Glimpses of Another Astronomy

One of the most powerful recurring impressions, as we read further the Arabic nautical classics of the late 15th and early 16th century, is that they are mirrors or prisms through which we can half discern a very different way of approaching astronomy. It is as if Ibn Mājid and Sulaymān al-Mahrī are themselves manāzil, waystations, and also milestones on the transmission path from a remote and now barely discernible past, and as if they allow us glimpses into an altogether non-Western view and science of the heavens.

Speaking of one of the altitude measures taken in combination with the 23rd mansion, Ibn Mājid explains: “This measuring is reliable and well-known within the lore of substitutions (tabādul) and graduation (tadrīj) of the sky… no other is better known in reliability and usefulness.” These “substitutions“ refer to one of the aspects of the complex observational techniques whereby most points along the ecliptic, and pretty much everywhere through the heavens, are used in combination with other places, regardless of their brightness, because it is a fine-tuned web of relations, calibrated through centuries in a transnational decentralised endeavour.

In fact, and quite remarkably, whereas it seems that European celestial navigation started developing in earnest thanks to national state-sponsored action, the equivalent acquisition of knowledge took place from the Pacific to the Arabian Sea in an organic way, over many boundaries and centuries. This contrast has to do in part with the specific requirements of Mediterranean navigation, but it is nonetheless impressive to find, from Polynesia to Madagascar, from Guangzhou to Aden, such similar traditions of astronavigation, including stellar rhumbs and the use of the 27 or 28 lunar mansions.

In the case of Arab pilots, which we are studying, this astronomical lore was integrated in various degrees with a pre-existing, or perhaps rather overlapping, body of mythical knowledge which brought the stars in direct relation to everyday life in countless ways. Similar integrations can be observed in Indian and Far Eastern astronomical literature, as layer upon historical layer of celestial knowledge blended into an ever enriched tapestry. No small part of the reward in studying premodern nautical literature lies in realising how many different astronomies can be derived from the same stars—as if an archaic science haunts us, silently winking an eye at us from an immemorial past. [JA]

Lunar Mansions Across Civilizations

This week, by popular demand, we are expanding on last week’s cryptic and passing mention of the Indian and Chinese systems of lunar mansions. It is actually quite a remarkable fact in the history of science that this division of the ecliptic based on the sidereal month (not the synodic month of 29.5 days, but the time it takes the moon to orbit once around the earth with respect to the stars, i.e. 27.3 days) was and remained always relatively foreign to the highly syncretic Western astronomical system.

The 28 “mansions”, “way stations”, or “inns” were from very ancient times an integral part of Indian, Chinese, and Arab cultures (where they were called respectively nakshatra, xiu, and manzil) with a plethora of correspondences and an interrelated history that are yet to be fully probed and clarified.

What makes them urgently interesting for so many disciplines is that in the course of time they became essential to countless aspects of their related cultures, including, in our particular field of study, the art of navigation. They were crucial in timekeeping, astrology, magic, geomancy, agriculture, even to the point that personal names derived from the nakshatras are still common in India. In Arabic, their being 28 in number (sometimes in India 27 were counted) made them match the number of the letters of the alphabet, which gave rise to an “alphastronomical” view of the heavens.

Technically, this circle of twenty-eight asterisms includes variable numbers of more or less notable stars grouped around and along the ecliptic. They frequently overlap with stars of our solar zodiac, and quite often the yogataras or “determinative” stars of a given station are well-known in our astronomical tradition, like Aldebaran or Antares. They were often used in pairs of opposite ascending and descending asterisms (Arabic anwa’), which would be memorized and recited by sailors even until recent years, thus ensuring and furthering their practical usefulness, and they corresponded to a rich mythology.

The supernatural figures associated with the 28 xiu in the Jade Box Scriptures
(see Exploring Ancient Skies, 2005).

The great antiquity of the system seems established by comparing precessional changes with the fact that the original series started with Krittika, the Pleiades—it must have developed around 2400 BC. And so, this week, as we start reading Ibn Majid on “the most auspicious” of them all, the mansion of the Pleiades (Arabic al-Thurayya, whence the familiar name Soraya), we will not only be dealing with 15th century Arab nautical astronomy, but touching directly on a very ancient and far-reaching doctrine. [JA]

The Strong Place of the Weak

This week’s reading brought us to the second lunar mansion, al-Butayn, an inconspicuous group of stars towards the end of Aries. The name is a diminutive, “the little belly”, in the familiar vocalic pattern of many Arabic diminutives and terms of endearment, especially feminines like Zubayda, Sumaya, Ruqaya, and others. It is so unremarkable that Ibn Mājid explains it is hardly useful for navigation, but that it has nonetheless a referential value, and that it was made a mansion in the sky out of necessity, not for orientation—that “it is useful through its name in the count of the mansions; not because of its observation” (yuntafa‘u bi-ismihi fī al-‘adad wa-lā bi-ru’yatihi).

It is easy, and perhaps even appropriate, to dismiss al-Butayn quickly. Its barely visible stars of fifth magnitude surely do not warrant much coverage, and in fact the section devoted to them is the shortest of all the mansions. But we should still pause and make sure we do not overlook their role and their importance.

The circle of heaven is divided in roughly equal parts according to the regularity of its movement and the “mathematical” (i.e. “dialogically intelligible”) need of human observers; there can be no gaps in the count. Regardless of whether you divide the ecliptic in 12, 24 or 28, you cannot have a gap. And we need to name each part in order to understand, comprehend, and employ them; they cannot remain nameless. Al-Butayn is, accordingly and strictly speaking, just as necessary as the other mansions, in spite of its relative obscurity. It may not be bright and eye-catching, but with its name and its position it is a part of heaven—an indispensable element in the circular alphabet of the signs.

Its specific function and its power lie precisely in its subdued qualities, and in this case the sister traditions of India and China are highly instructive: the corresponding Indian nakshatra (Bharani) and Chinese xiù (Tian Yin,“the Heavenly Yin”) relate unequivocally to a restrained intimate aspect of femininity, to the womb—the fragile yet indispensable night of our origins.

As always and everywhere, ignoring the influence of al-Butayn and its gently determining influence might have imperiled our projects, bringing far reaching and catastrophic consequences. Let it be hereby acknowledged as it deserves, and our future readings be preserved! [JA]

The Magic Circle

Being didactic is a notable trait of Ibn Mājid’s style. These are not cold, detached manuals. Instead, you find throughout his works series of imperatives exhorting the “seeker”, the “questioner”: “understand and know, strive and realize your knowledge,” because “the cases and causes of the sea are many.”

Now, the first thing on the list is “the actual knowledge” of “the magic circle of the rhumbs and mansions (mandal al-akhnān wa-al-manāzil).”

When Ibn Mājid elaborates on the details of the relation between the thirty-two rhumbs and the twenty-eight lunar mansions, on how to lay them upon the circle of the compass in order to plot your course, the immediate and unexpected analogy coming to mind is that of the Far Eastern luopan. This geomantic compass, or Feng Shui compass, is an outright “magic circle” where a central magnetic needle is surrounded by the concentric sequences of signs in spheres of knowledge. “Ponder and ask for advice, and wake the night and be resolute.” Every time, the navigator is virtually at the centre of the universe to perform his task. [JA]