 9
th
year of Duke Zhao (532 BCE) the Spring and Autumn Annals
records a fire in the capital of Chen. The Tradition of Zuo adds:

I
n the 4th month there was a fire in Chen. Pi Zao of Zheng said: ‘In five
years the state of Chen will be restored, and after fifty-two years of
restoration it will finally perish.’ Zi Chan asked the reason and [Pi Zao]
replied: ‘Chen belongs to [Zhuan Xu’s element of] Water. Fire is
antagonistic to Water, and the state of Chu [descended from Regulator of
Fire, Zhu Rong] emulates Fire. Now the F
IRE [STAR = ANTARES] has
appeared and set fire to Chen [indicating] the expulsion of Chu and the
establishment of Chen. Antagonistic [relations] reach fulfillment in fives,
therefore I said ‘in five years.’ J
UPITER will reach QUAIL FIRE [. Hya] five
times and after that Chen will finally perish. That Chu will then be able to
possess it [Chen] is the Way of Heaven. Therefore, I said ‘fifty-two
years.
’
18

Here, the Warring States period (5
th
to late 3
rd
century BCE) correlative
scheme of the Five Elemental-Phases (Wood-Fire-Water-Metal-Earth) is
invoked to explain the antagonism between Chen and Chu, based on their
archaic astrological linkage with Watery and Fiery asterisms and
corresponding quadrants of the sky. The spring appearance of the F
IRE
STAR, ANTARES, is said to be the cause of the conflagration in Chen.
A Planetary Alignment Signaling
the Conferral of Heaven’s Mandate
The following examples, a planetary portent and a cometary apparition,
are translated from Sima Qian’s Grand Scribe’s Records (Shiji) and the
History of the Former Han Dynasty (Han shu, 1
st
century CE). By the
beginning of the Han Dynasty (206 BCE - 220 CE) it had become well
established that a grouping of all Five Planets was the preeminent sign of
the conferral of Heaven’s Mandate on a virtuous new dynastic founder:

18
Hung, 370.

Chapter One 12
§ “When Han arose, the Five Planets gathered in Eastern Well [lodge #22,
Gem]”. Shiji, “Treatise”, 27.1348.
§ “First year of Emperor Gaozu of Han, 10th month, the Five Planets
gathered in Eastern Well. Extrapolation based on the astronomical system
[i.e., ‘calendrics’] shows they followed [the lead of] J
UPITER. This was the
sign that August Emperor Gao had received the Mandate. Hence, a retainer
said to Zhang Er, ‘Eastern Well is the territory of [the state of] Qin. When
the King of Han [i.e., Gaozu] entered Qin, the Five Planets, following
J
UPITER, gathered together signifying that [he] ought to gain all of the Sub-
Celestial Realm through righteousness”.
19

The sinocentric astral-terrestrial scheme underpinning these portents was
based on the late Spring and Autumn period (722-481 BCE) political
circumstances and as a result is topographically confined to China north of
the Yangtze River. Indeed, the very basis of the correlations of astral and
terrestrial fields is the analogy between the S
KY RIVER (Milky Way) and
the Yellow River (Fig. 1a), the entire sky being allocated to the ancient
Chinese provinces. (No sign of Mesopotamian input here!) Compare this
with the equally Babylonia-centered conception in the contemporaneous
map of the world in the British Library (Fig. 1b). Here too there may be a
hint of a correspondence between the Heavenly and Earthly Oceans, but
that would seem to be the only point of similarity.
According to Babylonian ideas, the [eight?] islands said to lie between the
Earthly and the Heavenly Oceans connected the heavens and the earth.
These islands form bridges to the Heavenly Ocean, wherein are the various
animal constellations, 18 of which are mentioned by name. Thus round the
heavens flowed the Heavenly Ocean, corresponding to the Earthly Ocean
on the earth. And in the Heavenly Ocean were animal constellations, the
[eighteen] ‘vanished’ gods. These probably recur in the expression ‘belt of
heaven’, the Sumerian for which may be literally translated, ‘divine
animals’. As the animal constellations also sank below the horizon, so the
Heavenly Ocean extended beneath the earth, so that plenty of room existed
below the Underworld for the passage of the sun, moon, and planets. After
the overthrow of the old world order of Apsu and Tiamat or Chaos, the

19
Han shu (History of the Former Han Dynasty), ‘Monograph on the Heavenly
Patterns’, 26.1301. The ‘10
th
month’ 206 BCE date for the event is an interpolation
[erroneous] based on the date of the Qin ruler, Wangzi Ying’s, surrender to Han
founder Gaozu at Xianyang, the Qin capital. The actual planetary line-up occurred
the following year, in May 205. Sima Qian is more circumspect and simply says,
‘when Han arose’. For the theoretical statement that clusters of the Five Planets
initiated by J
UPITER portend the rise of a ‘righteous’ dynastic founder, see Shiji,
‘Treatise’, 27.1312.

On
former go
and banne
of the new

Tab

20
For detaile
seventh island
the morning d
Chinese Astrol
ods, according
ed as animals t
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20

ble 1: The 28 C

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eposed
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14
Fig. 1a: So
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distribution
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gudai tianw

ong dynasty (9
h the names of
in relation to
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Chinese Astrol
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Cuneiform tab
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blet in the

Chapter One 16
The expansion of mainstream Chinese civilization south and west by the
end of the Han Dynasty (220 CE) had already rendered those correlations
hopelessly out of date. Nevertheless, the relevance of the scheme was still
being debated in the Tang Dynasty (618-907 CE), when in a blatant
expression of Chinese chauvinism the famous astronomer Li Chunfeng
(602-670 CE) denigrated frontier peoples in his astrological treatise Yisi
Prognostications (Yisi zhan) of 645 CE, baldly reasserting the validity of
the exclusively sinocentric scheme.
21
In the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368),
Wang Zhen (1290-1333), in a chapter on land utilization in his influential
Treatise on Agriculture (Nong shu), proposed a new scheme classifying
the suitability of the entire country’s land and soils for agriculture and
stock-raising in accordance with the twenty-eight lodges and the same
twelve astral fields.
22
Remarkably, even the prestigious Qing Dynasty
encyclopedia of 1725, the Complete Collection of Illustrations and
Writings from Ancient Times to the Present (Gujin tushu jicheng),
continued to identify geographic locations in terms of the 2,500 year-old
field-allocation scheme of astral-terrestrial correspondences.
A Cometary Apparition in the Former Han Dynasty
135 BCE Aug 31 - Sep 29:

§ 6
th
year of the Jianyuan reign period of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty,
8
th
month; a star became fuzzy* in the east and stretched across the sky.
[*xing bo = an initially tailless comet grew a tail]
§ 6
th
year of the Jianyuan reign period of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty,
8
th
month; a long star [comet] emerged in the east, so long that it stretched
across the sky; after thirty days it departed.
§ 6
th
year of the Jianyuan reign period of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty,
8
th
month; a long star appeared in the east, so long that it stretched across
the sky; after thirty days it departed. The prognostication said, “this is Chi
You’s Banner; when seen the ruler will attack the four quarters.” After this
the troops punished the Four Yi [barbarians] for several decades in
succession”.
23

21
Xiaoyuan Jiang, Tianxue zhenyuan (Shenyang: Liaoning jiaoyu, 1991 [rev.
2004]), 70.
22
Yoshida Mitsukuni, ‘The Chinese Concept of Technology: A Historical
Approach’, Acta Asiatica 36 (1979), 60-61.
23
Trans. David W. Pankenier, Zhentao Xu, and Yaotiao Jiang, Archaeoastronomy
in East Asia: Historical Observational Records of Comets and Meteor Showers
from China, Japan, and Korea (Youngstown, NY: Cambria, 2008), 19. For a
comparison of the Chinese and Roman accounts of the comet of 135 BCE, see J. T.

