Arab and Indian Lunar Stations

The Arab tradition of astrology utilizes a system of twenty-eight lunar stations  (otherwise called “lunar mansions”) called al-manāzil or manāzil al-ḳamar. There is no such parallel system to be found in Mesopotamian or Hellenistic Greek sources, but there exists an ancient Indian system of twenty-eight lunar stations, called nakṣatras.

What is a lunar station? The Moon revolves around the earth over the course of 27.32 days and it therefore appears from a standpoint on Earth to “lodge” in twenty-seven or twenty-eight positions throughout its circuit. The Chinese devised their own unique system of lunar stations (二十八宿) independent of any foreign influences, although during the twentieth century there was much scholarly debate on this matter, even in Japan, with some arguing for a Babylonian origin. The present evidence, however, indicates that Indian and Chinese civilizations created their systems separate from one another. This point is easily demonstrated by the fact that the system established by the Chinese court in Antiquity does not correspond to any documented system of nakṣatras.

It is important to note that the original systems of Indian nakṣatras and Chinese lunar stations divided the ecliptic or celestial equator into uneven zones. The former, however, was redeveloped following the introduction of Hellenistic astrology and astronomy during the fourth to fifth centuries CE. The zodiac signs are each uniformly comprised of 30°, thus dividing a 360° ecliptic into twelve even zones. At some point in the history of Indian astronomy someone devised a method of bringing together the nakṣatras and the zodiac signs into a coherent and workable model. 

This revised system was the navāṃsas or ninths of a zodiac sign, in which 27 sidereal nakṣatras are employed (the nakṣatra of Abhijit is dropped). The ecliptic is comprised of 108 pādas (quarters), with each zodiac sign comprised of 9 pādas. 108/28 = 3.85, but 27 divides into integers (108/27 = 4). 360°/27 moreover gives a manageable 13°20. In short, lunar stations of uneven dimensions were reformatted to fit into a sidereal zodiacal system of 360°.

The Sassanian Persians, perhaps during the third century CE, adopted the nakṣatras into their system of astrology (called xwurdag in Pahlavī or Middle Persian). These are listed in the Zoroastrian Bundahish, a late Pahlavī work on Zoroastrian cosmogony and cosmology (see chapter II.2 here).

Did the Arab tradition acquire the concept of lunar stations from the Persians after the conquest of the Sassanian empire during the early-seventh century, or perhaps earlier from the Indians? This is a question that nobody has been able to satisfactorily answer, but here we might consider some aspects of the Arab manāzil.

As Kunitzsch in the Encyclopedia of Islam (Brill) notes, the Arabs named the lunar stations after their anwāʾ . The full list is reported by ʿAbd al-Mālik b. Ḥabīb (d. 852). The anwāʾ collectively refer to the evening setting and heliacal rising of specific stars or constellations for the purposes of estimating the passage of time.

Unlike the navāṃsas, the manāzil are tropical (i.e., they are defined according to the vernal equinox, rather than fixed stars). There are also twenty-eight, each comprised of approximately 12°51. Why would they be tropical rather than sidereal? Unlike Indian astronomy, the Arabs adopted the tropical zodiac, most likely based on the work of Claudius Ptolemy (2nd century CE). If the manāzil were based on the navāṃsas, it would have made sense to define the lunar stations using tropical rather than sidereal parameters.

Another interesting point to note is that the sequences of the manāzil and nakṣatras follow a very similar order:

1. al-s̲h̲araṭān

2. al-buṭayn

3. al-t̲h̲urayyā (the Pleiades)

4. al-dabarān

1. Aśvinī

2. Bharaṇī

3. Kṛttikā (the Pleiades)

4. Rohiṇī

The oldest model of nakṣatras commenced from Kṛttikā, but later the sequence was revised with Aśvinī at the start. The reason behind this was likely to ensure that the starting nakṣatra would line up with the vernal equinox (the nakṣatras were still sidereal by definition however). The fact that the manāzil and nakṣatras both count their third lunar station as the Pleiades is either a remarkable coincidence or an indication that the former borrowed from the latter.

