Qizheng Siyu
Qizheng Siyu (Chinese: 七政四餘; pinyin: qī zhèng sì yú), translated variously as Seven Regulators and Four Remainders, Seven Rulers and Four Auxiliaries, or Seven Regulators and Four Shadows, is a Chinese horoscopic astrological system that integrates native Chinese astronomical concepts with astral sciences transmitted from India and the Islamic world. The system tracks eleven celestial bodies: seven "regulators" (Chinese: 七政) comprising the Sun, the Moon, and the five visible planets, plus four "shadow" bodies (Chinese: 四餘) computed from astronomical relationships. Together these eleven bodies are known as the Eleven Luminaries (Chinese: 十一曜; pinyin: shí yī yào).
The system was primarily developed during the Tang dynasty (618–907 CE) and Yuan dynasty (1271–1368 CE), as Chinese practitioners synthesized native astronomical knowledge with astral sciences transmitted via Buddhist textual channels and through Mongol-era cultural exchange with the Islamic world.
History
[edit]Native Chinese antecedents
[edit]The system developed on top of an indigenous Chinese observational framework of considerable antiquity. Star names later organised into the twenty-eight mansions (Chinese: 二十八宿; pinyin: èrshíbā xiù) appear on oracle bones excavated at Anyang and dating to the mid-Shang dynasty, and the core of the mansion system had taken shape by the reign of King Wu Ding (1250–1192 BCE).[1] A lacquered clothing chest recovered in 1977 from the Tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng at Suixian in Hubei bears the full set of twenty-eight mansion names on its lid, showing the scheme to have been complete before 433 BCE.[2]
Indian and Buddhist transmission
[edit]Two of the system's shadow bodies, Rahu and Ketu, were originally an Indian concept, the lunar nodes;[3] together with the seven classical planets they make up the Navagraha, the nine planets of Indian astrology.[4] Foreign astrology of this kind was being applied in China by Buddhist and Daoist clerics during the Tang dynasty.[5]
A key text in this transmission is the Jiuzhi li (Chinese: 九執曆; lit. 'Nine Seizers Canon'), an 8th-century Chinese translation of an Indian astronomical treatise attributed to Qutan Xida (瞿曇悉達), an astronomer of Indian descent serving at the Tang imperial court.[6] The translation, completed in 718, assumed a spherical Earth, a feature that does not appear to have been incorporated into the technical framework of Chinese horoscopy.[7]
The Buddhist monk Amoghavajra (不空三藏, 705–774 CE) further disseminated Indian astral knowledge through translations of Buddhist astral compendia, including treatises on the nakshatra lunar mansions of the Indian tradition and on planetary influences, which established the framework of nine luminaries (Chinese: 九曜; pinyin: jiǔ yào) within Chinese Buddhist practice.[8] This pattern of transmission is corroborated by broader surveys of astronomical material preserved in Chinese translations of the Buddhist canon.[9]
Hellenistic and Islamic transmission
[edit]A parallel channel brought Hellenistic and Persian–Islamic horoscopic methods to China. The Duli Yusi Jing (Chinese: 都利聿斯經), a Chinese adaptation of Western astrological material possibly derived from the tradition of Dorotheus of Sidon, was among the earliest texts to introduce horoscopic birth-chart methodology into the Chinese tradition.[10] Bill M. Mak identifies this text as central to understanding how "Western" astral science, transmitted via Central Asian and Persian intermediaries, shaped the emerging Chinese horoscopic tradition.[11] Jeffrey Kotyk argues that a significant portion of Chinese horoscopy derives from material traced back to Dorotheus, transmitted via Indo-Iranian intermediaries, and that this translation became the foundation for East Asian horoscopy.[12]
During the Tang dynasty, East Syriac Christian (Nestorian) scholars played a documented role in this transmission. The Li family (李氏), Nestorian astronomers active at the Tang court, are associated with the compilation of the Yusi Jing (聿斯經) and related astrological texts.[13]
During the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368), astrological texts in Arabic were brought to China, and Marco Polo reported that the Mongol capital hosted some five thousand astrologers of Christian, Muslim and Chinese backgrounds; government translations of Arabic astrological works, however, appear to have been made only under the following Ming dynasty.[14]
Ming and Qing dynasties
[edit]Horoscopic practice within the Qizheng Siyu framework remained widespread among Ming-dynasty literati.[15] This is exemplified by astrological compendia such as Xingxue dacheng (星學大成) by Wan Minying (萬民英, 1521–1603).[16]
Jesuit astronomers, invited to the Ming and early Qing court, took charge of the Imperial Astronomical Bureau (Chinese: 欽天監; pinyin: Qīntiān Jiān) beginning in 1644 and reformed the official calendar using Tychonic astronomical methods.[17]
The system
[edit]Seven Regulators
[edit]The seven regulators (Chinese: 七政; pinyin: qī zhèng) are the seven classical celestial bodies visible to the naked eye, named according to the Five Phases system:[18]
| Chinese | Pinyin | Body | Literal meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 日 | Rì | Sun | Sun |
| 月 | Yuè | Moon | Moon |
| 金星 | Jīnxīng | Venus | Metal Star |
| 木星 | Mùxīng | Jupiter | Wood Star |
| 水星 | Shuǐxīng | Mercury | Water Star |
| 火星 | Huǒxīng | Mars | Fire Star |
| 土星 | Tǔxīng | Saturn | Earth Star |
Four Shadows
[edit]The four shadows or remainders (Chinese: 四餘; pinyin: sì yú) are bodies not directly observable but computed from astronomical relationships. Two derive from the Indian Navagraha tradition, and two are virtual bodies calculated from fixed cycles:[19][3]
| Chinese | Pinyin | Name | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| 羅睺 | Luóhóu | Rahu | Descending lunar node; derived from Indian Rāhu |
| 計都 | Jìdū | Ketu | Ascending lunar node (interpretations vary); derived from Indian Ketu |
| 月孛 | Yuèbó | Lunar Apogee | The lunar apogee, the point in the Moon's orbit farthest from Earth |
| 紫炁 | Zǐqì | Ziqi | A calculated virtual body determined by a fixed cycle and reference point, without a direct correspondence to a single observable orbital phenomenon |
See also
[edit]References
[edit]Citations
[edit]- ↑ Needham 1959, p. 242.