On Chinese Astrology’s Imperviousness to External Influences

17
In Oct-Nov 134 BCE, to commemorate (i.e., ‘spin’) what was actually an
inauspicious portent, the youthful Emperor Wu was advised to inaugurate
the ‘First Year of Primal Brilliance’ reign period. Meanwhile, his paternal
uncle, Liu An, King of Huainan, was galvanized into seditious action
based on the earlier precedent of the ‘Revolt of the Seven Kingdoms’ in
154 BCE:

6
th
year of the Jianyuan reign period [135 BCE] a broom star was seen. In
the mind of the King of Huainan it was an anomaly [i.e., a sign]. Someone
said to the King: “Earlier, when the army of Wu rose up [154 BCE], a
broom star several chi [feet] long appeared, whereupon for a long time
blood flowed for over 1,000 li [‘mile’ = 0.5 km]. At present there is a
broom star so long it spans the sky, so the armies of the Empire ought all to
rise in force”. In his mind, considering there was no imperial heir above
and [seeing that] anomalies were occurring in the Empire and the various
lords were contentious, the King [of Huainan] increasingly desired to
fabricate weapons, [siege] engines, and instruments of offensive warfare.
He accumulated money with which to bribe the lords of commanderies and
kingdoms, wandering braves, and those with unique talents. The various
sophists who devised schemes and strategies indiscriminately fabricated
rumors and flattered the King. The King was delighted, handed out even
more money, and his plotting to rebel grew in earnest.
24

It is important to distinguish clearly between what is generally considered
to fall within the purview of observationally based astral omenology,
which concerns itself with divining the consequences of significant
celestial moments (e.g., comets, eclipses, planetary conjunctions, meteor
showers, meteorological phenomena) for the conduct of affairs of state. In
contrast, Marc Kalinowski has explored the elaborate prognostication
practices and their associated schema documented in excavated
manuscripts from late Warring States and Han times. These concern the
techniques and prohibitions involving yin-yang, the Five Elemental-
Phases, the ‘calendrical’ spirits xing-de, Supreme Yin (a ‘time spirit’), and
others, and offer no evidence at all of observation of celestial bodies. The
preoccupation is exclusively with hemerology, which concerns itself with
whether each day of the month is favorable or unfavorable, or with the
spirit influences active each day of the month, or with which activities

Ramsey, ‘Mithradates, The Banner of Ch’ih-Yu, and the Comet Coin’, Harvard
Studies in Classical Philology 99 (1999): 197-253; and also Gary Kronk, ‘A Large
Comet seen in 135 B.C.?’, The International Comet Quarterly 19 (1997): 3-7.
24
Sima Qian, ‘Monograph on the Kingdoms of Huainan and Hengshan’, Shiji,
118.3082.

Chapter One 18
may be undertaken or should be avoided, or with prognostications for one
who falls ill or is born on that day, and so on. Such preoccupations suffuse
the rishu ‘day books’ Mawangdui Xing-De text, and other recently
excavated bamboo manuscripts from the late Warring States and Former
Han periods. They also permeate the Book of Master Huainan
(Huainanzi), compiled under the auspices of the King of Huainan, whom
we encountered above, a work presented to Emperor Wu in 239 BCE.
25

The prevailing practice among its specialist authors was to rely virtually
exclusively on schemata and devices like the mantic-astrolabe (Fig. 2) to
make astromantic and hemerological predictions, rather than on direct
visual observation.
26
Cosmological and astromantic knowledge was
valuable, not in the abstract but as instrumental in ruling the state, its
application permitting the sovereign to conform to the Dao or ‘Way’ of the
cosmos. As the Book of Master Huainan states:

The ‘Heavenly Patterns’ [chapter] provides the means by which to
harmonize the materia vitalis of yin and yang,
give regular pattern to the radiances of the S
UN and MOON,
regulate the seasons of opening [spring-summer] and closing [fall-winter],
calendar the movements of the stars and planets,
know the changes of retrograde and direct motion,
avoid the misfortunes of prohibitions and taboos,
comply with the correspondences of the seasonal cycles,
and take as one’s model the constancy of the spirits of the five directions.

25
‘In the Huainanzi it [Taiyin] appears as a calendrical spirit whose mantic virtues
and power to control, initiated at the beginning of time, arise from the application
of the sexagenary norm to the numbering of the years . . while Xing and De are
‘among a multitude of calendrical spirits (shensha KíCí) . . . whose functions are
always to confer auspicious or inauspicious qualities on some division or another
of space and time’; see Marc Kalinowski, ‘The Xing De $ 2F Texts from
Mawangdui’, Early China 23-24 (1998-99): 157. See also John S. Major, Heaven
and Earth in Early Han Thought: Chapters Three, Four, and Five of the Huainanzi
(Albany: State University of New York, 1993), 87.
26
As John S. Major points out (1993, 122, 218), the mantic-astrolabe ‘was an
abstraction and idealization of the observable universe, and thus suitable more for
astrological than for astronomical purposes’. Here I would only note that I think
the term ‘astromantic’ is preferable to ‘astrological’ for practices that do not
involve plotting the positions of celestial bodies based on actual observation. See
also Donald Harper, ‘Warring States Natural Philosophy and Occult Thought’, in
Michael M. Loewe and Edward L. Shaughnessy, eds., The Cambridge History of
Ancient China, from the Origins of Civilization to 221 B.C. (Cambridge:
Cambridge University, 1999), 849.

On
[thereby]
effect com

A rather diff
the military
(Military St
specialist ad

Fig. 2: Early
168 BCE) w
M. Loewe a
From the Or

27
Martin Ke
Huainanzi as
Huainanzi an
(trans. modifi
Chinese Astrol
enabling one to
mpliance, and n
fferent perspec
applications s
trategies) (Liu
dvisors who m
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with the D IPPER
and E. L. Shau
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o possess the m
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spelled out in
u Tao). This t
made up the en
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ughnessy, The
ation to 221 BC

a Book and P
n Fu’, in Sarah
oduction in Ear
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means to gaze up
der to the consta
venly pattern r
the Warring
text provides
ntourage of the
the tomb of the
f the round rota
Cambridge His
C (1999), 840, f
erforming it: T
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ernal Influences
pward to Heave
ancies [of Heav
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States text Six
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fig. 12.5.
The ‘Yaolüe’ C
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den: Brill, 2014
s 19
en,
en].
27

ovided by
x Quivers
roster of
al staff.

u Yin (ca.
late. After
nt China:
Chapter of
, eds., The
4), 124-50

Chapter One 20
The so-called ‘Heavenly Pattern Men’ (tianwen ren) rank third in order of
importance, after the ‘confidential advisers’ and the ‘strategists’. The
duties of these ‘astrologues’ are described as follows:

The three Heavenly Pattern Men have charge of observing the movements
of the heavenly bodies, watching the winds and atmospheric phenomena,
projecting [the auspiciousness of] seasons and days, studying the signs and
verifying predictions, examining [the implications of] natural disasters and
anomalies, to understand the mechanisms [sc. ‘triggers’] that move
people’s minds.
28

Even if the Six Quivers represents a retrospective idealization of the
membership of the general staff in the early Zhou dynasty (1046-256
BCE), it is still instructive with regard to priorities in the late Warring
States period when it was composed. Two things are immediately clear
from this passage: the definition of Heavenly Pattern Men is extremely
broad, and its practitioners enjoyed high status in military affairs. By the
Later Han, Ban Gu (32-92 CE), compiler of the History of the Former
Han, characterized Military Yin-Yang specialists by placing even greater
emphasis on their mantic skills, many of which are far removed from
general astrology: ‘The yin-yang [military] specialists comply with the
seasons in setting out. They calculate xing-de, follow the striking of the
D
IPPER, conform to the Five Conquests, and call on ghosts and spirits for
help’.
29

At the same time, reliance on heavenly pattern reading was not without
influential detractors. Sometime counselor to the First Emperor of Qin,
Han Fei (ca. 280-233 BCE), famously derided all such practices:

Initially, for several years Wei turned eastward to attack and finish off
Wey and Tao. For several years later it then turned westward [to attack
Qin] and lost territory. This does not show that the F
IVE THUNDER SPIRITS,
S
UPREME ONE, the six S HETI spirits, and FIVE CHARIOTS, the SKY RIVER,
S
PEAR OF YIN, and JUPITER [all auspicious] were in the west for several
years. Nor does it indicate that H
EAVENLY GAP, HU’NI, PUNISHING STAR,

28
Kalinowski (1998-99, 134), quoting the 4
th
century BCE text on military
strategy, Liutao ‘Six Quivers’ Liutao. Bingjia baodian, ed. (Shijiazhuang: Hebei
renwu, 1991), 740-41 (trans. modified).
29
Han shu, 30.1768-69; Kalinowski (1998-99, 134). ‘Striking of the DIPPER’ refers
to the belief that the direction/cosmogram to which the handle of the D
IPPER
pointed on the mantic-astrolabe was disadvantageous. ‘Five Conquests’ refers to
the conquest sequence of the Five Elemental-Phases (Wood, Metal, Fire, Water,
Earth).

