R

In desert areas of Rajasthan, there are many khadins Rainwater Harvesting of 20 ha or more, some of them having been first constructed in the fifteenth century AD. In North America, research on the modern potential ARNOLD PACEY of runoff farming methods has been stimulated by the realization that people living in what is now Mexico Throughout history people have lived in areas where and the southwestern United States prior to European there are few rivers and where the direct collection of settlement had methods of directing rainwater from hill- rainwater from roofs, paved courtyards, hillsides, or sides on to plots where crops were being raised, thereby rock surfaces is one of the best available methods for making productive agriculture possible in an otherwise securing a water supply. By extending this principle to unpromising semiarid environment. On lands occupied provide water for crops, early civilizations practiced by the Hopi and Papago peoples in Arizona, fields were agriculture much further into the semidesert areas of predominantly on alluvial valley soils below hillsides Arabia, Sinai, North Africa, India, and Mexico than orgullies from which water could flow to the crops during has been possible in modern times – and this is not rainstorms. Sites were chosen so that only minimal explicable by changes in climate. earthworks were needed to spread the water over the Agriculture in the Old World originated in climatically fields. These were short lengths of bund referred to as dry regions in the Middle East and may have depended spreader dikes. to some degree on rainwater running off nearby slopes almost from the start. Evidence is lacking until a later See also: ▶Irrigation in India period, however, when some of the most striking appli- cations of rainwater harvesting were related to crop production in the Negev Desert between 200 BCE and References AD 700. One technique would be to dig a channel Bradfield, M. The Changing Pattern of Hopi Agriculture. across a hillside to intercept water running downslope London: Royal Anthropological Institute, 1971. during storms. The water would be directed onto Evenari, M., L. Shanan, and N. Tadmor. The Negev: The fields which, in the Negev, were carefully leveled and Challenge of a Desert. 2nd ed. Cambridge, Massachusetts: enclosed by bunds (an embankment or dike). Further Harvard University Press, 1982. Kutsch, H. Principal Features of a Form of Water- west, steeper hillsides were used in Morocco, with Concentrating Culture (in Morocco). Trier: Geographisch cultivation on flat terraces formed behind stone retaining Geselkschaft Trier,1982. walls. In Tunisia, French travelers in the nineteenth Pacey, Arnold and Adrian Cullis. Rainwater Harvesting. century noted fruit trees being grown at the downslope London: Intermediate Technology Publications, 1986. end of small bunded rainwater catchment areas or microcatchments. In India, one common technique is simply to build a bund across a gently sloping hillside, so that runoff Ramanujan flows originating from rainfall collect behind the bund, where water is left standing until the planting date for the crop approaches; then the land is drained, and the BRUCE C. BERNDT crop sown. This land behind the bund which is sea- sonally flooded and then later planted with a crop is Srinivasa Ramanujan was born on 22 December 1887 known as an ahar in Bihar, or a khadin in Rajasthan. in the home of his maternal grandmother in Erode, Although some ahars may be only one hectare in extent India, a small town located about 250 miles southwest with a bund 100 m long, others are very large and of Madras. Soon thereafter, his mother returned with account for 800,000 ha of cultivation in Bihar state. her son to her home in Kumbakonam, approximately 1868 Ramanujan

