Astrology and Cosmology in Early China
Conforming Earth to Heaven

Drawing on a vast array of scholarship, this pioneering text illustrates how profoundly astronomical phenomena shaped ancient Chinese civilization.

David W. Pankenier (Author)

9781107539013, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 5 March 2015

616 pages, 138 b/w illus. 6 maps 9 tables
23 x 15.2 x 3.3 cm, 0.91 kg

'Professor David Pankenier is a renowned sinologist who is very well known to Chinese academics. For many years his research has focused on texts and artifacts connected with ancient Chinese astronomy, yielding outstanding achievements and many profound insights … From Pankenier's book the reader can acquire a full appreciation of the special characteristics of ancient Chinese ways of thinking. He ingeniously combines in-depth analysis, discussion, and interpretation of ancient astronomy, in particular the nature and significance of astrology, to explore and integrate intellectual history and astronomy with political and military history, research from which scholars of many disciplines will derive benefit.' Li Xueqin, Director, Institute of History, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, and Director, Institute of Sinology, Tsinghua University

The ancient Chinese were profoundly influenced by the Sun, Moon and stars, making persistent efforts to mirror astral phenomena in shaping their civilization. In this pioneering text, David W. Pankenier introduces readers to a seriously understudied field, illustrating how astronomy shaped the culture of China from the very beginning and how it influenced areas as disparate as art, architecture, calendrical science, myth, technology, and political and military decision-making. As elsewhere in the ancient world, there was no positive distinction between astronomy and astrology in ancient China, and so astrology, or more precisely, astral omenology, is a principal focus of the book. Drawing on a broad range of sources, including archaeological discoveries, classical texts, inscriptions and paleography, this thought-provoking book documents the role of astronomical phenomena in the development of the 'Celestial Empire' from the late Neolithic through the late imperial period.

Introduction
Part I. Astronomy and Cosmology in the Time of Dragons: 1. Astronomy begins at Taosi
2. Watching for dragons
Part II. Aligning with Heaven: 3. Looking to the supernal lord
4. Bringing heaven down to earth
5. Astral revelation and the origins of writing
Part III. Planetary Omens and Cosmic Ideology: 6. The cosmo-political mandate
7. The rhetoric of the supernal
8. Cosmology and the calendar
Part IV. Warring States and Han Astral Portentology: 9. Astral prognostication and the battle of Chengpu
10. A new astrological paradigm
Part V. One with the Sky: 11. Cosmic capitals
12. Temporality and the fabric of space-time
13. The sky river and cosmography
14. Planetary portentology east and west
Epilogue
Appendix. Astrology for an empire: the 'treatise on the celestial offices' in The Grand Scribe's Records (c.100 BCE)
Glossary
Index.

Subject Areas: Astrology [VXFA], Cosmology & the universe [PGK], Asian history [HBJF]