On Chinese Astrology’s Imperviousness to External Influences

21
M
ARS, and STRIDE TERRACE [all inauspicious] were in the east during
subsequent years. Therefore, I say that turtle and milfoil, ghosts and spirits
are not able to assure victory, and that [positioning oneself] to the left, to
the right, in front, or behind [them] does not suffice to determine [the
outcome of] a battle. There is no greater stupidity than to put one's faith in
this.
30

The vehemence of Han Fei’s criticism is a reflection of how widespread
and influential such ideas must have been in late Warring States and Han
times. This is apparent from the Book of Master Huainan’s ‘Survey of
Warfare’ (Bing lue), which says, ‘clearly understanding the motions of the
planets, stars, S
UN, and MOON; the rules of recission and accretion [i.e.,
xing and de], and the occult arts; the advantageousness of facing to the
front or rear, or going left or right; these are helpful in battle’.
31
As an
example of such ‘harmonization with the rhythms and patterns of the
cosmos’, Robin Yates says that on the advice of divination specialists,
armies ‘organized their camps and formations according to the patterns of
the stars and constellations in the sky. They emblazoned their flags and
pennons with the signs of the constellations, the images of astral deities,
and the Eight Trigrams’.
32

This behavior becomes more comprehensible when one realizes that, in
contrast to the Mesopotamian and Buddhist pantheons, astral bodies were
not divine but a manifestation of the materia vitalis (qi) that gives shape to
and animates the cosmos. It is this concept that underlies the Chinese
understanding of the fabric of space-time in which everything relates to
everything else, all partaking of the same qi whose operations Joseph
Needham memorably characterized this way:

[Materia vitalis manifests as] patterns simultaneously appearing in a vast
field of force, the dynamic structure of which we do not yet understand . . .
The parts, in their organizational relations, whether of a living body or of
the universe, were sufficient to account, by a kind of harmony of wills, for
the observed phenomena.
33

30
Hanfeizi, ‘Shixie’ chapter, Xinbian zhuzi jicheng (Taipei: Shijie shuju, repr.
1974) Vol. 5, 88-89. Since Han Fei lumps together planets, stars, and spirits
seemingly indiscriminately; the astrological principle behind this pronouncement,
as well as the identities of several of the named spirits, are obscure.
31
Huainanzi, Xinbian zhuzi jicheng, Vol. 7, 255.
32
Robin D. S. Yates, ‘The History of Military Divination in China’, East Asian
Science Technology and Medicine 24 (2005): 22, 33.
33
Needham (1969), Vol. 2, 302.

Chapter One 22
I know of no better definition of ‘synchronicity’, the term Carl Jung
coined specifically to characterize the Chinese organismic concept.
During the Former Han Dynasty (206 BCE-9 CE), trade along the so-
called Silk Routes thrived, prompting Emperor Wu (141-87 BCE) in 138
BCE to dispatch Zhang Qian to explore the Western Regions. Central
Asian trade then flourished from 114 BCE on due to the Han Dynasty’s
projection of force into the area. If ever there was a time prior to contact
with Indian astronomers in Sui (589-618) and Tang (618-907) when
Chinese astronomy/astrology should have been receptive to outside
influences, the Former Han Dynasty ought to have been it. And yet my
study has disclosed nothing that even vaguely reflects the influence of
West Asian astral divination on early China. Conversely, this brief account
of fundamental aspects of astral portentology has touched on a number of
uniquely Chinese characteristics for which there is no precise parallel in
the West.
A Tantalizing Possibility of Astrological Convergence
Between East and West
Consider the heavens so high and the stars so distant. If we seek out former
instances we may, while sitting still, have command of a thousand years of
solstices.
34

Study of planetary astrology in China and comparison with the
Mediterranean world show the above conclusions about the imperviousness
of early Chinese astrology to be equally true with regard to the ‘long
export’ of planetary resonance periods in the later imperial period. Despite
the prominent influence of Arabs, Indians, Sogdians, S—s—nians, and other
Central Asians, in Tang China, the most cosmopolitan of all Chinese
dynasties, foreign influence on state-sponsored astral prognostication
remained negligible.
35
The Scribe-Astrologers seem never to have
followed up on the implications for forecasting of Mencius’ epigram
above. Part of the explanation lies in the fact that the astrologers were also
scribes and historiographers, and as Yü Ying-shih remarked:

34
Mencius (4
th
c. BCE), IV. B 26.
35
David W. Pankenier, ‘The Planetary Portent of 1524 in Europe and China’, The
Journal of World History 20.3 (September 2009), 339-375; also David Pingree,
‘Astronomy and Astrology in India and Iran’, Isis 54.2 (1963): 246. This was much
less so at the popular level when it came to hemerology, divination, and popular
almanacs, which proliferated from the Tang Dynasty on and introduced numerous
Western concepts and practices which the official astral prognostication ignores.

On Chinese Astrology’s Imperviousness to External Influences

23
Chinese historians . . . recognized the existence of ‘historical trends’ or
‘patterns of change’ in the past. However, when they ventured
generalizations, these generalizations are invariably limited in time and
confined to a particular aspect. It seems never to have occurred to them
that it was their business to establish ‘universal historical laws’ or theorize
about the entire process of human history.
36

Part of the explanation must also be that the Chinese consistently
privileged the past over the present, and most certainly over the
unknowable distant future. There was no Chinese Ptolemy, or M—sh—’all—h
(Jewish astrologer, d. 815 CE in Baghdad), or AbÌ Ma'shar of Balkh
(Persian astrologer living in the center of Zoroastrianism in Bactria, 786-
866 CE) to serve as cultural intermediaries, codifying, refining, and
transmitting diverse traditions about the far future consequences of astral
phenomena.
When it comes to planetary astrology in particular, the impermeability
of Chinese astrology to alien influence is truly surprising in view of the
crucial role played by S—s—nians as intermediaries in transmitting to the
Mediterranean world the theory of world ages punctuated by J
UPITER-
S
ATURN conjunctions.
37
China’s direct contact and involvement with the
S—s—nid Empire (224–651 CE) from the Later Han through the Tang
dynasty was, if anything, more extensive than that of the Latin West at all
levels. Besides centuries old Chinese trade contacts with Persia via the
Sogdians in Xinjiang (Chinese Turkestan), who were themselves Iranian,
Persian seaborne trade with Southeast Asia was also extensive. S—s—nid
merchants maintained settlements in Canton and other southern ports
during the Tang Dynasty. In the north, Sogdians assumed Chinese
surnames, filled important military posts, and held public office. The
appearance of the seven-day week in Chinese almanacs beginning in this
period is certainly attributable to the Sogdians, as is the introduction of the
Western zodiac and several well-known compendia of planetary
ephemerides and star lore.
38
After the destruction of the S—s—nid Empire by

36
Yü Ying-shih, ‘Reflections on Chinese Historical Thought’, in Jörn Rüsen, ed.,
Western Historical Thinking: An Intercultural Debate (New York and Oxford:
Berghahn, 2002), 168.
37
Despite the S—s—nians’ role as the conduit for Indian astrology to the
Mediterranean world, that traffic in ideas was decidedly one-sided; see Pingree
(1963): 246.
38
Edward H. Schafer discusses some of these cross-cultural contacts; see Edward
H. Schafer, Pacing the Void: T’ang Approaches to the Stars (Berkeley: University
of California, 1977), 10-11. See also Jao Tsung-I and Léon Vandermeersch, trans.,
‘Les relations entre la Chine et le monde iranien dans l’Antiquité’, Bulletin de

Chapter One 24
the Arabs in 651 CE, S—s—nid royalty was exiled en masse at the Tang
court in Chang’an (present-day Xi’an).
Yet S—s—nian astrological history, especially integral numbers of
J
UPITER-SATURN conjunctions, their migration through the triplicities of
the zodiac, and the epoch-making political and religious implications of
‘mighty conjunctions’, seemingly had no discernible impact in China. This
is all the more remarkable because, in the first half of the 8
th
century, the
work of the Imperial Bureau of Astrology and the Calendar was actually in
the capable hands of renowned astronomers and mathematicians deeply
knowledgeable about both Chinese and Indian astrological theory and
methods. The first was the Buddhist monk Yi Xing (683-727 CE) and the
second, the Indian Qutan Xida (aka Gautama Siddha, fl. ca. 720 CE). It
was Qutan Xida who oversaw the compilation of the famous
Prognostication Canon of the Kaiyuan Reign Period (Kaiyuan zhanjing)
completed in 729 CE. In this comprehensive manual were collected and
collated all the surviving ancient astrological text passages and
prognostications, including the most complete versions of the Canons of
Stars attributed to the famous 4
th
century BCE astrologers Shi Shen and
Gan De. This compilation was the most important astrological
compendium since Sima Qian’s ‘Treatise on the Celestial Offices’
compiled nearly a millennium earlier, and it is devoted to traditional
Chinese astral prognostication.
That being said, it is intriguing that it was the son of a prominent
Sogdian military family and court favorite, the schemer An Lushan (703-
757 CE), whose mutinous rebellion almost succeeded in bringing down
the Tang dynasty.
39
An Lushan was a Zoroastrian, the religion whose
astrologer-priests, the Magi (or Chaldeans), are well known in the history
of astrology. His Turkish mother was reputedly a sorceress herself. After a
long and chequered military career General An was able to insinuate
himself into the Emperor’s good graces. He was doted on by the
Emperor’s favorite concubine, Yang Guifei (719-756), to such an extent
that he even became Lady Yang’s adoptive son. As a result General An

l’École française d’Extrême-Orient 93 (2006): 207-45. Joseph Needham cites a
revealing anecdote that underscores the cosmopolitanism of the time. In the Xiu
yao jing commentary (764 CE) the seven planets are given their Sanskrit, Sogdian,
and Persian names, and linked to the days of the week. The Chinese reader
unfamiliar with the names of those days is advised to ‘ask a Sogdian or a Persian,
or the people of the Five Indies, who all know them’; Needham and Wang (1959),
258.
39
E. G. Pulleyblank, The Background of the Rebellion of An Lu-shan (London:
Oxford University, 1955).

