Originally published in East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine (2024), 1-5
(Brill.com/east), with omissions.
Book Review
Bill M. Mak and Eric Huntington
(eds.), Overlapping Cosmologies in
Asia: Transcultural and Interdisciplinary Approaches:
4 (Crossroads – History of Interactions across the Silk Routes) (Leiden:
Brill, 2022), 310 pp., €120.00 (hardback), ISBN 9789004511415.
This edited
volume is the result of a series of conferences held in various locations around the world, starting
with the “International Workshop on Traditional Sciences in Asia 2015: An
Interdisciplinary Investigation into Overlapping Cosmologies”, and
culminating in the “International Conference on Traditional Sciences in
Asia 2017: East-West Encounter in the Science of Heaven and Earth”. After
the opening chapter on historiography by John Steele, each of the
remaining nine chapters is devoted to certain overlapping cosmologies in
highly diversified localities and religious traditions in Asia.
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The introduction is enormously valuable for an understanding of the
structure and logic of the book. Useful too are the notes on the ten
contributors – a fellowship comprising both established senior figures and
promising junior scholars, each of whom (both editors included) composed one
chapter apiece. While the contributors reflect diverse views on the different
fields where cosmologies and their interactions could be defined quite
differently, they share a commitment to “turning away from approaches to history
built around nation-based cultural identities” (pp. 6–7).Thus, instead of a refined adaptation which is “little more than a slower
kind of scientific revolution”, differing from the European version only
insofar as the stage is shifted to Asia, and instead of dramatic stories about
Japanese, Indian, Chinese, Islamic, and European cosmologies competing for
influence and/or a leading edge over their neighbouring counterparts, this
volume, “given the paradigm of overlapping cosmologies, asks the questions of
what overlapped and how, who the agents were, and what resulted” (p. 10). While
the editors acknowledge that the history of cosmology is not limited to the
history of science, such a pioneering attempt at paradigm shifting, both
thematically and methodologically, should be applauded as both rare and bold
among history of astronomy, or history of science publications.Chapter 1 by John Steele starts with the influence of Assyriology on the
study of Chinese astronomy around 1900 CE and is historiographical in nature.
Thus, he is reminding the reader right from the beginning that transmissions of
knowledge about transmissions (or, in the new terminology, ‘overlappings’ of
knowledge) between cosmologies are themselves targets for investigation, and
modern scholarship is itself in the process of iteration, just like those
iterated cosmologies into which scholars inquire. In his final remarks, the
author points to himself – his identity, interests, background, and training –
as an example to show that this very work of scholarship, to which he has
contributed the opening chapter, is itself no exception to ever-present biases.Bill M. Mak then analyses the dissemination into China of three waves of
Greek astral sciences and how they interacted and overlapped with indigenous
theories and practices (Chapter 2). Many of the complexities and subtleties in
this process can be attributed to intermediaries: the Christian Church of the
East during the Tang, Islamic astronomers from Yuan to Ming, and Jesuits from
Late Ming and Qing; most intriguing is a figure depicting the genealogy of the
Yusi jing 聿斯經 in China (p. 64). Adrian C. Pirtea (Chapter 3) then presents a case of
overlapping cosmologies in Manichaeism, particularly those concerning eclipses
and seasonal changes, highlighting the flexibility that characterized Mani’s
new religion when spreading to other parts of Eurasia and the Mediterranean.Ryuji Hiraoka (Chapter 4) traces a fascinating overlap between a Jesuit
version of Aristotelian cosmology on the one hand and Chinese medical cosmology
on the other, and a mixing of the two in early modern Japan. He delves into the
nuances of textual traditions and the role that the Nagasaki school played in
the circulation and reception of Nanban unkiron 南蠻運氣論 (Yunqi Theory of the Southern
Barbarians), leading to the final phase of the reception when this text was
viewed by Japanese scholars as a work of Chinese yunqi 運氣 (five periods
[yun 運] and six qi 氣, or wuyun liuqi 五運六氣) theory by a Japanese medical scholar, with its Western origins hardly
discernible.
（The following five paragraphs have been omitted for brevity.）
Diversified and inspiring as are the themes and arguments presented in
this book, there remains room for improvements. One may particularly regret
that some useful findings in the Chinese-language scholarship have been
overlooked. For example, in the first chapter, there was no discussion on
whether the twenty-eight xiu 宿 (lodge) system is arranged along the celestial equator or on the ecliptic
(p. 33), as if this issue were settled. However, depending on the focus of
observation – the whole figure (not so likely) or one particular star at its
beginning, more possibilities about the Chinese xiu system have yet to be revealed.1
（The following three paragraphs have been omitted for brevity.）
This volume is generally well worth reading, both for students and
scholars, in fields such as the history of science (astronomy in particular)
and art, especially for those interested in the interactions, overlappings, and
the probable routes and means for the dissemination throughout Asia of
cosmologies and astral knowledge.----------------------------
1 Jiang 1990, p. 41.
2 Niu 2004, p. 83.
3 Mao 2016, pp. 164–166.
4 Mao 2023.
About the Reviewer
Mao Dan 毛丹 obtained his PhD in History of Science and Technology from Shanghai Jiao
Tong University in 2016. He is currently an assistant professor and MA
supervisor in the same institution, and has twice been a visiting fellow at the
Needham Research Institute. His main research interests include the interaction
between Eurasian cosmologies in the Classical Period, the history of the
institutionalization of mathemata (μαθήματα, mathematics and mathematical
sciences) from Hellenization to the Scientific Revolution, and the economic
foundations of the latter. He is currently writing a book with the working
title The Economic Foundations for the Scientific Revolution.
Dan Mao | OR CID: 0009-0007-9625-0133
School of History and Culture of Science,
Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China
hoplites@sjtu.edu.cn
References
Jiang, Xiaoyuan 江曉原, 1990, “Babilun – Zhongguo tianwenxueshi shang de jige wenti 巴比倫-中國天文學史上的幾個問題 (Several Questions on the History of Babylonian-Chinese Astronomy),”
Ziran bianzhengfa tongxun 自然辯證法通訊 (Journal of Dialectics of Nature) 12.4: 40–46.
Mao, Dan 毛丹, 2016, “Liang Han Wei Jin ‘tianlun’ fenxi: Zhongxi jiaotong dabeijing xia
de yuanliu kaocha 兩漢魏晉“天論”分析：中西交通大背景下的源流考察 (An Analysis on Cosmologies in Han, Wei and Jin Dynasties: Examining
Their Origins and Transmissions in a Wider Background of Communications between
China and the West),” PhD diss., Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai.
Mao, Dan 毛丹, 2023, “How ‘Mathematics’ Was Turned into Compulsory Courses: Analysis on
Institutionalisation around the Middle of the 16th Century,” presented at the
second CIAHS in Athens, unpublished.
Niu, Weixing 鈕衛星, 2004, Xi wang Fantian: Hanyi Fojing zhong de tianwenxue yuanliu西望梵天—漢譯佛經中的天文學源流 (Gazing Westward at Brahm Heaven: The Origin and Development of Astronomy
in Buddhist Sūtras Translated into Chinese), Shanghai: Shanghai jiaotong daxue
chubanshe.
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