Skyscript Astrology Forum

Hello,

I am currently looking deeply into arabic 28 lunar mansions and I wonder if there are any traditional listings of the corresponding arabic letters of the alphabet to the 28 lunar mansions apart from the list given by Ibn 'Arabi.

Thank you!

Sorry, didn?t find anything interesting.

Only quote that may be a total coincidence, in the Picatrix, when discussing that the body was made in the image of heavens, chapter 6:

"His (Man?s) interior parts are seven, as the planets, and in his head he has seven bones like the days of the week; in the column he has 24 vertebrae like the hours of day and night and 28 articulations, like the number of the moon?s mansions and the letters of the alphabet."

So, even if it is not relevant, I would say that this idea was already "around"

And, the 28 letters of alphabet was probably a very important factor: after all in India they become the 27 nakshatras, and in Arabic the 28 mansions for a reason :-)

Thank you very much Yuzuru!

A thought. Much of Western traditional astrology originated from the Greeks and promulgated by the Arabs. 28 being both the number of the lunar mansions and arabic letters could not have been a co-incidence and there are associations of the letters to the lunar mansions (Ibnu Arabi being one them). The indians actually also have 28 nakshatras but somehow the 28th nakshatra (Abhijit) was dropped in their natal work. The Chinese also had 28 lunar mansions. I believe that the lunar mansions may be older than horoscopic astrology itself.

In ancient times, the calendar was essentially lunar (the Islamic calendar is still strictly lunar). The Indian and Chinese calendars were made luni-solar to align it with the seasons. As the 7 day-week system is associated with the Babylons, it is not far fetched to assume that the lunar mansions were Babylonian in origin (or even earlier in the Mesopotamian region). They associated one day to one planet and when all the seven planets is exhausted, they simply restart again. The cycle of of the seven is now called a week. The ancients would have realized that 4 of this 7 day cycle is closely aligned to the lunar month, 4 x 7 = 28. The synodic cycle of the Moon (new moon to new moon) is about 29.53 days. In the calendars of the ancients, the new moon is not really dark moon (when sun and moon are in conjunction astronomically). For the ancients (who were definitely more visual than us for they really looked into the sky rather than the computers and porgrams), the first day that Moon appears in the western horizon (after not being seen in the night sky) is considered the first day of the lunar calendar and this is new moon. So, on average, we would be able to see the moon for about 28 days which is the number of the lunar mansions.

The siderealists say that the start of the lunar mansion changes as the Vernal Equinox changes. The tropicalists (including AlBiruni and Ibnu Arabi) say that the start of the lunar mansion is always at 0 Aries (Vernal Equinox) - well actually Ibnu Arabi did mention on using the ascending lunar node as the starting point. If we stick to tropical argument, then 0 Aries is the start of both the 12 signs and 28 lunar mansions. If we do this, 1st, 8th, 15th and 22nd mansions will start at the Cardinal/Moveable signs. The rest of the cusps of he mansions do not co-incide with the cusps of the signs. The cusps of the signs and lunar mansions are aligned only at cardinal/moveable signs.

The cusps of the lunar mansions have been associated with the so called "critical" degrees (which surprisingly is used by many modern astrologers). We could say then that the cusps of the cardinal/moveable signs are "doubly critical" for they are cusps of both signs and lunar mansions.

The 4 and seven seems to be repeated in both the motions of the Moon and Sun. If we divide the cycle of visible moons (28 days) into 4 equal qudrants, each quadrant would have 7 days (approximately). If we divide the cycle of the zodiac (360 degrees) into 4 equal qudrants, each quadrant would have 7 lunar mansions.

The cycle of the lunar mansions and lunar phase of course do not coincide. Hence, we could have a full moon in any of the 28 mansions. My query is that, do we have any references that relate the phases of the moon and lunar mansion? If this exists, then perhaps we have to delineate the moon in a more comprehensive way by combining signs, mansions and phases. I am pretty sure that an astrologer-magician would choose a "growing" spell during waxing phase in a certain lunar mansion, hence the phase-mansion combination should be documented somewhere.