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Chapter One 26
Heaven’s Mandate, a mid-dynasty planetary grouping like this was
particularly ominous for the ruling house, and the verdict of later history in
this instance was that the planetary portent certainly foretold the fall of the
Tang Dynasty.
43
In seeming confirmation of the inauspiciousness of the
omen, in the following year, 751CE, Chinese forces were decisively
defeated by Abbassid Arab and Turkic armies at the Battle of Talas,
marking the end of Tang expansionism and the beginning of withdrawal
from Central Asia. Shortly after this, General An Lushan set in motion the
devastating rebellion that he had apparently been planning all along. In
756 CE, after capturing the ancient capital of Luoyang, An Lushan
declared himself emperor. The ensuing fighting, which cost tens of
millions of lives, lasted from 755 to 763 CE and nearly toppled the Tang
Dynasty.
In M—sh—’all—h’s astrological world history, On Conjunctions,
Religions, and Peoples, written ca. 800 CE in Baghdad, it comes as no
surprise that one event stood out prominently—the 19 March 571 CE shift
of triplicity signaling the rise of Islam.
44
The Tang Dynasty planetary
conjunction of 750 CE came 179 years afterward, a mere sixty years from
the next shift of triplicity, which theoretically ought to signal another
world-changing event like the rise of a new nation or dynasty. What might
An Lushan’s knowledge of S—s—nian and Chinese planetary astrology have
led him to conclude about the impressive planetary omen he was
witnessing? It is a safe bet that there was rampant astrological speculation
about the omen’s significance in knowledgeable circles, based on both
Chinese and Western precedents. I submit it is likely that An Lushan knew
of the dynastic implications in the two astrological traditions when he
decided to seize the opportunity to usurp the throne. Of course, this is not
to claim this was the only, or even the principal, factor prompting the
General to launch his bid, simply that astrology could well have played an
important role in his thinking. The case is admittedly circumstantial, but
this may have been the one and only instance when an otherwise
impervious Chinese astrology coalesced with its Western counterpart, and
at a pivotal moment in history.

VENUS: 16h 5.8’ / -23° 52’
M
ERCURY: 14h 26’ / -17° 40’
43
David W. Pankenier, ‘The Planetary Portent of 1524 in Europe and China’, The
Journal of World History 20.3 (2009):360.
44
This was the year after the birth of Mohammed, although the Muslim calendar
takes its beginning from the hegira in 622 CE, fifty-one years later.

CHAPTER TWO
P
TOLEMY AND SIMA QIAN
IN ELEVENTH-CENTURY JAPAN:
T
HE COMBINATION OF DISPARATE
ASTROLOGICAL SYSTEMS IN PRACTICE
K
RISTINA BUHRMAN

Abstract
Although located at the extreme eastern edge of the Silk Road, Japan was still
connected over sea-routes via Korea and China to points west throughout its
history. Buddhist monks were a major conduit for information and technology
from the continent, and it was through Buddhist monks in the eighth and ninth
centuries that elements of Ptolemaic astrology arrived in Japan. This astrology,
known in Japan as sukuyÀdÀ, adopted first Indian and then Chinese astrological
elements as it travelled east. However, despite these Chinese features, it was not
compatible with the Chinese state astrology (Ch. tianwen, Jp. tenmon) already
practiced in Japan at this time.
Horoscopic Astrology in Eleventh-Century Japan
Hellenistic astrology, particularly the variation that emphasises horoscopic
charts, has enjoyed a wildly successful career as a global idea, acclimating
and thriving in areas across a wide geographical swath and enduring over a
long period.
1
Although a separate method of dividing up the sky and of
reading meaning and forecasting the future based on the sky had
developed in ancient China and was shared by the polities of the East
Asian cultural sphere, horoscopic astrology found a foothold in this area as

1
For a more detailed overview of the spread and accretion of ideas to horoscopic
astrology, see Yano Michio, Hoshi uranai no bunka kÀryÌshi (Tokyo: KeisÀ
shobÀ, 2004).

Chapter Two

28
well: not only in modern globalized urban culture but in the pre-modern
world, too. How this method of astrology fared in pre-modern East Asia,
what impact it had on conceptual models of cosmology, what influence it
might have had on native models of astrology, or native models of
astrology on it, are matters of interest in the history of the transmission of
ideas.
While horoscopes are attested to in the Dunhuang manuscripts from
the Tang Period, there has been little discussion of the interaction between
this method of prediction and that of tianwen (Jp. tenmon, “heavenly
patterns”) or Chinese observational astrology as performed at the imperial
court.
2
By contrast, the popularity of horoscopic astrology among the elites
of the Japanese Heian-period court is well attested: the works of Ptolemy
(90-168 CE) and Sima Qian (ca. 145-86 BCE)—and works inspired by
them—were used and were authoritative in eleventh-century Japan. At the
same time, conflicts between practitioners of this art and those who
specialized in official, Chinese-style methods of star-related knowledge
are a standard part of the history of Japanese religion. These relate
specifically to conflicts between practitioners of SukuyÀdÀ and OnmyÀdÀ;
which was itself a complex of purification, exorcism and divination
techniques, largely imported from China and only tangentially related to
astrology.
What this depiction of the relationship between the fields obscures,
however, is how collaboration can, and did, work across fields; likewise,
how tensions among practitioners of the same field were as strong a force
in the history of astrologies in Japan.
3
This emphasis on the antagonistic
relationship between two groups of practitioners and on trends that
indicate the replacement or victory of one system or the other also veils
how the patrons of both forms of astrology were drawn from the same
population. In many instances, focusing on the patrons reveals that the

2
This may be an avenue for future investigation, as there were some figures such
as Yixing (623-727 CE), a Buddhist priest who is known to have authored works
related to astrology and who also worked, at least temporarily, with the
Astronomical Bureau at the court.
3
See for example the discussion of SukuyÀdÀ in Murayama ShÌ’ichi, Nihon
onmyÀdÀ shi sÀsetsu (Tokyo: Hanawa ShobÀ, 1981) and Nihon onmyÀdÀ shiwa
(Osaka: ¿saka Shoseki, 1987); Yamashita Katsuaki, Heian jidai no shÌkyÀ bunka
to on’yÀdÀ (Tokyo: Iwata Shoin, 1996); and Mitsuhashi Tadashi, Heian jidai no
shinkÀ to shÌkyÀ girei (Tokyo: Zoku Gunsho RuijÌ Kanseikai, 2000). Also see
Kristina Buhrman, “The Stars and the State: Astronomy, Astrology and the Politics
of Natural Knowledge in Early Medieval Japan” (PhD. diss., University of
Southern California, History, 2012), specifically Chapters One and Two, for some
conflicts found among specialists even from the same lineage.

Ptolemy and Sima Qian in Eleventh-Century Japan 29
more enthusiastic consumers of one type of astrology were also active
patrons of the other: this was true even as the two styles tended towards
different targets for their predictions.
That Chinese-style official astrology (tenmon) focused on predicting
for the state (and on individuals with relationship to the state) and
horoscopic astrology on the individual is a large part of Mitsuhashi
Tadashi’s argument for the rise of individualism in eleventh and twelfth-
century Japanese religion; he furthermore states that SukuyÀdÀ
(particularly horoscope astrology) replaces tenmon (Chinese-style official
astrology) as the major influence at court. As the following discussion
shows, however, an interest in one technique did not preclude an interest
in another; nor were the spheres of use as separate as the distinction might
imply.
While the competition over a common audience reveals the self-
interest behind some conflicts between experts of the two styles, it also
opens up questions related to the reception of astrology. Both styles of
forecasting involved determining the position of astronomical phenomena
in the sky, but the cosmological systems differed in the details—did this
fact have any relevance for the consumers of the results of the astrological
arts? Attacks on or supports for the validity of astrology often focus on the
cosmological underpinnings of the systems, the mechanics through which
stars might relate to or influence human and political fates. But were such
cosmological considerations relevant for most patrons or consumers of
systems of astrology, at all times? In fact, did the adoption of a new form
of astrology entail the adoption of its underlying cosmology?
In considering the question of how many of the systems or their results
were made to correspond with each other, it is key to determine on what
level the adjustment was made. At the same time as horoscopic astrology
was becoming established in Japanese court culture, in eleventh-century
Japan, courtiers began keeping diaries recording their activities and
information about current events and controversies, and this provides us an
avenue whereby the reception and any logic used in selecting elements to
apply or attend to from astrological reports by patrons can be investigated
directly.
4
Some scholars, for example Yamashita Katsuaki in Heian jidai
no shÌkyÀ bunka to on’yÀdÀ, date the establishment of horoscopic
astrology in Japan before the late tenth century. There is evidence, for
example, that knowledge of horoscopes was circulating in the first half of
the tenth century: references to natal xiu or lodges in courtier diaries, and
texts, including an edition of a Ptolemaic or pseudo-Ptolemaic text, that

