19. ASTROLOGY AND THE WORSHIP OF THE PLANETS
IN ESOTERIC BUDDHISM OF THE TANG
Henrik H. SørensenIntroduction
To the medieval Chinese, the orbits and passages of the celestial bod-
ies by and large followed a fixed and repeating pattern, although some
heavenly “movements” such as comets were conceived of as random,
but nevertheless significant, portents outside the fixed celestial pro-
gram. The five planets—Mars, Venus, Saturn, Jupiter and Mercury—
and the sun and moon were the cosmic constants and thus represented
the large “movements” that made up the overall heavenly pattern. In
contrast to these were the twenty-eight constellations, i.e., the sectors
in space through which the moon moved in the course of a month.
These twenty-eight constellations were conceived of as the “smaller”
movements whose influences forces were much more clearly felt in the
world of humans.
The fact that influence from the asterisms and planets was a seri-
ous concern in the lives of the medieval Chinese also meant that con-
cepts of longevity, prosperity, and good health in general were closely
bound up with worship of the heavenly bodies. From this perspective,
the importance placed on the seven stars of the Great Dipper is espe-
cially significant. Because the Great Dipper was believed to house the
heavenly office in which the destinies of humans was determined, the
worship of this constellation was extremely important. Worship of
the Great Dipper can be documented quite early in Chinese history, and
a prospering cult already existed before the advent of Buddhism.^1
Here we must also distinguish between astronomy and astrology as
understood in modern Western terms, though the Chinese themselves
rarely made such a distinction. Astronomy is the scientific (or pseudo-
scientific) observation of the movement and positions of the heavenly
(^1) Hanshu ( Book of the Han), ch. 99, p. 4190b. For a discussion of the Great
Dipper in relation to the Daoist practice of bugang , cf. Andersen 1989–1990,
15–53, esp. 18–19.