My other query is that the references that I have seen associate planetary rulers to the lunar mansions. Which rulers should be used when delineating i.e. the ruler of the lunar mansion or ruler of the sign where Moon is? If both can be used, what are the differences?

There might be no textual based answers to these questions but your opinions are appreciated.

Thank you!

Hello Astrojin

astrojin wrote: Hence, we could have a full moon in any of the 28 mansions. My query is that, do we have any references that relate the phases of the moon and lunar mansion? If this exists, then perhaps we have to delineate the moon in a more comprehensive way by combining signs, mansions and phases. I am pretty sure that an astrologer-magician would choose a "growing" spell during waxing phase in a certain lunar mansion, hence the phase-mansion combination should be documented somewhere.

Weinstock in 'Lunar Mansions and Early Calendars', Journal of Hellenic Studies, LXIX (1949) mentions the codex Cromwellianius, for which the Arabic original shows lunar mansions as a day of a lunar month.
Every mansion is attribuited to a planet, the days corresponding to the 7th-14th and 21th mansions obviously the first, the full moon and the third quadrant are ruled by Saturn (Weinstock mentions the analogy with the Sabbath of the Old Testament.)

margherita

Have you seen Volguine?s "moon mansions"? I think I have it online on spanish... I don?t considerer it a "great" book, but there is some comparations between moon mansions and chinese moon mansions and he discusses the problem of the cycle of the moon...

But I wouldn?t follow what he says, I am just referencing his work, not aproving it :-)

Every mansion is attribuited to a planet,

I believe the Picatrix has a different assignation, beginning with the sun
http://www.astrologer.com/aanet/pub/jou ... atrix.html

and, of course, the nakshatras also have their own assignation of rulers. As far as I am aware, not only every nakshatra has a planetary ruler, but also a deity assignation to it. Jyotish would also use in Muhurta the tithi (lunar day) and Karana (half lunar day) as I wrote at http://episthemologie.wordpress.com/2009/06/14/muhurta/

If this exists, then perhaps we have to delineate the moon in a more comprehensive way by combining signs, mansions and phases. I am pretty sure that an astrologer-magician would choose a "growing" spell during waxing phase in a certain lunar mansion, hence the phase-mansion combination should be documented somewhere.

As always, there are several factors to consider in every election or spell. You may use a waxing phase, or maybe would rather chose another mansion with the moon in trine to jupiter, etc.
http://www.renaissanceastrology.com/cha ... 30-04.html
http://www.renaissanceastrology.com/man ... atrix.html

yuzuru wrote:Have you seen Volguine?s "moon mansions"? I think I have it online on spanish... I don?t considerer it a "great" book, but there is some comparations between moon mansions and chinese moon mansions and he discusses the problem of the cycle of the moon...

But I wouldn?t follow what he says, I am just referencing his work, not aproving it :-)

Volguine had some interested in traditional astrology- he published for example the French translation of a part of Giuntini's Speculum Astrologiae, the part about solar returns and wrote about the merit of ancient astrologers against the modern methods.

I don't deeply know his work and just gave a look to his book about mansions but among modern astrologers is not one the worse, I would say.

margherita

No, he is far from that. But his book on mansions I find particularly problematic.

Hello Astrojin,

The siderealists say that the start of the lunar mansion changes as the Vernal Equinox changes. The tropicalists (including AlBiruni and Ibnu Arabi) say that the start of the lunar mansion is always at 0 Aries (Vernal Equinox) - well actually Ibnu Arabi did mention on using the ascending lunar node as the starting point. If we stick to tropical argument, then 0 Aries is the start of both the 12 signs and 28 lunar mansions. If we do this, 1st, 8th, 15th and 22nd mansions will start at the Cardinal/Moveable signs. The rest of the cusps of he mansions do not co-incide with the cusps of the signs. The cusps of the signs and lunar mansions are aligned only at cardinal/moveable signs.