4
See Buhrman, “The Stars and the State”, Chapter Four.

Chapter Two

30
arrived in Japan through Buddhist channels in the ninth century. Despite
such antecedents, however, there is ample evidence that horoscopes came
to new prominence at the end of the tenth century and at the beginning of
the eleventh, evidenced in references to courtiers’ first experiences with
horoscopes (as discussed below) and the new prominence of Buddhist
astrologers at court. From this investigation into the sources depicting
astrology in Heian Japan, some of the processes that may have applied at
other times and places of encounter between incommensurable styles of
astrology might be also deduced.
Horoscopic astrology, as developed in the Hellenistic world and
transformed through its adoption and translation into multiple cultures,
was not imported as a coherent practice in Japan: it took over 150 years for
all of the components used in horoscopic astrology to arrive. This
encompasses the time elapsed between KÌkai’s (774-835) return to Japan
carrying the sutra popularly known as the SukuyÀ-kyÀ (Sutra on Lodges
and Luminaries) in 806 and Nichien’s (fl. mid-10
th
century) 957 return
after having studied the Futian-li calendrical system in Wuyue. Both texts
were used in astrology as practiced by Buddhist monks in Japan.
Furthermore, the first horoscopes (as related below) do not appear in the
historical record until after Nichien’s time.
5
Because these components
were carried over by Buddhist monks who had visited the continent, in
Japan horoscopic astrology had a strong Buddhist flavor. The creation of
horoscopes, in fact, was considered part of a larger complex of star and
time-related practices known as SukuyÀdÀ, literally the “Way of Lodges
and Luminaries”, which included star-related offerings and the
determination of lucky and unlucky periods for individuals or the
scheduling of rituals.
The modern adoption of this term does obscure some of the ways in
which concerns related to what is now identified as SukuyÀdÀ were
broader concerns in Buddhism, and the usage of the term itself. While
thirteenth-century sources refer to a debate about natal lodges as between
“OnmyÀdÀ” and “SukuyÀdÀ” in 960, this does not mean that the term
SukuyÀdÀ had the same meaning in the tenth century as it did in the
thirteenth; in fact, usage of the term in the twelfth century focuses on a
tradition of calendrics, not on astrology per se. However, as a larger term

5
The path that horoscopic astrology took, including how it picked up additions and
modifications particularly in Indian and China, is the subject of Michio Yano’s
Hoshi uranai no bunka kÀryÌshi. On the importance of the Futian-li system for
calculating horoscopes, see Momo Hiroyuki, “SukuyÀdÀ to sukuyÀ kanmon”, and
“Futen-reki ni tsuite”, in RekihÀ no kenkyÌ 2, Momo Hiroyuki chÀsaku-shÌ 8
(Kyoto: Shibunkaku shuppan, 1990).

Ptolemy and Sima Qian in Eleventh-Century Japan 31
that contains the practice of horoscopic astrology that concerns us here, it
has modern utility.
Western astrological techniques seem to have initially been sought out
by Japanese monks because of their relationship to other concerns about
time-keeping and astral influences based on the idea of the Seven
Luminaries (the five classical planets, plus the sun and the moon; the
assignment of these elements to a seven-day cycle in fact traversed the
Silk Road and are attested to in Japan as early as the tenth century), the
Nine Graha (the seven luminaries plus the Indian astrological bodies Rahu
and Ketu), and the Indian lunar mansions or nakshatra: in other words, the
Indian tradition of astronomy present at the Chinese court where esoteric
Buddhism was developing.
6
Some of the earliest references to horoscopes
in Japan date from the late tenth century. In 999, a representative of the
court attending a major Buddhist lecture and ceremony in the old capital of
Nara received a horoscope from a monk there, and referred to it as a
marvelous thing.
7
The manner in which this courtier refers to the
document seems to imply that he had not received one before; whether this
was because of his relatively low rank at the time (indicating that
horoscopes were the provenance of the elite) or because this type of
astrological document was only becoming established at court, by the
eleventh century the commissioning of horoscopes seems to have been
widespread at court. For this reason, it is reasonable to mark the craze for
horoscopes of the early eleventh century as the point in which this
particular aspect of astrology became firmly established in Japan.
As no Japanese horoscopes from this period of popularization survive,
their contents and format must be deduced from later examples of the
form. Only two examples of natal horoscopes have been identified from
Japanese historical sources, one for a man born in 1113 and the other for a
man born in 1268.
8
Both include circular diagrams with five concentric

6
On this milieu and its influence, see Yano Michio, MikkyÀ senseijutsu—sukuyÀdÀ
to indo senseijutsu 2
nd
ed. (Tokyo: TÀyÀ shÀin, 2013). That this was a larger and
more generalized concern in Japanese Buddhism than just for astrological
prediction, see the discussion in Buhrman, “The Stars and the State”, 214-219.
7
The courtier was Fujiwara no Yukinari, who appears also below. Gonki ChÀhÀ 1
(999-1000)/10/16, ZÀhÀ ShiryÀ Taisei KankÀ-kai, eds., Gonki, 2 vols. (Kyoto:
Rinsen shoten,1965).
8
Ten’ei 3 (1112-1113)/12/25. This one is has been published as document #908 in
the Zoku Gunsho ruijÌ compilation, but can also be found discussed in Yano,
MikkyÀ no senseijutsu, 190-194; Bun’ei 5 (1268-1269)/6/26, likewise discussed in
Yano, MikkyÀ no senseijutsu, 194-202. The full text of both can be found in Momo
Hiroyuki, “SukuyÀ kanmon”, in RekihÀ no kenkyÌ 2, Momo Hiroyuki chÀsaku-shÌ
8 (Kyoto: Shibunkaku shuppan, 1990).

Chapter Two

32
rings. In the innermost ring are the twelve “earthly branches” known
popularly as the Chinese Zodiac. These signs do not mark parts of the sky
per se, but are locked to the western zodiac signs, the Chinese translations
of which form the second ring: Rat, the first of the earthly branches, is
associated with Aquarius; Ox, the second, with Capricorn; and Boar, the
last, with Pisces. The third ring on the horoscope houses the 28 Chinese
lodge asterisms. That these are the Chinese lodges or xiu and not the
Indian nakshatra is clear from their uneven spacing around the ring: this
reflects the unequal size of these asterisms, in comparison with the even
spacing of lunar lodges. The fourth ring is where the locations of the sun,
moon, five planets and the Indian Rahu and Ketu astrological bodies are
noted, in relationship to the zodiacal constellations and the 28 lodges.
On the horoscope for the man born in 1268, combinations of three
planets are also listed. As these are clearly not conjunctions, based on the
position of the planets noted in the horoscope, they may be a manifestation
of or variation on trines—more work on trines in the Japanese horoscopic
tradition, however, needs to be undertaken. Trines do appear in some of
the textual discussion in other surviving texts related to horoscopes.
9

Finally, the fifth and outermost ring lists the locations of the Twelve
Houses (in Japanese kurai or “position”, a translation of topoi), each of
which line up in these charts precisely with one of the twelve zodiacal
signs. In the two surviving horoscopes, these charts are appended with
further discussion of the influence of the relationship between zodiac
signs, houses and planets on personality, career and even lifespan. As to
when both horoscopes were compiled, the predictive section only includes
those for year counts above 40 (age 39), and so were probably composed
around 1151 and 1307 respectively, at the earliest. Other fragmentary
documents, identified as “running year” horoscopes by the historian
Momo Hiroyuki and which provided personalised predictions based on
transits and conjunctions for the coming calendrical year, lack these
horoscope diagrams but do discuss the influence of planetary location and
conjunction on the various houses for particular individuals, showing their
relationship to the two surviving natal horoscopes.
10

That horoscopic astrology as practiced in Japan was of a hybrid nature
can be seen in the presence of Indian and Chinese astronomical concepts
in the surviving examples—a hybridity that is only to be expected, given
the source of its initial transmission to Japan: Buddhist monks who studied
in China among Indian immigrants at the Tang court. The milieu in which

9
See Momo, “SukuyÀ kanmon”.
10
Momo, “SukuyÀ kanmon”.

Ptolemy and Sima Qian in Eleventh-Century Japan 33
Nichien studied the Futian-li, which was apparently necessary before
horoscopes could be calculated in Japan, judging by timing of the first
references to horoscopes at court and the numbers and references
employed by surviving horoscopes, is less well known. However, an
example in manuscripts discovered in Dunhuang indicate that by some
point in the Tang Dynasty, an independent tradition of horoscope
astrology, one that did not require the presence of Indian astronomers, was
established—at least at some distance to the court. This tradition, then,
may be equally important in the development of Japanese horoscope
astrology.
The Hellenistic origins of the practice, however, are not obscured in
these texts: they are clearly present not only in the use of the signs of the
zodiac and the Twelve Houses, but in citations from what is explicitly
identified as a Ptolemaic (or pseudo-Ptolemaic) tradition. The horoscope
for the individual born in 1113 explicitly cites a text that, in the Japanese
pronunciation, was called the Isshi-kyÀ. This was a short name for the
translation of “Ptolemy” into Chinese known as the Duliyusi (TLYVS, or
Ptolemaois), although it may not have been the Tetrabiblos as we know it,
but instead a text defined as belonging to the Ptolemaic, or Hellenistic,
tradition.
11
These citations explicate the meaning of particular planet and
zodiac sign conjunctions; furthermore, the prognostication for trines are
discussed, which is a clear indication of the Hellenistic tradition—in the
Chinese tradition of astrology, it was only the conjunction of three planets
that was worth noting, and no other geometrical arrangement of planets
appears in that literature.
The popularity of horoscopes among the courtiers is attested to not
only by entries where courtiers describe acquiring them, but by some of
the measures these elites took to obtain them: when a fire destroyed the
records of one noble, he contacted others in an attempt to obtain the
precise time and astronomical information of his children’s births in order
to commission new horoscopes.
12
As to why horoscopic astrology was
popular among the courtiers of tenth- and eleventh-century Japan, the
common explanation has been their personal applicability: by their nature,
natal horoscopes, as well as “running year” horoscopes, were centered on
an individual. As in the case of developments in practices related to
soteriology in Japanese Buddhism of the time, this has been seen as part of

11
See Yano, MikkyÀ no senseijutsu, 160-164, for the identification of the text.
12
Found in the entry in the diary ShÀyÌki for Kannin 2 (1018-1019)/4/9, TÀkyÀ
Daigaku ShiryÀ HensanjÀ, ed., ShÀyÌki, 11 vols., Dai Nihon kokiroku (Tokyo:
Iwanami shoten,1959).