160 miles south–southwest of Madras. Ramanujan’s many diagnoses made, but a more recent examination of father was a clerk in a cloth merchant’s shop, and his Ramanujan’s symptoms points to hepatic amoebiasis. In mother took in local college students to augment the 1919, he returned to India with the hope that a more family’s meager income. favorable climate and more palatable food would restore Ramanujan’s mathematical talent was recognized his health. However, his condition worsened, and on 26 in grammar school, and he won prizes, usually books April 1920, Ramanujan passed away. of English poetry, in recognition of his mathematical After Ramanujan’s death, Hardy strongly urged that skills. At the age of 15, Ramanujan borrowed G. S. Carr’s Ramanujan’s notebooks be edited and published with Synopsis of Pure Mathematics from the local Govern- his Collected Papers. Two English mathematicians, ment College in Kumbakonam. This unusual book, G. N. Watson and B. M. Wilson, devoted over 10 years written by a Cambridge tutor to teach students, contained to proving the approximately 3,000–4,000 theorems approximately 5,000 theorems, mostly without proofs, claimed by Ramanujan in his notebooks, but they never and was to serve as Ramanujan’s primary source of completed the task. It was not until 1957 that an mathematical knowledge. unedited photocopy edition of Ramanujan’s notebooks With a scholarship, Ramanujan entered the Govern- was published. In 1977, Berndt, with the help of Watson ment College in Kumbakonam in 1904. However, by and Wilson’s notes, began to devote all of his research this time, he was completely absorbed with mathemat- efforts toward editing the notebooks, and in 1998 he ics and would not study any other subject. Consequent- completed the task with the publication of his fifth ly, at the end of his first year, Ramanujan failed all of volume on the notebooks. In 1976, Andrews discovered his exams, except mathematics. He lost his scholarship a sheaf of 140 pages of Ramanujan’s work, now called and therefore was unable to return to college. the “lost notebook,” in the library at Trinity College, For the next 5 years, working in isolation, Ramanujan Cambridge. In 2005, Andrews and Berndt published devoted himself to mathematics. He worked on a slate, their first volume on Ramanujan’s lost notebook. and because paper was expensive, recorded his Ramanujan made many beautiful discoveries in mathematical discoveries without proofs in notebooks. several areas of number theory and analysis, in During this time, he attempted once more to obtain a particular, the theory of partitions, probabilistic number college education, at Pachaiyappa College in Madras, theory, highly composite numbers, arithmetical func- but his singular devotion to mathematics, and illness, tions, elliptic functions, modular equations, modular deterred him again. forms, q-series, hypergeometric functions, asymptotic Having married Janaki in 1909, Ramanujan sought analysis, infinite series, integrals, continued fractions, employment in 1910. For over a year, he was privately and combinatorial analysis. His influence can be traced supported by Ramachandra Rao, as he gradually to many areas of contemporary mathematics; this is became known in the Madras area for his mathematical evident in the proceedings of major conferences gifts. In 1912, Ramanujan became a clerk in the Madras commemorating Ramanujan on the 100th anniversary Port Trust Office, and this was to be a watershed in his of his birth. Although much of Ramanujan’sworkisquite career, for the manager, S. Narayana Aiyar, and the deep, many of his original discoveries can be understood Chairman, Sir Francis Spring, took a kindly interest in with a background of only high school mathematics. In Ramanujan and encouraged him to write English particular, his several results on solving systems of mathematicians about his work. equations, representing integers as sums of powers, and On 16 January 1913, Ramanujan wrote to the famous approximating π are elementary. In the past few decades, English number theorist and analyst, G. H. Hardy. as more of Ramanujan’s results have been unearthed, He and his colleague J. E. Littlewood examined the his already great reputation has soared even more. approximately 60 mathematical results communicated by Most biographical sketches of Ramanujan’s life Ramanujan and were astounded by his many beauti- rely chiefly on the obituaries written by Seshu Aiyar ful and original claims. Hardy strongly encouraged and Ramachandra Rao, and the writings of Hardy. Ramanujan to come to Cambridge, so that his mathemat- However, Robert Kanigel’s biography is by far the most ical talents could be fully developed. At first, Ramanujan complete and detailed description of Ramanujan’s was reluctant to acceptthe invitation, because of orthodox life. Much can also be learned from Ramanujan’s letters Brahmin beliefs that crossing the seas makes one unclean, to Hardy, his family, and friends. but on 17 March 1914 Ramanujan sailed for England. During the next 3 years Ramanujan achieved References worldwide fame for his mathematical discoveries, some Albert, Robert S. Mathematical Giftedness and Mathematical made in collaboration with Hardy. However, in the Genius: A Comparison of G.H. Hardy and Srinivasa spring of 1917, Ramanujan became ill and was confined Ramanujan. Genius and the Mind: Studies in Creativity to nursing homes for the next 2 years. Tuberculosis, lead and Temperament. Ed. Andrew Steptoe. Oxford: Oxford poisoning, and a vitamin deficiency were among the University Press, 1998. 111–38. Rangoli: Versatile domestic art 1869

