VMs: Re: VMS: Chinese theory, pushed against the wall...

[Jorge Stolfi <stolfi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

  > [Pam:] ... a document from the person native to another country, I
  > wonder why that person bothered to attempt to use our Western
  > Zodiac at all? It's not his area of expertise. His native system
  > of astrology is.
  
First, I would rather say "astronomy" than "astrology": there is no
evidence that the zodiac diagrams of the VMS are concerned about
drawing horoscopes, at least in the European sense. The central
pictures may have been intended only as convenient "geographical"
labels. A modern astronomer might do the same, even if he considers
astrology to be unmitigated charlatanery.

My guess is that the important information contained in those diagrams
are star configurations and/or timings associated with each position
of the Earth/Sun along the Ecliptic, the position being measured in
degrees rather than days. Say, "when the Sun is at the 57 degree mark
along the Ecliptic, Regulus will be 30 degrees above the horizon at
midnight" (or something that actually makes astronomical sense).

To an astronomer this is is just a single circular list of 360 data
records, with no "natural" beginning, nor any significant divisions
except the solstices and equinoxes. Of course the list had to be
broken into several chunks to fit in the book; and it would be only
natural for the VMS author to use some traditional division.

Western astronomers would probably use the classical division of the
Ecliptic into 12 chunks ("signs") of 30 degrees each. A Chinese
astronomer could do that too, but could also use the 15 degree chunks
of the agricultural calendar. Apart from cultural inertia, this choice
would have the advantage of simplifying the table's captions: instead
of "this page covers degrees 45 through 89 of the ecliptic, starting
from the position of the winter solstice in 300 AC", it would suffice
to write "Scorpio". Every astronomer would know precisely what that
meant, and would be able to match the data with other tables to do any
calculations.  (A modern astronomer who had to split a 10.7 MB star
catalog into ~1 MB files would probably make the same choice.)

My guess is that the Western month names and Western zodiac pitures in
the VMS have only this pedestrian function. That is, according to the
"Chinese Theory, Version Ship-Doctor-12.3a", the Foreign Writer's
purpose in adding those details was only to tell the Western Reader,
"this chunk of our star table corresponds to Pisces (March) of your
system".

Note that since each diagram has 30 divisions, presumably degrees, we
*know* that the month names written on them are only approximate
labels; and, besides, the spelling of those names and the bloopers in
the illustrations raise doublts about the author's knowledge of the
"Western system". Thus we should not assume that the pictorial Zodiac
labels are any more accurate than the month labels.

Suppose, for the sake of example, that the original table was split
into 15 degree chunks according to the Chinese agricultural calendar,
whose starting point is approximately February 5. It is doubtful
whether the Writer would have taken the trouble of re-chunking it so
that it would begin at the Western starting point. (Since his role was
only that of a compiler and transcriber, he may not even have known
enough astronomy to do that correctly.) More likely, he would have
just merged the 15-degree chunks in pairs to get 30-degree chunks, and
labeled them with the closest sign of the Western Zodiac. If he also
preserved the original order of the chinks, the first chunk would
stretch roughly from Feb/5 to Mar/5 -- which, I gather, is
approximately the Western Pisces.

All the best,

--stolfi
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