ASTRAL SCIENCE OF THE EAST SYRIAC CHRISTIANS IN CHINA DURING THE LATE FIRST MILLENNIUM AD

Abstract

This paper examines the astral knowledge of the East Syriac Christians in China (formerly known as Nestorians) and its development from the Tang Dynasty onward. In particular, I will focus on the process of transmission of Hellenistic astral science from the Near East via the Silk Road and Central Asia to East Asia, as well as the role of the Christians of the Church of the East, including most notably the Sino-Persian Li family, in disseminating foreign astronomical knowledge throughout China during the late first millennium AD. Among the most important sources is a text titled Yusi jing, translated from an unknown language into Chinese some time after the seventh century AD. An examination of its content reveals a striking resemblance to Dorotheus’ Carmen Astrologicum (first century AD). Subsequently, the text went through a long course of transformation and sinicisation, and had wide influence to the evolution of Chinese astrological and mantic science (fate calculation) through the second millennium AD. As it will be demonstrated, the eastward transmission of Greco-Persian astral science was a part of the greater picture of the circulation of knowledge in Eurasia during the first millennium AD.