Cultural Astronomy of the Japanese Archipelago: Exploring the Japanese Skyscape by Akira Goto

Abstract

Reviewed by: Cultural Astronomy of the Japanese Archipelago: Exploring the Japanese Skyscape by Akira Goto Jeffrey Kotyk Cultural Astronomy of the Japanese Archipelago: Exploring the Japanese Skyscape. By Akira Goto. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2021. 158 pages. ISBN: 9780367407988 (hardcover, also available as e-book). Akira Goto's Cultural Astronomy of the Japanese Archipelago: Exploring the Japanese Skyscape is a welcome monograph dealing with a topic that has largely been undiscussed in the Anglosphere. While the study of historical Japanese astronomy and uranography is well developed, the relevant research tends to focus on imported Chinese models and/or Buddhist astrology without considering autochthonous Japanese skyscapes. Delving into this topic, Goto importantly demonstrates that there was (and arguably still is), in reality, a diversity of perspectives among the denizens of the Japanese archipelago from the Ryukyu peoples to the Ainu of Hokkaido. He emphasizes from the beginning that in this context we ought to treat "Japan" as an archipelago (i.e., as a geographical region), rather than as a national entity. The importance of this approach becomes clear throughout the book as the reader is introduced to entirely different visions of the heavens among different peoples on the islands. Chapter 1 surveys the vernacular names for stars, with a focus on how ordinary people would have used asterisms in everyday life (e.g., for physical positioning and dates) and for other purposes (e.g., warfare, fishing, agriculture). This discussion is especially welcome given how little attention is usually paid to common rather than aristocratic or "official" forms of astral knowledge. Chapter 2 examines stars in Japanese mythology and classical literature and is based on sources including Kojiki and Nihon shoki. For the former Goto cites the 1882 translation by Basil Hall Chamberlain, which is problematic considering it is so dated; in this chapter and others he ought to have cited the original text of his primary sources in kanbun or kobun to show how he would punctuate and interpret them. I also felt that the discussion of the north-south orientation of the ancient capitals (pp. 33–37) could have been expanded. Heijō-kyō and Heian-kyō were based on Chinese models of city planning, a background that should have been treated in greater detail because of its importance both in general and to traditional East Asian architecture more specifically.1 Some of the terminology in this chapter is misleading, for example "28 Sei shuku [End Page 363] (28 houses in Chinese zodiac system)" on page 31. The kanji 宿 (shuku or suku) is normally translated in this context as "lunar station" or "mansion," rather than "house." Buddhists used shuku as functional equivalents of the Indian nakṣatras, which are also translated as "lunar stations" or "mansions" (nakṣatras and Chinese lunar stations had entirely different parameters, however). Moreover, "Chinese zodiac system" is left undefined. A zodiac is formally a division of twelve equal components of the ecliptic, and although zodiac signs did become part of Chinese (and eventually Japanese) astrology, they are separate from the twenty-eight lunar stations. As a second example, on page 33 we read that during the reign of the Tenmu emperor (r. 673–686) "a platform for the first time was erected from which to do horoscopes by means of the stars (Aston 1972, Vol. 2: 326)." This is misleading and anachronistic, since the source text (Nihon shoki) actually says nothing here about horoscopes. The relevant line in W. G. Aston's translation reads, "A platform was for the first time erected from which to divine by means of the stars"; the Chinese in the original is 始興占星臺, which I would translate, "For the first time, a platform for divining the stars was erected."2 A horoscope is a table of calculated planetary positions from which an individual's fate is evaluated and interpreted. This does not actually necessitate live observations, since normally an astrologer calculates the planetary positions at the time of a client's birth. Horoscopy did in fact exist in Japan, but only from the late tenth century with the advent of the Sukuyōdō community of astrologermonks.3 The word 占星 in the period and context of Tenmu's reign would refer to celestial omenology...