Preface
Ancient astrology was basically related to military affairs, especially those in power often made different decisions based on celestial phenomena.
During the Yuan Dynasty, before many important battles, astrologers would appear to observe the sky at night, so what exactly were they looking at?
And whether these ancient astrologs are accurate?
Controlled "stargazing"
From the 13th to the 14th centuries, a vast area stretching from the north and south of the Black Sea, the Dnieper River basin, the Pacific Ocean in the east, the Arctic Circle in the north, and the Indian Ocean in the south was placed under the control of the Mongol and Yuan dynasties.
The Silk Road in the Mongol and Yuan dynasties also became longer than in previous generations, and the difficult international traffic between many countries in the previous historical period became domestic traffic for a while. This situation has promoted cultural exchanges and ethnic integration among the various ethnic groups along the Silk Road.
With the outward expansion of the Mongols, the Mongols were massively integrated into the various ethnic groups of Eurasia; At the same time, a large number of foreign populations have migrated into Mongolia and become members of the Mongolian ethnic community that is being formed.
As early as 1923, Mr. Chen Yuan wrote "Examination of the Chinese Transformation of the People of the Western Yuan Regions", which explained the fact that under the situation of the great unification of the Yuan Dynasty, foreigners from Central and Western Asia and people of various ethnic groups in the northwest came to Chinese mainland, came into contact with the culture of the Central Plains, and integrated into China. Since then, in the past century, the academic community has made fruitful achievements in the study of cultural exchanges and ethnic integration between China and the West in the Yuan Dynasty. Regarding the astrologers of the Western Regions who moved eastward during the Mongol and Yuan dynasties, the predecessors have been involved.
In 1981, Lu Sixian and Li Di combined documentary records and relevant archaeological data to discuss the astronomical contact between China and the Arab world during the period of Möngke Khan and Kublai Khan, including the Arab astronomers who came to the court of Mongol Khan.
In 1990, Li Di also mentioned that the scholar Zamaruddin came to Möngke Khan in 1249-1254 and brought with him the "Principles of Geometry" translated by the famous Arab astronomer Nasuziddin Tusi in the 13th century, which had a great impact on the development of Chinese astronomy in the Yuan Dynasty.
In 1992, Chen Jing discussed the eastward arrival of the Huihui Tiansuan, the establishment of the Huihui Astronomical Institution in the early Yuan Dynasty, the work of the Yuanhui Tiansuan, and the exchange between the Central Plains and the Western Regions in the Yuan Dynasty.
In 1993, Jiang Xiaoyuan discussed the astronomical exchanges between the East and the West from Genghis Khan to Kublai Khan and their influence on Chinese astronomy during the Yuan Dynasty, which involved many astrologers and astronomers in the court of the Mongol and Yuan Khans.
Recently, Zhou Sicheng has made a detailed argument on the use of "birth astrology" and physiognomy by the Mongol Great Khan and the Yuan Dynasty emperor. In addition, Ye Xinmin's "A Preliminary Study of Yin and Yang in the Yuan Dynasty" expounds the Yin and Yang of the Yuan Dynasty in a more profound way, and the "Cultural History of the Yuan Dynasty" written by Chen Gaohua and others also involves related content.
The above major results of the study of astrology, physiognomy, and yin-yang science in the Mongol and Yuan dynasties help us to understand the Nestorian and Islamic astrologers and astronomers from Arabia, Persia, and Central Asia in the Mongol court, as well as the relationship between the Yuan court and yin-yang, but none of them deals with the localization of these people in the Yuan dynasty.
An astrologer in the court of the Mengyuan period
The discussion begins with an incident that occurred in 1509 around Hohan in Mongolia. After the Mongol court retreated to the steppe in 1368, after more than a century of chaos, by the end of the 15th century, Dayunqayan Khan (Dayunqayan) in the middle of Mongolia was the six nomadic groups ("60,000 households", divided into two wings) in the center of the Mongolian plateau, and sent his second son Yuan Lusi Li Luo to the right wing of Ordos Wanhu as Jinong (equivalent to deputy Hehan) to lead the right wing of 30,000 households.