Chapter Two

34
the rise of the individual in Japan just before the dawn of the medieval
period.
13

Yet horoscopic astrology was not the only or, even arguably, the main
form of astrology practiced in Japan during the eleventh century. Predating
the introduction and development of SukuyÀdÀ in Japan were the official
court astral sciences, adopted from China when Japan, like many emerging
states in East Asia, patterned itself on the Chinese imperial model. The
emerging Japanese interpretation of the relationship between humans, the
stars, and the future that might be read from them found in horoscopic
astrology took shape within a context of a pre-existing and robust system
of astrology already established at court. The question of how the
introduction of horoscopic astrology might have changed or been changed
as it was adopted into Japanese culture must, perforce, consider the role
and nature of this other form of astrology prevalent at the time.
Chinese-Style State Astronomy and Astrology
in Eleventh-Century Japan
Another tradition of astronomy and astrology was very much a part of the
Japanese state from the period of its organization in the seventh and eighth
centuries, being part of the Chinese imperial bureaucratic model being
adopted. The ritsuryÀ administrative law codes of the eighth century
formalized the role of these astral sciences in the Japanese court: the
Bureau of On’yÀ (literally “yin and yang”, but here an alternate term for
divination) included sections for calendrical (mathematical) astronomy
and sky-reading taken from the Chinese model, where the ruler’s ability to
correctly interpret and predict the motions of bodies in the sky served as a
demonstration of the Mandate of Heaven. The Japanese Bureau was not a
perfect analogue for the Chinese Office of the Grand Astrologer (Taishi
Ling) as it existed in the Tang dynasty: as Nakayama Shigeru has noted, it
was much smaller and incorporated within it divination authority that in
the Tang court was part of the Bureau of Divination, a separate organ of
state.
14
The two fields of astral science, calculation and observation—or

13
This is the connection and explanation found, for example, in Mitsuhashi
Tadashi’s discussion of SukuyÀdÀ in his Heian jidai no shinkÀ to shÌkyÀ girei
(Tokyo: Zoku Gunsho RuijÌ Kanseikai, 2000).
14
The connection between rulership and astronomy/astrology can be found in the
Book of Documents, where the section on the legendary ruler Yao describes ideal
rulership as “observing heaven and granting time to the people” or producing a
useful calendar out of heavenly motions. See Nakayama Shigeru, A History of

Ptolemy and Sima Qian in Eleventh-Century Japan 35
RekidÀ (calendrics) and TenmondÀ (observational astrology)—although
originally intertwined in China, had become in Japan distinct, even rival
fields of practice by the second half of the tenth century.
15
As the
components of what would become SukuyÀdÀ, including horoscopic
astrology, were arriving in Japan during the ninth and tenth centuries,
these two Chinese-style astral sciences—calendrics and observational
astrology—were well-established and part of the official system of
Japanese governance.
The practitioners of SukuyÀdÀ are often cast in the literature as rivals
of the officials of the Bureau of On’yÀ. This is not only in modern
scholarly literature, but can be deduced for Japanese tale literature from
the twelfth century onward. Although Ashiya DÀman, the legendary
antagonist found in legends about the observational astrologer and
magician Abe no Seimi (921-1005), is not explicitly described as a
sukuyÀji or SukuyÀdÀ practitioner, his identification as a Buddhist
ordinand associates him with the Buddhist monastics who provided
horoscopes and eclipse predictions to the Heian nobility. Most of their
conflict, however, arose not in the divining of the meaning of astronomical
phenomena, but in the prediction of the phenomena—most conflicts
Buddhist monks had were with the practitioners of calendrical astronomy
(RekidÀ), not of observational astrology (TenmondÀ). Many of the
calculation techniques and practices in creating a horoscope and in
creating an official calendar based on astronomical ephemerides are
similar, and Buddhist monks associated with some of the first referenced
horoscopes were also given special mandates to contribute to the
calculation of the official calendar in the late tenth and early eleventh
centuries.
16

I would argue that it was less difference in the systems of mathematical
astronomy that drove the conflict than the traditions that went into
implementing each system. For example, the Buddhist monk ShÀshÀ,
discussed below, seems to have been able to produce the same predictions
that were produced by the official calendarists of the Bureau of On’yÀ:
however, he differed with them over the matter of whether astronomical

Japanese Astronomy: Chinese Background and Western Impact (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1969), 17-20.
15
Kamo no Yasunori (917-977) was one of the last individuals known to have
been an Instructor of both fields until the late medieval period. On the
characterisation of tenmon as observational astrology, see Buhrman, “The Stars
and the State”, 16 and 28.
16
A history of these collaborations, and how they broke down, can be found in
Buhrman, “The Stars and the State”, Chapters Four and Five.

Chapter Two

36
events that occurred below the horizon (or that were “invisible”) had any
force or applicability towards the fate of an individual. This is less a
disagreement over systems of calculation than of traditions of
interpretation; the proposition that “invisible” eclipses did not pose a threat
and did not have to be announced had been established at the Japanese
court in the early tenth century and was part of the official tradition.
17
As a
creator of horoscopes who worked with the twelve houses of Hellenistic
astrology, however, ShÀshÀ could not agree with this aspect.
Such collaborations, as well as fierce rivalry, make sense in that the
tables used in Japan for calculating horoscopes were based on Chinese
models of mathematical astronomy: although the tables used in creating
the official calendar were from a different system of mathematical
astronomy, much of the terminology and many of the techniques would
have been common to both fields, and the skills utilized in one field,
therefore, would have been transferable to the other.
18
Although it has
been argued that the Futian-li, the text of which unfortunately does not
survive, showed some Indian influence in its underlying functions,
examples of its use outside of horoscope creation show that it fit the
general model of a Chinese mathematical astronomy system.
19
In other
words, it was not in the interpretation of astronomical phenomena that the
practitioners of SukuyÀdÀ came into public conflict with officials of the
Bureau of On’yÀ, but in the prediction of the same. Such conflict was less
an issue of disparate forms of astrology (models of interpretation) coming
into contact as disagreements arising from different predictive traditions of
mathematical astronomy.
By contrast, TenmondÀ or observational astrology did not rely upon
mathematics. This is not to say that it could not work in tandem with the
mathematical predictions of calendrical astronomy: certainly, with regards
to eclipses, the Instructor of Calendrics predicted the eclipses for the year
and announced to the court upcoming eclipses, and the Instructor of

17
Buhrman, “The Stars and the State”, 143-159.
18
On the use of a separate system of mathematical astronomy, the Futian-li, for the
creation of horoscopes and eclipse prediction, see Momo, “SukuyÀdÀ to sukuyÀ
kanmon” and “Futen-reki ni tsuite”.
19
Shigeru Nakayama, “The Position of the Futian Calendar on the History of East /
West Intercourse of Astronomy”, in G. Swarup et al., eds., History of Oriental
Astronomy. Proceedings of an International Astronomical Union Colloquium, No.
91, New Delhi, India, November 13-16, 1985 (Cambridge University Press, 1987);
Momo Hiroyuki, “Hogen gannenn no chÌkan sakutantÀji to ChÀkan ni-nen no
sakutantÀji—RekidÀ, SandÀ no sÀten to futen-reki no mondai”, in RekihÀ no
kenkyÌ 2.

