(resume prepared for the 20th International Congress of the History of Science, at Mexico City in July 2001: not actually read yet.)
There is a symposium for commemorating
Yabuuti, that could be best fitted to the International Conference of the
History of East Asian Science Technology and Medicine as Yabuuti did not write
much in English and hence not well known among Western historians of science.
At the International Conference of the History of Science, however, it is more
adequate to address to “non-Eastern” audience. In order to invite Westerner’s attention on Yabuuti, I would like to
involve, what I call, Otto Neugebauer School or non-Eastern historians of
mathematical astronomy..
Mathematical astronomy (it is called calendrical science in the East) is the most exact science in premodern time, prior to the invention of modern celestial mechanics. It is a somewhat esoteric discipline to be dealt purely internally with essentially technical terms and numerals. By comparing various astronomical parameters and also method employed, we can trace Western tradition from Babylonia to Hellenistic Greece (to India) to Arab and to Latin, while Eastern one remained in China from where astronomy was disseminated into Korea, Japan and Vietnam. While Neugebauer disproved Babylonian influence on ancient China as both had nothing in common, as a disproval of old Pan-Babylonist thesis that everything has been born in Babylonia and radiated to the surrounding area, including ancient China. Yabuuti worked on Buddhist and Islamic influence on China but their astronomy did not influence on the traditional mainstream Chinese astronomical paradigm. Now both of them having passed away. we would like to take this opportunity of the International Conference to examine the present state of affairs of research in each area and reestablish an trans-cultural network of the discipline of mathematical astronomy.
At a nodal point between Western and Eastern traditions, there was E. S. Kennedy, whom Yabuuti and I visited at Beirut in 1959. At the time, he was interested in translating Islamic sources of Chinese-Uighur calendar. We encouraged him to do it further for us to know the Chinese influence westward. Kennedy’s article appeared on Isis in 1964, in which he showed that the solar equation of center was represented in the 14th century with a parabolic function. In the same year, I have found the same parabolic expression in an extant Japanese fragment of solar table dated in 8th century and originated in Western China.
While Western tradition has adhered to geometrical expression of astronomical movements, Chinese employed numerico-empirical approach with observational values and sophisticated interpolation technique in between. Such algebraic expression as above noted was quite a new attempt, which entered into mainstream Chinese exact science of mathematical astronomy. A. Sayili was fascinated with the above findings and in his last days tried to prove that algebraic astronomy originated in Central Asia with Turkish Buddhist, though only circumstantial evidences were given.
India is also unexplored area where Western tradition must have exerted certain influence on Chinese. D. Pingree and his followers must show some new light on the West-East communication of mathematical astronomy.
W. Hartner, who was the last generation of old Orientalist tradition, mastered so many languages and tried to prove the interrelation between different language groups. He could do it as mathematical astronomy needs only technical terms and numerals without much insights into different cultures.
Today, however, young generation with deeper understanding in each language and culture could do far better by reestablishing a network and communicating their findings