Although a tropicalist Al Biruni is an important source for the constellational, uneven lunar mansions marked by fixed stars. Vivian Robson used the information from Al Biruni's The Book of Instruction in the Elements of the Art of Astrology to fix the boundaries of the sidereal , constellational lunar mansions in his book The Fixed Stars and Constellations in Astrology. The paradox is as you have noted is that Al Biruni states that the lunar mansions
'begin as in the case of the sun at the vernal equinox'. However, the odd thing is that Al Biruni is not actually describing the even, tropical mansions listed in texts like Picatrix!

The current academic consensus seems to be that the original Arabic lunar mansions were developed from the influence of the Indian lunar mansions (Nakshatras). However, there is no agreement on when exactly this process began. Clearly, the Arabic constellational mansions were not just a mirror of the Nakshatras. In fact the pre-Islamic Arabs had a considerable amount of star lore of their own known as anw?'. The development of the Arabic lunar mansions therefore seems to have been a fusion of the Nakshatras and Arabic indigenous star-lore.

This is explained very thoroughly by Garry Thompson in the following article on his website:

http://members.westnet.com.au/Gary-Davi ... 11-21.html

The pre-Islamic anw?' tradition of the Arabian Peninsula is concerned with a system of marking divisions of the year. Considerable, but fragmentary, data exists to enable reconstruction of some of the basic star calendars of the Arabian Peninsula. Before their contact with Greek-based astronomy through Arab-Islamic civilisation the pre-Islamic Arabs has their own folk astronomy. They knew the fixed stars and asterisms and used a number of fixed stars and asterisms, the so-called anw?', for a variety of purposes. After the introduction of Islam in the 7th-century CE a substantial amount of poetry, proverbs, legends, and folk science was written down in Arabic texts.

Some attention was focused on the star lore of the pre-Islamic and early Islamic Bedouins and farmers of the Arabian Peninsula. Specifically, from the 9th-century onwards Arabic-Islamic lexicographers and philologists collected old Arabic folk astronomy in books called Kutub al-anw?' (Books of the anw?') (Note: Most modern scholars simply write anwa'). From these books more than 300 old Arabic names for stars and asterisms have been recovered.

Some present-day individuals still retain knowledge of traditional Arabic star lore. Yemeni farmers till use a calendar based on the conjunction of the new (crescent) moon and the Pleiades. (This particular calendar is also appears in the recorded pre-Islamic lore.) In the Gulf region the Canopus calendar, generally based on arbitrary 10-day units from the late summer heliacal rising of Canopus, has long been a traditional calendrical system for Bedouins and sailors.

Daniel Varisco ("Stars and Texts in Arabia." (Essays from Archaeoastronomy & Ethnoastronomy News, Number 16, June Solstice, 1995)) states: "Individual stars and asterisms were used for defining the directions of the winds, timing of rain [availability of water], planting crops, pastoral activities [extent of pasture], pearling, and fishing seasons, and the like. In addition, some savants cited the location of stars as indicators of the approximate location of Mecca ...."

....In the post-Islamic textual traditions two systems of the anwa' have survived. The most well-known system is that of the 28 anwa'.They knew the fixed stars and asterisms and used a number of fixed stars and asterisms, the so-called anw?', for a variety of purposes. After the introduction of Islam in the 7th-century CE a substantial amount of poetry, proverbs, legends, and folk science was written down in Arabic texts. Some attention was focused on the star lore of the pre-Islamic and early Islamic Bedouins and farmers of the Arabian Peninsula. Specifically, from the 9th-century onwards Arabic-Islamic lexicographers and philologists collected old Arabic folk astronomy in books called Kutub al-anw?' (Books of the anw?') (Note: Most modern scholars simply write anwa'). From these books more than 300 old Arabic names for stars and asterisms have been recovered equivalent to the lunar stations of Arab astronomy and astrology with the 28 anwa' representing stars or asterisms along the zodiacal belt (ecliptic) of the celestial sphere.

