SOAS, University of London (The School of Oriental and African Studies)

Invisible eclipses: social and religious factors in the history of Japanese calendrical astronomy, 877-1268

Knowledge not only shapes society, but is shaped by it. When a number of independent and potentially conflicting principles and cosmologies co-exist within a single society, the resulting instability of knowledge reveals much about social values such as reliability and authority, as well as about the role of interpersonal relationships in shaping culture. This becomes especially apparent when historical debates over eclipse predictions in Japan are examined. Under the right conditions, eclipses were one of the most visible of predictable dangerous phenomena. This visibility, however, lead to controversies over what was the appropriate response for the court to take when predicted eclipses would not be visible. Debates over the issue involved scholars, technicians, courtiers, and Buddhist monks, and affected not only state rituals aimed at protecting the throne, but also the very mathematical calculations of Japanese calendrical astronomy as it evolved during the Heian and early Kamakura periods.

Kristina Buhrman is a Ph.D candidate in the Department of History at the University of Southern California. Her research focuses on divination and the interpretation of the natural world in pre-modern Japan.