Why isn’t it possible at present to come to a definitive conclusion regarding the history of the lunar stations? There is simply a paucity of evidence. I suspect we could easily solve the problem at hand if we had access to astrological and astronomical materials from Sassanian Iran, but unfortunately the extant material is quite scarce and moreover not from works written by professional astronomers. 

We know that the Sassanian Persians had a deep interest in astrology, in light of the testimonies of later Arab sources. One key work in this regard is the Kitāb al-Fihrist (especially chapter 7.1 & 7.2), a catalog of texts by Ibn al-Nadim (c. 987–988). He records that the Sasanian king Šāpur I (r. 239–270) translated into Persian the books of Dorotheus and Ptolemy as well as an Indian named “Farmāsib”. These works in Persian are now lost to us, but they show that early Sassanian Iran brought together Hellenistic and Indian works (hence their concurrent use of zodiac signs and lunar stations). Early Arab astrologers utilized Persian works to a great extant, but as far as I know, we cannot identify the source of the manāzil from their writings.

Dorotheus in East Asia

Dorotheus of Sidon (c. 75 CE) was arguably one of the most influential authors on astrology in Antiquity, standing alongside Claudius Ptolemy (2^nd cent. CE), author of the Almagest and Tetrabiblos, as a sort of canonized figure in classical horoscopy. Dorothean astrology is predicated on a theoretical framework of fate in which planetary configurations and movements signal predestined developments. Ptolemaic astrology, in contrast, is based on a materialist cosmology in which planetary influences are conceived of as impersonal physical forces affecting the Earth and its inhabitants. The approach of Ptolemy it seems was rather unusual among Hellenistic astrologers, but nevertheless his work became standard among later Arab and European astrologers.

Dorotheus’ work, unfortunately, is only partially extant in Arabic translation. We do, however, possess Latin, Greek and Chinese fragments. Dorotheus’ work was first translated into Pahlavī (Middle Persian) from Greek during the early years of the Sassanian dynasty in Iran between 222–267. This version was later expanded between 531–578, and then around the year 800, this recension was translated into Arabic by ‘Umar al-Tabarī. It was curiously around the same time that a certain figure named Li Miqian 李彌乾 (d.u.), said to hail from Western India (Xi Tianzhu 西天竺), brought an astrological text to China, which was subsequently translated between 785–805 with the title in Chinese Duli yusi jing 都利聿斯經.

Some modern scholars in Japan in recent decades identified fragments of this text. Yano Michio suggested that it might have been a transcription of “Ptolemy”, but Bill M. Mak in 2014 argued on the basis of the fragments and a very short versified version of the original text that this work was most likely that of Dorotheus. My recent dissertation in 2017 (see here, pages 124–139) examined a number of additional fragments of Dorotheus in a Daoist astrological work of the ninth or early tenth century, especially those concerning lots.[1] 

Lots or κλῆροι refer to a technique in which the distance between two planets or otherwise two points in a chart are measured and then that same distance is applied from the ascendant in the same direction. The degree or more generally the zodiac sign upon which the end of that distance falls is designated as a lot. The lot in question will deal with some concern, such as parents or marriage.

Being illiterate in Arabic, I was forced to depend upon David Pingree’s translation from 1976. In some cases the Chinese matched up with Pingree’s translation so well that it was very clear that the Chinese text in question was derived from Dorotheus. For example, the following remark is given concerning the lot of the mother in the Daoist text:

日月同在翻復宮，又居東方，此人父母不同類。

If the Sun and the Moon are in tropical signs, and also [a tropical sign] is resident in the East [at the ascendant], then this person’s parents will be of different types.

Pingree’s translation (1976: 174) of the section in Dorotheus concerning the lot of the mother reads, “If you find the Sun and the Moon in tropical signs, and the ascendant is a tropical sign, then the parents of this native are not from one race … .”

The term fanfu gong 翻復宮, literally “tropical palace” (“palace” means “sign”), in the Chinese refers to tropical or solstitial signs, i.e., Cancer and Capricorn. These are the positions in which the Sun seems to “turns” in its apparent motion during the solstices. The Chinese rendering of fanfu 翻復, literally “turning” or “reversing”, actually semantically reflects the original Greek term τροπικός quite well. Similarly, in English we have the term “tropical”, which is etymologically derived from the same Greek word.