The leaders of the 30,000 households on the right wing, led by Yi Buzhi, killed Yuan Lu Si Xueluo and rebelled. Therefore, Tayan Khan led an army of 30,000 households on the left flank to fight the right-hand rebels in the area of Dharantligon.
According to the anonymous "Golden History" (generally believed to have been written in the first half of the 17th century), before the battle, the two of them were divined, and "Yibu is responsible for the fire, and if you pour water on the fire, you can extinguish it." ”
So he lit a fire, poured water into a silver bowl, and poured it into the fire. The author of the "Golden History" records this incident as an important reason for the victory of the Khan in this war. The Aja Chuti mentioned here is the name of the left wing Chahar Wanhu, but the name of the Chahanza A-neighbor is not a personal name.
The Mongolian word "Caqan" means "white" and by extension means "good" and "zheng", while "jaharin" is a shaman in the original Mongolian faith, and the "Secret History of the Yuan Dynasty" translates as "divine proclamation".
In 1219, Genghis Khan made an expedition to Khorezm, and Yelu Chucai, a Khitan who originally served in the Jin Dynasty, was responsible for astrology and medicine for Hehan. He twice argued with the "historians" of the Western Regions about astronomy, and he had the upper hand.
Yelu Chucai is proficient in the Muslim astronomical calendar of the Western Regions. This may have been the first contact between Genghis Khan's astronomers in the Great Mongolia and astronomers in Central Asia, but there is no definite record of Genghis Khan's presence at one time as a large number of astrologers from the Western Regions.
According to the "History of the Yuan Dynasty", when the third Hehan Guiyou of the Great Mongolian State was a wise man of the Nestorian school (Nestorianism) by his side. "Ai Xue, a native of Flynn in the Western Regions. Fluent in the languages of the Western Regions, industrial ephemeris, medicine. The first thing is decided, and he dares to speak out. The international academic community has long concluded that Aixue is a Syrian Nestorian.
Much of the astrologers around Mongol Hehan begin with Möngke Khan. Möngke Khan was surrounded by both Xicheng astronomers and astrologers, as well as traditional Mongolian soothsayers, who often used sheep's shoulders and spleen bones for divination.
Among the astrologers around Möngke Khan, the first Persian history book "History of the World Conquerors" is Elder Din Atamollik Zhifeni, a Persian, born in 1226, who began to serve the Mongol court before the age of 20, and later became the secretary of the Mongol governor Aerhun to the provinces west of Wuhushui.
When A'erhun entered the capital of the Great Mongolian Kingdom, Hala and Lin, he took him there many times. Zhifeni's third trip to Hala and Lin was to congratulate Möngke Khan on his accession to the throne, and they stayed in Hala and Lin for a year and a half, and learned a lot about the Mongol court during Möngke's reign, and it was during this trip that he began to write his History of the World Conquerors. ”
Therefore, his account of Möngke's enthronement is very detailed and true. According to the book, in order to choose the auspicious date for Möngke Khan's accession to the throne, "a group of wise men and astrologers who attended the assembly chose the day of January 9 (July 1, 1251) in the year 649 (July 1, 1251) because, according to a map of the celestial palace, the lucky star wanted to pick up its blessings, Jupiter tried to gain its influence, and Venus used its light to make itself shine." ”
It is said that there were dark clouds and heavy rain for several days, but when the astrologers began to work, the sky suddenly changed and the astrologers began to ascend.
Light adorns the world, and darkness and gloom disappear from the ground.
"Stargazing" in history
According to the "History of the Yuan", Möngke Khan "believed in the art of witchcraft and divination, and he would knock on it carefully in all his actions, and he would never be disgusted with himself." This passage in the "History of the Yuan" is a bit exaggerated, and the so-called "witch and modern divination technique" of Meng Ke Khan's "cool letter" is actually not only pure superstition, in addition to the divination and arithmetic that includes the primitive astronomical knowledge of the northern nomads, but more importantly, it also includes astronomical knowledge from the West.
