ABSTRACT

Astronomy in premodern East Asia was not simply a precursor of modern science. It developed a distinctive style and structure that distinguish it particularly from astronomy in Western civilizations. First, astronomy in East Asia had an important political function. It not only helped to establish royal power by legitimizing new dynasties, especially in China, but also enhanced the position of a whole line of rulers as successful preservers of cosmic order. It insured that important state rituals would be carried out at the proper time, as well as burnished the ruler’s charisma as the one who “gave the times and seasons to the people.” The political orientation of astronomy in all of the countries of the East Asian cultural sphere presents quite a contrast to the more private orientation of classical Greek astronomy.

East Asian astronomy was distinctive not just in its external political relations, but also in its internal content and structure. In contrast with Greek astronomy in particular, traditional East Asian astronomy saw the heavenly bodies not so much as objects in three-dimensional space as visible markers of the invisible order of time. Even after a spatial concept of the heavens did emerge in China during the Han era, East Asian astronomers did not rely on spatial or geometrical models in their computations, but on arithmetical or algebraic techniques instead. To the extent that metaphysical assumptions entered into this picture, they were more concerned with time cycles than with spatial relations. This, in turn, reflects the continued focus of East Asian astronomy on calendrical calculation (which was mandated by the political importance of the calendar).

Key words: “analogy of heaven,” astronomy, Babylonian astronomy, calendar, calendrical reform, Confucius, Daotong (transmission of the Way), Greek astronomy, political legitimization, sage kings