I consulted Pingree’s translation, but last year Benjamin N. Dykes published his translation of the Arabic translation of Dorotheus. He renders the aforementioned line as follows (Dykes 2017: 84):

Now if you found the Sun and Moon in convertible signs, and the Ascendant in a convertible sign, then the parents of that native will not be of one [and the same] nationality …

Dykes’ translation is far more readable than Pingree’s. Dykes also provides numerous footnotes, comments and a solid introduction to the work with many references to other relevant texts of Antiquity and the Medieval period. Although I cannot evaluate the quality of the translation, Dykes has a PhD from the University of Illinois and has published numerous translations of Latin and Arabic texts, so I have no reason to doubt his ability to translate the material.

Returning to the Chinese, we might wonder from which language was the Chinese version of Dorotheus produced? Although it is vaguely conceivable that the Arabic translation of ‘Umar al-Tabarī could have been brought to China shortly after its production, this is highly unlikely for the simple reason that there were no documented translators who were bilingual in Arabic and Chinese and moreover familiar with astrology at this point in history. At the time, however, there were plenty of ethnically Persian men who had been born and raised in China. Some of them even worked at court directly under the Emperor. It is therefore most likely that a Pahlavī translation of Dorotheus was used as the source text for the Chinese. Whether it was the same text that ‘Umar al-Tabarī used is an interesting question, but I have no good answer for this. What I can say is that the translator(s) of the original Chinese text, judging from its fragments in Chinese and also Japanese sources, were quite capable and systematic in their work. The readability of the translation would have facilitated its popularity in China.

At the moment I am carrying out a research project concerning the sinicization of Indo-Iranian astrology in Medieval China (eighth to sixteenth centuries). I am examining Dorothean and Ptolemaic sources of astrology in Chinese translation, in addition to considering the types of nakṣatra astrology (originally Indian, but Iranians also adopted it) studied by Chinese astrologers throughout the centuries. 

With respect to horoscopy specifically, I’ve settled on calling it “Indo-Iranian”, since Chinese astrologers built their traditions upon Indian and Iranian sources, in addition to adding their own uniquely Chinese concepts and interpretations. Although Dorothean horoscopy is originally Hellenistic, it is simply more accurate to call it “Iranian” once it reached China, and moreover it was integrated into a system that simultaneously utilized nakṣatra lore. This is why I think we best just call this type of horoscopy “Indo-Iranian”. Chinese writers by the fourteenth century interestingly forgot about the originally foreign origin of their horoscopy, so by that point it had become sufficiently sinicized that we could securely call their horoscopy simply as “Chinese horoscopy”.

In some forthcoming publications I will demonstrate the depth of Dorothean astrology in East Asia. One of the points I want to make is that East Asia was as much heir to Dorotheus’ work as was the Arabic world. More than that, East Asia was also as much heir to Persian astrology as was the Arabic tradition. 

The study of horoscopy in East Asia is really in its infancy when we consider that there are extant manuals that comprise hundreds of pages. Few of them have been read by modern scholars. In order to make sense of them, you need to read Classical Chinese in addition to understanding classical horoscopy. There are also numerous social dynamics that we ought to consider. There were plenty of poets and literati in the Tang and Song dynasties (particularly between the ninth and eleventh centuries) who wrote about horoscopy. This art was clearly a part of aristocratic society until at least the seventeenth century when some Jesuit influences begin to appear. The deeper I dig into this topic, the more I realize the scale of what needs to be done.

Dykes, Benjamin N. 2017. Dorotheus of Sidon: Carmen Astrologicum, The ‘Umar al-Tabarī Translation. Minneapolis: The Cazimi Press.

Kotyk, Jeffrey. 2017. “Buddhist Astrology and Astral Magic in the Tang Dynasty.” PhD dissertation, Leiden University.

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.

Pingree, David. 1976. Dorothei Sidonii Carmen astrologicum: interpretationem arabicam in linguam anglicam versam una cum Dorothei fragmentis et graecis et latinis. Leipzig: Teubner.

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[1] Lingtai jing 靈臺經 (DZ 288) or Scripture of the Spiritual Terrace.