Ptolemy and Sima Qian in Eleventh-Century Japan 37
Observational Astrology would then craft a memorial of interpretation
based on that prediction (of a type discussed in more detail below).
However, it was not until the event had passed and the prediction
(theoretically) confirmed by observation that the memorials of the
Instructor of Observational Astrology would come into play. In its most
basic form, this method of determining the meaning of phenomena in the
sky was based on regular observation and the notation of changes. As in
Hellenistic astrology, this meant that the planets’ movements into and out
of regions of the sky were carefully noted; unlike Hellenistic horoscopic
astrology, however, other changes were given equal, if not greater, weight:
new (“guest”) stars, changes in star scintillation or color, auroras, as well
as comets, are common features of Chinese and Japanese astronomical
records.
20

Methods of dividing up the sky also differed between Eastern and
Western astrological traditions. All of the pertinent sky locations in the
systems derived from Chinese astronomy were based on asterisms—none
were relative to the horizon. Of the primary asterism-based divisions of the
sky, particularly relevant to the motion of the planets, was the set of 28
lodges (Ch. xiu, Jp. shuku)—however, unlike the nakshatra lunar lodges
of Indian astrology, the Han Dynasty set these at widely varying sizes,
which meant that they could not be used to track regular day-units of lunar
motion. There is some disagreement about whether these mansions were
ever of equal length. Christopher Cullen, in a recent article, argues that
they did not originate in a model of lunar movement.
21
However, these
lodges were used to translate the lunar lodges of Indian astronomy into
Chinese, which led to some ambiguity and confusion in the field of
SukuyÀdÀ in Japan.
22
The observational focus may account for the absence
of more abstract divisions of the sky in this form of astrology; certainly, it
allowed for a division of labor between those who calculated predicted
astronomical conjunctions and those who interpreted them in Japan
without compromising the basic nature of the field.
The cosmology that underpinned this method of astrology in Japan was
also different from that of Hellenistic horoscopic astrology, and developed
independently. The practice of observational astrology in Japan was based
on some of the older systematic works that had survived from that

20
These were also common features in Babylonian astrology, which had aspects of
both observation and calculation in its tradition.
21
See “Translating *Sukh/Xiu and *Lhah/She—‘Lunar Lodges’, or Just Plain
‘Lodges’?”, East Asian Science Technology & Medicine no. 33 (2011).
22
Yano Michio, “BukkyÀ kyÀten no naka no koyomi, SukuyÀ-kyÀ”, in Murayama
ShÌ’ichi, ed., OnmyÀdÀ sÀsho vol. 4 (Tokyo: MeichÀ shuppan, 1993), 357-365.

Chapter Two

38
tradition. Sima Qian in the Treatise on Heavenly Offices (Ch. Tianguan
shu), part of his Records of the Grand Historian, provided one of the
earliest formalized rationales for prognostications using theories of the
Five Phases (Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, Water) and parallels between
celestial patterns and terrestrial courts.
23
When the curriculum for students
in the field of observational astrology in the Japanese Bureau was
established by decree in 757, this work was the foundation of that
program.
24
One of the central aspects of this form of astrology was its
state-centeredness: the “Heavenly Offices” in Sima Qian’s treatise
corresponded to the terrestrial organs of imperial government, so that
portions of the sky mirrored the political geography on the ground. While
individual fates might be foretold in the sky, the justification for the
astrology and the logic behind some of the connections made between sign
and prognosis were centered on a pole-star monarch who served as the
pivot between heaven and earth. The cosmology of this style of astrology
was very much a political one.
Yet the move towards a systematic and logical cosmology found in
Sima Qian’s work was undermined by the practice of observational
astrology in Japan. In the eleventh and twelfth century, Sima Qian and the
treatises on observational astrology in the official Chinese histories still
constituted the orthodox foundations of the practice in Japan, but in
practice these texts had been replaced by compendia of prognostications
from the Tang Dynasty, primarily the Tianwen yaolu and Tiandi ruixiang
zhi. The continued orthodoxy of Sima Qian and the treatises from the Han
and Jin Histories can be seen in the records of disputes the courtier KujÀ
Kanezane had with astrologers of the Abe lineage, as recorded in
Kanezane’s journal.
25
What this meant for Japanese astrology was that
astrological reports tended towards the comprehensive: lists of all the
prognostications for a particular sign from multiple sources were
combined with a conclusion that emphasized the ambiguity possible when

23
A translation of Sima Qian’s treatise can be found in the appendix of David W.
Pankenier, Astrology and Cosmology in Early China: Conforming Earth to Heaven
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), which also discusses the
development of the theories of pre-Han astrology.
24
The other works were the two Treatises on the Heavens found in the Han and Jin
Histories, a chart of constellations called the Sanjia buzan, and a divination
guidebook now lost referred to as Han Yang yaoji. TempyÀ-hÀji 1/11/9 kyaku,
Kokushi Taikei Hensankai, eds., RuijÌ sandai kyaku Kokushi taikei vol. 13
(Yoshikawa KÀbunkan, 1979).
25
GyokuyÀ Bunji 1 (1185-1186) /1/12 and Bunji 5 (1189-1190) /3/17, Kokusho
sÀsho kangyÀkai, eds., GyokuyÀ 3 vols. (Tokyo: MeichÀ kangyÀkai, 1998).

Ptolemy and Sima Qian in Eleventh-Century Japan 39
multiple authorities—as collected in a later anthology—were all considered
relevant and correct. This can be seen in astrological reports that survive
from the Heian Period, as the one translated below:

Respectfully announced:
This month on the twenty-third day, Yin-Fire Rooster: at dawn in the
double-hour of the Tiger [3 AM – 5 AM], the moon eclipsed the second-
star of kui of the Southern Dipper.
26

Respectfully searched:
The Tianwen yaolu states: the moon is the spirit of the great yin, the
symbol of a female sovereign. The Southern Dipper is the court from
which the Son of Heaven, through virtuous authority, ensures smooth
governance. Divination states: When the moon invades the Southern
Dipper, in the palace precincts loose words arise and the grand minister is
exiled. The Chifeng fubiao states: the small people cause a large battle. The
wise minister flees. Two years do not pass. The Three Spirits Record
states: When the moon enters the Southern Dipper, it hides the great wind
and rain. The five grains are hurt by drought, and many people die from
famine. Li Feng’s Mirror states: When the moon enters the Southern
Dipper’s kui dipper, the honored person comes to grief. Thieves enter the
palace. One year does not pass.
The Tiandi ruixiang zhi states:
When the moon invades the Southern Dipper, thieves enter the palace. It
also states: Rebellious ministers revise the Son of Heaven’s laws. The
time, if it is soon, is thirty days. [Even] if it is distant, three years do not
pass. The Yisi-zhan states: When the moon enters and eclipses [the stars of]
the Southern Dipper, the general falls ill. The noble woman faces
misfortune. The period is sixty days. If [the period is] distant, a year does
not pass.
The following anomaly is respectfully announced and respectfully
memorialized.
Second year of Eiman [1166], second month, twenty-eighth day.
[Signed:]
Junior Fifth Rank (Higher Grade) Acting Instructor of Observational
Astrology, Abe no Noritoshi
Junior Fourth Rank (Higher Grade) Royal Attendant and Assistant Head of
the Bureau of On’yÀ, Abe no Yasuchika.
27

26
This is a designation in a 60-day cycle (kanshi) that combines the twelve
elements of the “earthly branches” (Chinese Zodiac) with a yin or yang-inflected
sign from the ten “heavenly stems” (the Five Phases combined with yin and yang).
While this information could be and was used for prediction and divination, it was
also a way of keeping track of days using a steady 60-day cycle in the face of
variable month and year lengths found in a Chinese-style lunisolar calendar.
27
Yasuchika ason-ki Eiman 2 (1166)/2/28.

Chapter Two

40
Of the sources which appear in the above report, some do not survive to
this day and are unknown aside from their appearances in quotations
today. Of these lost sources, it is unclear whether they even made it to
Japan as more than quotations in compendia which are better documented,
primarily the Tianwen yaolu and Tiandi ruixiang zhi cited above.
Furthermore, the prognostications are widely varied: while many of the
sources do use a logic similar to that described in Sima Qian, of reading
cosmological symbolism for the astronomical bodies involved in the
phenomena (women, ministers, and other yin referents for the moon; the
palace for the kui asterism), less specific but still severe misfortunes such
as rebellion and famine also appear prominently. This particular report is
of note because it, unlike most other surviving reports, was appended with
a note that “proved” the accuracy of the prognostication: the illness and
death of a retired provincial governor, which was linked to the specific
prediction of “the general falls ill” from the Yishi-zhan text. That the
report could be read in such a flexible way—selecting only one of many
prognostications and substituting a civilian official for the military one—
implies that the cosmological underpinnings of these predictions were felt
only weakly and in the most general sense.
Although there may be little evidence in records of the practice of
observational astrology in Japan for popular or even regular engagement
with a larger cosmology as found in early Chinese texts, this did not mean
that observational astrology was easily displaced at court. As in the case of
calendrical astronomy, observational astrology was an institutionalized
part of the Japanese state bureaucracy; furthermore, evidence concerning
debates over proper procedure in the twelfth century, and surviving
astrological reports dating even into the seventeenth century, shows the
tenacious nature of the practice. As popular as horoscopic astrology was
amongst the nobles of the eleventh-century court, it did not replace or even
significantly change the practice of observational astrology as preserved in
the historical record. Given the disparate methodologies and difference in
the practices used between the horoscopic astrologers and the
observational astrologers, one possible explanation is that these two forms
of astrology operated in distinct and separate spheres, and thus coexisted
without interaction. This is an easy conclusion to draw, given the paucity
of evidence for debates between astrologers of the two schools, in direct
contrast between the well-documented evidence of conflict between
horoscopic astrologers and the court's official calendrical astronomers on
matters such as eclipse prediction and determining the length of months.
Yet there is some evidence to the contrary.