At the beginning of his reign, Kublai Khan had already used Aixue, a Syrian who was skilled in ephemeris and medicine, to serve the court during the reign of Guiyou Khan.
In the fourth year of the Central Union, he was ordered to take charge of the Western Regions Ephemeris and the Second Department of Medicine, which was later changed to the Guanghui Division, and he was still ordered to receive it. "History of the Yuan" also recorded, "When the ancestor was in the palace, there was a purpose to return to the star scholar Zama Thorn Ding and others to advance with their art, and there was no official office. In the eighth year of the Yuan Dynasty (1271), the ancestor began to return to the Tiantai of the Hui Division, "palm view of the elephant calendar", and took the spur Ding as the point.
Back to the Tiantai administrative body, in addition to mentioning points, there are 36 officials and technicians, including 18 yin and yang people.
It can be seen that this is a large observatory with considerable scale. According to previous research, the instruments (or at least the principles) used on the Tiantai of the Huihui Division were mainly from Arabia, the books were also Arabic, and the staff were all Arabic astronomers from Persia and other places who came to the Yuan Dynasty.
In the Yuan Dynasty, astronomers came to the east at the same time, astronomical books from the Western Regions were also introduced to China one after another, and 195 "Huihui Bibliography" were recorded in the book "Yuan Secretary Jian Zhi".
During the Ming Dynasty, astronomical knowledge and astrology in the Western Regions continued to be admired by the imperial court. It is reported that the Ming army leveled the capital, and obtained "tens of thousands of volumes" of books from the Yuan Dynasty, all of which were moved to Nanjing, including "hundreds of books from the Western Regions, with different words and words, and those who are incapable of knowing".
Zhu Yuanjing believed that "the Yin and Yang family of the Western Regions speculated that the celestial phenomena were extremely precise and verified, and the method of its latitude was not prepared in Chinese books", so he ordered the Qin Tianjian Ling Taro Haidar, Ada Jidin and Hui masters Ma Sha Yihei and Ma Ha Ma to publish their collections, select their celestial phenomena, yin and yang, almanacs and other translations, and ordered the Han Confucian ministers to polish their texts, and finally compiled the "Heavenly Book" in the sixteenth year of Hongwu (1383).
epilogue
The above facts prove that in the Mongol and Yuan dynasties, with the expansion of exchanges between the East and the West, the knowledge of Western Astronomy spread rapidly in China, and the disseminators were composed of two groups: one was a Christian Nestorian and the other was an Islamist.
Some of them were astronomers, and a considerable number were astronomers who mastered the so-called "huihui astrology", which was actually a magic technique heavily influenced by Greek, Arabic, and Persian astronomy. These astronomers and astrologers all came from Arabia, Persia, and Central Asia.
According to previous studies, astrology coexisted with astronomy as a branch of science in Central Asia and other Muslim regions. There are two tendencies in astrology here, one is based on measurement and mathematical theory, i.e., mathematical astronomy; The other is mysterious and irrational, unproven by any form of mathematical calculations.
The Khorezm astronomer Birini described astronomy as "the science of the stars" (ilmal-nujum) and called astrology "the art of counting the stars" (sinat'atal-nujam) or "astrology" (sinat'atahkamal-nujum), considering astrology to be a different art or practice from astronomy. ”
It turns out that the "star masters" in the court of the Mengyuan Khan were actually composed of two kinds of people, one was astronomers and the other was astrologers.
However, with the nomadization of the Mongol and Yuan courts, most of the starcasters who had served in Dadu and Shangdu (in the territory of present-day Xilin Gol League Zhenglanqi in Inner Mongolia) left the city and left the observatory.
Although they still followed the emperor to fortune and evil, as the conditions changed, the "science of the stars" in them had disappeared. By the time of the Khan, the Star Masters may have become pure masters of the "Astrological Divination".