The origin of the system of 27 or 28 "lunar mansions" (i.e., a lunar zodiac) was the topic of considerable debate among 19th-century Orientalists. Scholars were generally divide between those who argued for a first appearance in India and those who argued for a first appearance in China. (A system of lunar mansions was established in China, India, and Sassanian Iran prior to the establishment of Islam.) A number of early Arab texts stated that a system of "lunar mansions" had formed a major calendar of the pre-Islamic Arabian Bedouin. However, there is little doubt that the Arabs borrowed the concept of the "lunar mansions" and later Islamic scholars attached seasonal almanac lore onto this imported calendar system. Julius Wellhausen (Reste Arabischen Heidentums (1897)) correctly concluded that the concept of 28 "lunar mansions" was borrowed from the astronomy of the Hindus and merged with elements of Arab star lore after the introduction of Islam. The peoples of the pre-Islamic Arabian Peninsula only recognised the seasons and rain periods of importance to them and had no concern with arbitrarily dividing the years into periods. Exactly when the pre-Islamic Arabs received the system of 28 "lunar mansions" (man?zil al-qamar) from India, and how this was achieved, is unknown. When it was done each "lunar mansion" was identified with one of the anwa' stars or asterisms.

Mark

Hello,

Thank you Yuzuru, Margherita and Mark for the comprehensive posts! Always a pleasure getting responses from all of you!

From Margherita:

Weinstock in 'Lunar Mansions and Early Calendars', Journal of Hellenic Studies, LXIX (1949) mentions the codex Cromwellianius, for which the Arabic original shows lunar mansions as a day of a lunar month.
Every mansion is attribuited to a planet, the days corresponding to the 7th-14th and 21th mansions obviously the first, the full moon and the third quadrant are ruled by Saturn (Weinstock mentions the analogy with the Sabbath of the Old Testament.)

I always have this notion (rather hunch) that the ancient Arabs associated the days of their lunar month (which is exactly aligned to the lunar phases) to the lunar mansions. To actually have this documented is certanly a pleasure. After all, the number of the lunar mansions ( 28 ) is the same as the number of days Moon is visible in the night sky (well, almost) and the motion of the Moon through one lunar mansion is also almost the same as the arabic calendrical day. If the lunar mansions are directly associated with the lunar phases (which also the arabic strictly lunar calendar), then the division of the lunar mansion are referenced to the synodic cycle of the moon (not sidereal). This is intresting by itself, though more research is needed.

Anyway it is certainly interesting if a planet is assiged to every day of the week depending on the lunar phases. Then we will have a "ruler" which is not fixed like our planetary day ruler (where Monday is always ruled by Moon, etc.). We would have one Monday ruled by any planet depending on the lunar phase of the day.

Yuzuru:

Have you seen Volguine?s "moon mansions"?

Yes. Nothing so interesting, at least not within the parameters that I am interested in.

Mark:
Thank you for the link on the anwa'!

As the 7 day-week system is associated with the Babylons, it is not far fetched to assume that the lunar mansions were Babylonian in origin (or even earlier in the Mesopotamian region).

Hello Astrojin,

I missed this point earlier. Personally, I am a bit sceptical about this kind of reverse engineering theory. There was some academic speculation in this direction during the 19th century suggesting the lunar mansions originated in Mesopotamia but it hasn't found any support since then. One of the basic problems is that all our records of ancient Mesopotamian references to stars and constellations such as the Mul.Apin involve either 17/18 asterisms 'in the path of the Moon'', 36 rising stars or in later sources the 12 zodiacal constellations. There doesn't appear to be anything relating to 28 divisions of the stars and constellations.

Having said all that David Pingree suggested (The Astral Science in Mesopotamia by Hermann Hunger and David Pingree (1999, Page 63)) that the Mesopotamian association of gods/goddesses with constellations in the late 2nd-millennium BCE probably influenced the Vedic Indians to also associate one or a set of their gods/goddesses to each of their lunar mansions (nakshatras). According to David Pingree it is also likely that the influence for the development of the Indian system of nakshatras originated in Mesopotamia, specifically with star list VI in the Mul.Apin series (17/18 stars/asterisms in the path of the moon).

The original use of the scheme of nakshatras was simply to record the location of the moon among the stars. The scheme of nakshatras was later extended to an astronomical system for recording the positions of planets (and the lunar nodes). Examples of this later use are to be found in the Mahabharata. (The Vedic convention of 27 or 28 lunar mansions has survived in modern Indian calendrical practice.