Andrews, George E. Simplicity and Surprise in Ramanujan’s finely layered floor. Petals of various flowers, such as ‘Lost’ Notebook. American Mathematical Monthly, 1997. oleanders, cosmos, zinnia, chrysanthemums, and green Andrews, George E., Richard A. Askey, Bruce C. Berndt, K. G. leaves provide the artist with the ability to work out Ramanathan, and Robert A. Rankin. Ramanujan Revisited. Boston: Academic Press, 1988. various patterns and colors. Most of the rangoli designs Andrews, George E. and Berndt, Bruce C. Ramanujan’s Lost are motifs of plants, flowers, leaves such as coconut, Notebook, Part I. New York: Springer, 2005. lotus, mango, and ashwath (peepal), animals such as Berndt, Bruce C. An Overview of Ramanujan’s Notebooks. cows, elephants, and horses, and birds like eagles and Charlemagne and His Heritage. Vol. 2. Mathematical Arts. swans. There are geometrical designs as well. When Ed. P. L. Butzer, et al. Turnhout: Brepols, 1998. 119–46. ’ drawn with the fingers, these acquire different dimen- ---. Ramanujan s Notebooks. Parts I-V. New York: Springer sions of their own (Fig. 2). Verlag, 1985, 1989, 1991, 1994, 1998. Berndt, Bruce C. and Robert A. Rankin. Ramanujan: Letters and Commentary. Providence: American Mathematical Society, 1995. Berndt, Bruce and Robert Rankin. Ramanujan: Essays and Surveys. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. Berndt, Bruce C., Heng Huat Chan, and Ziang-Cheng Zhang. Ramanujan’s Association with Radicals in India. American Mathematical Monthly, 1997. Hardy, G. H. Ramanujan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1940. Rpt. New York: Chelsea, 1978. Kanigel, Robert. The Man Who Knew Infinity. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1991. Nandy, Ashis. Alternative Sciences–Creativity and Authen- ticity in Two Indian Scientists. New Delhi, India: Oxford University Press, 2001. Ramanujan, Srinivasa. Collected Papers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1927. Rpt. New York: Chelsea, 1962. ---. Notebooks. Bombay: Tata Institute of Fundamental Rangoli: Versatile Domestic Art. Fig. 1 Example of a Research, 1957. ---. The Lost Notebook and Other Unpublished Papers. New Rangoli Design (illustration by K. L. Kamat). Delhi: Narosa, 1988.

Rangoli: Versatile Domestic Art

JYOTSNA KAMAT

The art of rangoli (also known as alpana, saaz, muggu, R kolam, zuti, mandana, and by many other names in India) is a traditional art of decorating courtyards and walls of Indian houses, places of worship and sometimes eating places as well. The powder of white stone, lime, rice flour, and other cheap paste is used to draw intricate and ritual designs. Each state of India has its own way of painting rangoli (Fig. 1).

Women’s Art One characteristic of rangoli is that commoners paint it, without much background in geometry, fine arts or mathematics. Women use their bare fingers or a homemade brush to create various designs from sandstone powder or grain flour. Sometimes colors and petals are used in addition to flour paste. Some women are so skilled with their fingers that they can Rangoli: Versatile Domestic Art. Fig. 2 Rangoli to create figures of deities, chariots, temples, etc., on the welcome God (photograph by K. L. Kamat). 1870 Rationale in Indian mathematics