- ↑ Sun & Kistemaker 1997, pp. 16–19.
- 1 2 Kotyk 2018, p. 20.
- ↑ Kotyk 2018, p. 36.
- ↑ Kotyk 2018, p. 1.
- ↑ Mak 2023a, p. 352.
- ↑ Kotyk 2018, p. 28.
- ↑ Mak 2023b, p. 363.
- ↑ Niu 2024.
- ↑ Mak 2014, pp. 105–106.
- ↑ Mak 2014, p. 108.
- ↑ Kotyk 2018, pp. 2, 17–18.
- ↑ Mak 2016, p. 87.
- ↑ Kotyk 2018, p. 22.
- ↑ Kotyk 2018, p. 23.
- ↑ Kotyk 2019, p. 6.
- ↑ Liu 2020.
- ↑ Kotyk 2018, pp. 20, 30.
- ↑ Mak 2015, p. 62.
Sources
[edit]- Kotyk, Jeffrey (2018). "The Sinicization of Indo-Iranian Astrology in Medieval China" (PDF). Sino-Platonic Papers (282): 1–95.
- Kotyk, Jeffrey (2019). "Chinese and English Horoscopy in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries: The Astrological Doctrines of the Twelve Houses and the Lot of Fortune in Xingxue dacheng 星學大成 by Wan Minying 萬民英 (1521–1603) and Christian Astrology by William Lilly (1602–1681)". International Journal of Divination and Prognostication. 1 (1). Brill: 3–35.
- Liu, Liyuan (2020). "When Missionary Astronomy Encountered Chinese Astrology: Johann Adam Schall von Bell and Chinese Calendar Reform in the Seventeenth Century". Physics in Perspective. 22: 110–126. doi:10.1007/s00016-020-00255-z.
- Mak, Bill M. (2014). "Yusi Jing – A Treatise of 'Western' Astral Science in Chinese and its Versified Version Xitian Yusi Jing". SCIAMVS. 15: 105–169.
- Mak, Bill M. (2015). "The Transmission of Buddhist Astral Science from India to East Asia: The Central Asian Connection". Historia Scientiarum. 24 (2): 59–75.
- Mak, Bill M. (2016). "Astral Science of the East Syriac Christians in China during the Late First Millennium AD". Mediterranean Archaeology and Archaeometry. 16 (4): 87–92.
- Mak, Bill M. (2023a). "An 8th-Century CE Indian Astronomical Treatise in Chinese: The Nine Seizers Canon by Qutan Xida". Plurilingualism in Traditional Eurasian Scholarship. Leiden: Brill. pp. 352–362.
- Mak, Bill M. (2023b). "Two 8th-Century CE Recensions of Amoghavajra's Buddhist Astral Compendium: Treatise on Lunar Mansions and Planets". Plurilingualism in Traditional Eurasian Scholarship. Leiden: Brill. pp. 363–375.
- Needham, Joseph (1959). Science and Civilisation in China, Volume 3: Mathematics and the Sciences of the Heavens and the Earth. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. OCLC 779676.
- Niu, Weixing (2024). "On Astronomical Materials in Buddhist Scriptures". Religions. 15 (11): 1321. doi:10.3390/rel15111321.
- Sun, Xiaochun; Kistemaker, Jacob (1997). The Chinese Sky During the Han: Constellating Stars and Society. Leiden: Brill. ISBN 90-04-10737-1.
Further reading
[edit]- Kotyk, Jeffrey (2017). "Can Monks Practice Astrology? Astrology and the Vinaya in China". In Andrews, Susan; Chen, Jinhua; Liu, Cuilan (eds.). Rules of Engagement: Medieval Traditions of Buddhist Monastic Regulation. Hamburg: Hamburg University Press. pp. 503–517.
- Morgan, Daniel Patrick (2017). Astral Sciences in Early Imperial China: Observation, Sagehood and the Individual. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.