At a much later point in history lunar mansions do occur in Persia as well as Arabia. In particular during the Sassanian dynasty (224 to 651CE) there are texts recording lunar mansions. One example, is the Persian Pahlavi text known as the Greater Bundahisn which draws upon older Zorasteran/Avestan material. Most of the chapters of the compendium date to the 8th and 9th centuries however, the earlier chapters seem to have a much older origin.

http://www.avesta.org/mp/grb.htm

Here is the relevant section from Chapter 2 of the Greater Bundahisn:

2. As, He first created the firmament; the stars of the constellations were fixed thereon, especially these twelve, whose names are: the Ram, the Cow, the Twins, the Crab, the Lion, the Husk of Corn, the Balance, the Scorpion, the Centaur, the Goat, the Pot, and the Fishes, which are subdivided into twenty-eight asterisms of reckoning, the names of which [are these]: Padevar, Pesh-parviz, Parviz, Paha, Aze-sar, Beshn, Rakhvat, Taraha, Azara, Nahn, Maian, Avdem, Mashaha, Spor, Husru, Sroi, Nur, Gelu, Grafsha, Varant, Gao, Goi, Muru, Bunda, Kaht-sar, Vaht, Mayan, Kaht; all the original material creations made their residence thereon, so that when the Adversary, would arrive, they might fight against their own enemy and the creatures might be saved from their antagonist; each of these constellations is a specimen of a soldier and veteran, who is posted for battle; six thousand four hundred eighty (thousand) small stars are created forth, for help, [those which the astronomers now number, besides those innumerable, as, they are for their mutual-help.]

So how did these Lunar mansions get to Persia/Arabia?

1 They could have travelled to Arabia first via sea routes. Even to this day places like Yemen and the Gulf still trade with India through traditional sailing craft.

2 They might have went to Persia first via the land route from India. There was clearly lots of astrological cross fertilization going on in both directions.

The idea that the Arabic mansions have a really ancient, indigenous background in Arabia doesn't seem supported from surviving anwa' records. Moreover, the general view is that the Persian mansions were also influenced from the nakshatras of India. According to Walter Henning the Indian system of lunar mansions was introduced into Iran (Persia) circa 500 CE. He suggests that when the system of the lunar mansions (nakshatras) was introduced into Iran (Persia) from India a completely new set of names was created for them.

It certainly would be interesting to study the sidereal roots of the lunar mansions of Arabia, India and Persia further.

My query is that, do we have any references that relate the phases of the moon and lunar mansion? If this exists, then perhaps we have to delineate the moon in a more comprehensive way by combining signs, mansions and phases. I am pretty sure that an astrologer-magician would choose a "growing" spell during waxing phase in a certain lunar mansion, hence the phase-mansion combination should be documented somewhere.

In his book The Mansions of the Moon Christopher Warnock does discuss the importance of lunar phase in delineating the Moon in the mansions:

Christopher Warnock quotes the Picatrix (bracketed text is by Warnock):

And if you find the Moon increasing in light (waxing) then her strength and power is good and useful in all works to bring about increase and if you find the light (of the Moon) diminishing (waning) she is suitable and harmonious for all works in which you wish diminution.

And after the Moon separates from the conjunction of the Sun (New Moon) all the way up to a sinister (against the direction of signs) square until it arrives at an opposition (Full Moon) it is always good and harmonious for buying and selling , trials and asking for repayment of debts, debates and councils for everything you require.

And after separating from the opposition of the Sun and crossing to the dexter square all the way to conjunction of the Sun it is good and appropriate to (pay)for debts that you owe and for those who keep possessions to return them to others and for wisdom and for asking and inquiring into truth.

Christopher Warnock takes all these quotes from Picatrx, Book Two, Chapter three. I would suggest that anyone serious in studying the lunar mansions will find Christopher Warnock's book indispensible. Especially, those interested in the tropical, equal mansions stemming from Picatrix.

Mark