The rangoli art is practised as a ritual to welcome the The sun, the moon, the stars, conches, and lotus are goddess of prosperity, Lakshmi, into the home. Hence the considered sacred figures in rangoli. Animals like first duty for housewives and young girls in the morning elephants, cows, horses, tortoises, and birds like parrots, is to sweep the courtyard clean and draw rangoli patterns. peacocks, and swans, along with plants and creepers, Old and young alike participate in this ephemeral are often included in this art that combines geometry domestic art which changes every day. We see that with philosophy and devotion with beauty. rangoli is predominantly a ritual performed by women. Men draw rangolis in temples and in public places. Rangoli in Contemporary India Festivals dedicated to different gods provide change in History of Rangoli the daily routine of rangoli. During Naga panchami, The history of rangoli is quite ancient. Early rock symbols of serpents will appear. On Deepavali, the paintings have symbols and figures of wild animals, festival of lights, small earthen lamps will be drawn. On hunting scenes, etc., to ward off evil and wish success Sankranti festival day, sugarcane, paddy, and wheat in hunting expeditions. By the time of the Indus valley sheaves, which are fresh at that time, will find a place of civilization (3000 BC), symbols like triangles, circles, honor in the front door rangoli. Usually every Hindu and swastikas were used to represent supernatural house has a platform built round the sacred plant of powers. During the Vedic period, places to seat guests Tulasi. On festival days, this place will also get a and sacrificial altars were decorated with floral designs. special design in addition to the daily ones. Patterns of By the use of the hand and deft movement of the flowers are popular. Innovative artists paint Christmas fingures, rangoli has developed into a fine art over and New Year’s greetings also in the form of rangolis, centuries. At times, a simple homemade brush is used depicting Santa Claus and nativity scenes. (Fig. 3). During Car festival, the entire village or townspeople will decorate the paths with colorful rangoli designs ’ Complex Geometry and Philosophy through which the deity s car (chariot or ratha)willpass. With smaller flats in cities, this temporary and for Common Folk renewable art is disappearing. More and more house- Almost all of the rangoli patterns involve dots (bindu) holds find it convenient to decorate their houses with and lines (rekha); joining these creates innumerable permanent paints; however, they continue to use patterns. A spot suggests power or life. A line suggests traditional rangoli designs. the flow of life. A circle represents the universe and a triangle signifies woman’s power or fertility. The swastika stands for the sun’s movement. Some interpret References that it represents fourfold achievements for house- Bayiri, B. P. Chitra Kutir. Private collection, Udupi. holders as laid down by sacred texts. These are dharma Huyler, Stephen. Painted Prayers: Women’s Art in Village (virtuous life), artha (earning livelihood), kama India. New York: Rizzoli, 1994. (creature comforts), and finally moksha (renunciation Kamat’s Potpourri. ▶http://www.kamat.com in old age). The four corners of the swastika are Patil, S. C. Karnatakada Janapada Chitrakale. Gadag: supposed to symbolize these ideals. Virasaiva Adhyayana Samsthe, Sri Jagadguru Tontadarya Samsthana Matha, 1993 (in Kannada).