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Title: The Fun Library, vol. 8: Stage, Study & Studio
Editor: J. A. Hammerton
Illustrator: Frederick Barnard
H. M. Bateman
Philip Baynes
J. L. C. Booth
W. S. Brunton
George Du Maurier
Ernest Henry Griset
William Haselden
Charles Keene
John Leech
Thomas Maybank
Phil May
Charles Pears
J. Gordon Thomson
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Please see the Transcriber’s Notes at
the end of this text. The texts inside
some of the illustrations may be read by
clicking on the caption.

ThÉ Artist.—It’s no good making that noise, my
good fellow. As I told you just now, being a
landscape-painter, I don’t want models.
(From a drawing by Philip Baynes.)

The Fun Library
Edited by
J.A. Hammerton
Editor of the

Punch Library
of Humour
STAGE, STUDY & STUDIO
As pictured by FrÉd Barnard, W. S. Brunton, GÉorgÉ du MauriÉr,
ErnÉst GrisÉt, CharlÉs KÉÉnÉ, John LÉÉch, Phil May, Gordon Thomson ,
H. M. BatÉman, J. L. C. Booth, W. K. HasÉldÉn , Philié BaynÉs, Thomas
Maybank, CharlÉs PÉars, and many other humorists of the pencil.
LONDON: EDUCATIONAL BOOK CO L
td

T
PREFACE
he life of what still passes in London for “Bohemia”—in and about the theatres, the
studios and the literary clubs—figures conspicuously in the pictorial humour of our
time. It is but natural that the artist in search of inspiration should occasionally turn
his attention to his own immediate surroundings, and find subjects for his art in the comic
representation of his fellows of the brush and pencil, his friends the authors and the
actors, and not infrequently, himself! Some of the most pointed jokes of Keene, Du
Maurier and Phil May introduced “the artist,” and in the case of the last mentioned he
usually depicted his own form and features, as Cruikshank was fond of doing more than
half a century before him.
This tradition has been well maintained among the artists of a later day. We shall find
that a very considerable proportion of the humorous art of the moment concerns itself
with the sayings and doings of our Bohemians—a term, by the way, that indicates a very
mild and inoffensive variety of an almost extinct type of character.
The Bohemian of the twentieth century is a much more wholesome person than his
prototype of the middle of the nineteenth. He may be still as irresponsible, as
unconventional in his manners, but he is at least clean and less apt to degenerate into the
“sponger.” He of the older generation provided picturesque material for the humorist of the
pencil; but the stage, the study, and the studio still furnish much matter for mirth, as the
admirable work of Mr. W. K. Haselden, Mr. Bert Thomas, Mr. H. M. Bateman, Mr. J. L. C.
Booth, Mr. Charles Pears, and other living artists of note, represented in the present
collection, bear ample witness.
It is obvious from the Index that this volume contains a most representative survey of
its subject, and is probably second-to-none in ThÉ Fun Library for the high spirits and good
humour which it reflects. The collection ranges from the day of Cruikshank onward, and
presents many examples of such talented artists of the past as Fred Barnard, Du Maurier,
Keene, Leech, Phil May, Doyle, and many others, as well as examples of Mr. Gordon
Thomson, the veteran survivor of the merry men who made Fun and Judy serious rivals of
Punch fifty years ago.
The sources from which the illustrations have been drawn are much the same as those
that have provided the other volumes of ThÉ Fun Library. In the present volume there is a
particularly fine selection from the work of Mr. Haselden, reprinted here by special
permission of the editor of The Daily Mirror, and it also contains an important series by the
late Phil May, reprinted by arrangement with The Sketch, while we are indebted to Mr.
Gilbert Dalziel for permission to use a considerable number of excellent items from Fun
and Judy, with which journals he was so long and honourably associated. To Mr. Punch’s
collections of the “’sixties” we owe the numerous examples of Leech, Keene and Du
Maurier at their best.
In brief, it may be claimed for “Stage, Study and Studio” that the collection is fully up
to the high standard we have sought to maintain in all the volumes of ThÉ Fun Library.
J. A. H.

INDEX TO THE ILLUSTRATIONS
TO THE ILLUSTRATIONS
PANTOMIMICS

PAGE
Rehearsing the “fish” ballet 1
Billy and Bunny 3
Winning the gloves 4
Modern languages taught in
one lesson 5
Theatre Royal—Nursery 6
An ex(bus)horse-tive argument 7
A pict-ure 8
A swallow out of season 9
“With a neck like that” 11
Experienced young fellow 12
Two transformation scenes 13
Not the correct way of pudding
it 15
Humanizing influence of
pantomime 16
ON THE STAGE AND OFF

Prompt but not prepared 17
A wordless story 18
English as she is spoke 23
Cassius 24
Acting under difficulties 25
Ever-popular criminal on the
stage 27
On the stage—and off 28-9
When actors are Members of
Parliament 31
When actors become modest 32
“Still running” 33
The part of Hamlet 34
Good and bad business at the
theatre 35
“A little padding” 37
The actor’s one topic—himself 39
A side-box talk 40
The bald baron 41-4
FUN AT THE PLAY

“Are you sitting on my hat?” 45
Delights of theatre-going 46-7
“Not so long as four solos” 49
A little ruse 50
A morning concert 52
Pit, boxes, and gallery 54
Playgoers and their
eccentricities 56
Credit where credit is due 57
A “civil” retort 58
AMONG THE AMATEURS

At a fancy ball 61
Private theatricals 63
Private theatricals at the
Titwillows’ 65
THE POETS’ CORNER

Portrait of a gentleman 67
The poets illustrated 69
No! Don’t 70
The poets illustrated 74
“Mariar Martin, or the Red
Baarn” 75
An illustrated edition of the
poets 77-9
Poets and their patrons 80
MAINLY ABOUT AUTHORS

Would-be novelist 85
Lady Audley’s secret 86
Perfect sincerity, or, thinkings
aloud 88
The ancient Britons 88
A rural study 89
“The great cypher work” 90
Author’s miseries 92-7
Harris-ing reflections 99
“Hemily Fitz-Hosborn” 100
THE EDITOR IN HIS DEN

The editor at home 101
Romance of advertising 103
“Pirates surprised at sunset” 104
Fancy portrait—Oliver Twist 105
A fact! 106
A new reading 111
STUDIES FROM THE STUDY

“He’s sent the books” 113
Returned—with thanks 114
A queer cut 115
The pursuit of letters 116
Grand march of Intellect 116
Catalogue of the letter P. 117
The age of intellect 118
Subject for a picture 119
An awful apparition 121
The musical neighbour 123
British Museum catalogue 124
Analytical papers 125
“Couldn’t read Miss Frump’s
new book” 127
The philosopher’s revenge 129-136
FUN IN THE STUDIO

“Present company always
excepted!” 137
“Very tiring” 138
Wholesale 139
“Qualifications” 140
Behind the scenes 141
“Asking for it” 142
The commercial side 143
Gaddy’s academy picture on
view 144
“Flattering” 145
Profession and practice 146
A rapid genius 147
“English langweege” 148
“Only their mothers” 149
For exhibition? 150
Pretty innocent 151
“Aye, there’s the rub!” 152
“Work hard and get your own
living” 153
March of science 154
The real 154
Pleasures of the studio 155
A happy medium 155
The ideal 156
Two principal figures 157
Answers for our artist 158
The mother of invention 159
Kindly meant 160
“Where’s your beard?” 160
How some old painters must
have worked 161
Studio persuasion 162
“A portrait painter” 163
Model husband and a lay figure 164
Marvellous! 165

A visit to the studio 166
Scene in a studio 167
Ballet of action 168
Turps v. Turpitude 169
One use for “Dundrearys” 169
Accommodating! 170
“Lucky fellow!!” 171
“Noblesse oblige!” 172
Our art-school conversazione 173
“Only one spur a-piece” 174
“Sharp’s the word” 175
The sympathies of art 176
Under a great master 176
“Sent it to the wash!” 177
“Ugly and as ridiculous as
possible” 178
Perfect sincerity; or, thinkings
aloud 179
Easily satisfied 180
Compliments of the season 181
“Skyed” 182
ROUND THE GALLERIES

Caution 183
Painters and gazers 185
An artist’s dream 186
“Athletic exercises” 187
Let them exhibit their pictures
outside 188
Pleasures of the Royal Academy 189
Art in the National Gallery 190
Outside the Royal Academy 191
Charming fashion of long skirts 192
“Unto this last” 193
“Very like—very like” 194
The umbrella question 195
Pictures of the English, painted
by the French 196
A-musing 197
Perhaps 198
Reception of pictures at Royal
Academy 199
Our historical portrait gallery 200-1
A study 202
Overheard at the Academy 203
Suggestions for the Royal
Academy catalogue 206
THE ARTIST OUT OF DOORS

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Astrology In Time And Place 1st Edition Nicholas Campion Dorian Gieseler Greenbaum

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