Rationale in Indian Mathematics

K. V. SARMA

Rationale in Hindu mathematics and astronomy is expressed by the terms Yukti and Upapatti, both meaning “the logical principles implied”. It is charac- teristic of the Western scientific tradition, from the times of Euclid and Aristotle up to modern times, to enunciate and deduce using step by step reasoning. Such a practice is almost absent in the Indian tradi- Rangoli: Versatile Domestic Art. Fig. 3 Women joining tion, even though the same background tasks of collect- dots to make complex designs (photograph by K. L. Kamat). ing and correlating data, identifying and analyzing Rationality, objectivity, and method 1871 methodologies, and arguing out possible answers, have References to be gone through before arriving at results. However, Āryabhat.īya of Āryabhat.a with the Bhās.ya of Nīlakan. t.ha in the final depiction, only the resultant formulae Somayāji. Trivandrum: Oriental Research Institute and would be given, and that too in short, crisp aphoristic Manuscripts Library, 1930, 1931, 1957. form, leaving out details of all the background Hari, K. Chandra. True Rationale of Surya Siddhanta. Indian work. Commentaries generally content themselves Journal of the History of Science 32.3 (Sept. 1997): with explaining the text of the formulae and adding 183–90. Kuppanna Sastri, Mahābhāskarīya of Bhāskarācārya with the examples. This tendency toward selective depiction of ā ā results has resulted not only in blacking out the Bh s.ya of Govindasv min and the Super-Commentary Siddhāntadīpikā of Parameśvara. Madras: Government background, but also in not understanding the mental Oriental Manuscripts Library, 1957. working of the Indian scientist. It also throws into Sarma, K. V. A History of the Kerala School of Hindu oblivion the methodologies that had evolved. For this Astronomy. Hoshiarpur: Vishveshvaranand Institute, 1972. reason, many Indian advances have been branded as Sarma, K. V., ed. Rāśigolasphut.ānīti: True Longitude unoriginal and borrowed. Computation on the Sphere of Zodiac. Hoshiarpur: The situation is, however, relieved to some extent by Vishveshvaranand Institute, 1977a. ---. Jyotirmīmām. sā of Nīlakan. t.ha Somayāji. Hoshiarpur: the presence of a few commentaries which took pains Vishveshvaranand Institute, 1977b. to explain elaborately the methodologies adopted by ---. Gan. itayuktayah. : Rationales of Hindu Astronomy. the original author and also set out the rationales of the Hoshiarpur: Vishveshvaranand Institute, 1979. formulae he enunciated. Among such commentaries Srinivas, M. D. The Methodology of Indian Mathematics might be mentioned: and its Contemporary Relevance. PPST Bulletin (Madras) 12 (1987): 1–35. Siddhāntadīpikā on Govindasvāmi’s Mahābhāskarīya- Bhāsya by Parameśvara (1360–1465) Āryabhatīya-Bhāsya by Nīlakantha Somayāji (b. 1444) .. . Yuktidīpikā on Nīlakantha Somayaji’s Tantrasangraha . .. . Rationality, Objectivity, and Method by Śankara Vāriyar (1500–1560) Vāsanābhās.ya on Bhāskarācārya’s Siddhāntaśiroman. i by Nr.sim. ha Daivajña (1621) DAVI D TURNBULL Marīcī, again on Bhāskarācārya’s Siddhāntaśiroman. i by Munīśvara (1627) Rationality, objectivity, and method are three words A few texts devoted solely to the depiction of rationale that capture the essence of science and at the same time are also known, such as the Yuktibhās.ā (Mathematical provide its mythic structure. Science has become the “Rationale in Language” Malayalam) by Jyes.t.hadeva authoritative form of knowledge in the world today. (1500–1610), Jyotirmīmām. sā (Investigations on Astro- The proof of its superiority lies in the ever-expanding nomical Theories) by Nīlakan.t.ha Somayāji (b. 1444), body of knowledge we have about reality. We can Rāśigolasphut.ānīti (True Longitude Computation on the predict where, when, and how meteorites will collide Sphere of the Zodiac) by Acyuta Pis.ārat.i (1600), and with Jupiter, and we can build interplanetary spacecraft Karan. apaddhati (Methods of Astronomical Calcula- to send back signals recording the event. We can tions) by Putumana Somayāji (1660–1740). explore the atomic structure of chemicals and design R However, what is more significant is the occurrence new ones to suit whatever purpose we have in mind, of a number of short tracts giving mathematical and ecstasy or health. We can map the human genome. We astronomical rationale which are available, some in can explain the origins of everything in the universe print and several others in the form of manuscripts. down to the first few nanoseconds. The source, according These tracts take up individual topics of importance, to the myth, of this unparalleled success lies in analyze the technical principles involved therein, com- science’s embodiment of the highest form of rationality pare the procedures adopted in different texts, and and objectivity in the scientific method. This mythical often suggest revisions. To cite an example, the work underpinning of science also provides the rationale for Gan. itayuktayah. (Rationales of Hindu Astronomy) con- the celebration of modernity and the current domina- tains a set of 27 tracts providing rationalistic exegeses tion of the West. This view is unselfconsciously on several topics including parallaxes of latitude and exemplified by the philosopher Ernest Gellner who longitude, elevation of the moon’s horns, constitution claims, “If a doctrine conflicts with the acceptance of of epochs for new astronomical manuals, planetary the superiority of scientific-industrial societies over deflections, and equation of the center. It is also others, then it really is out” (cited in Salmond 1985). noteworthy that some of these exegeses establish the Therein lies the first set of intrinsic problems originality of the methodologies and formulae depicted and contradictions the myth conceals. Modernity is by Indian scientists. supposedly synonymous with development and social 1872 Rationality, objectivity, and method improvement, but it has become apparent in recent in contemporary Western society. Mario Bunge has times that science and technology are no longer captured some of that self-evidentiality and variability unalloyed agents of progress. They now seem to in his seven desiderata for rationality: contribute significantly to the difficulties we are facing 1. Conceptual: minimizing fuzziness, vagueness, or in environmental degradation, pollution, climate change, imprecision and waste disposal. The other equally difficult emergent 2. Logical: striving for consistency, avoiding contra- problem for the mythological account of science is that it diction has been seen as quintessentially Western and as absent 3. Methodological: questioning, doubting, criticizing, in the developing countries or an undeveloped possibil- demanding proof, or evidence ity in the Islamic, Chinese, and Indian cultures. This can 4. Epistemological: caring for empirical support and no longer be accepted as a simple fact, but has now to be compatibility with bulk of accepted knowledge seen as an ideological marker in the creation of the 5. Ontological: adopting a view consistent with “other.” We have then a joint problem. On the one hand science and technology “the future is not what it used to be,” courtesy of the 6. Valuational: striving for goals which are worthy and negative effects of science and technology, but we will attainable nonetheless have to call on them for their problem 7. Practical: adopting means likely to attain the goals solving capacities. On the other hand it is becoming in view apparent that the grand project of modernity – a universal scientific culture – has failed and ought to be Indeed seeing them set out like this makes their denial relinquished in favor of encouraging cultural diversity. seem irrational. Just as biological diversity has become recognized as an From a relativist’s perspective there are no universal ecological necessity so too has our cultural survival criteria of rationality, and even if the claim for ra- come to be seen as dependent on a diversity of tionality’s governing role is weakened to talk of knowledge (see knowledge systems). Consequently desiderata as Bunge does, Wittgenstein’s and Godel’s “the central problem of social and political theory today point prevails: all formal systems are necessarily in- is to decide the nature of communicatory reason complete, no body of rules can contain the rules for between irreducibly different cultures” (Davidson their application. Rationality consists in the application 1994). Given this double difficulty we need to ask of locally agreed criteria in particular context or as ourselves if science can be reconstituted. Foucault puts it, forms of rationalization are embedded in systems of practices (Foucault 1979: 47). Hence it should be acknowledged that science, rather than Rationality exemplifying some transcendental rationality, has devel- It is in trying to explicate rationality, objectivity, the oped its own rationalities that have in turn served to scientific method and the nature of science that the myth create a great divide between science and traditional of science’s transcendental supremacy really comes beliefs. There is of course a middle ground, the so-called undone. Rationality is a deeply problematic concept. It bridgehead argument which calls for the recognition that is profoundly embedded in the hidden assumptions of all humans have some minimal forms of practical late twentieth century occidentalism about what it is to rationality in common. Though this recognition has be a knowing, moral, sane individual. Indeed it is produced no universal truths and no universal criteria, it so embedded that to be anything other than rational is to nonetheless provides the grounds for a commonality be ignorant, immoral, insane, or a member of an un- sufficient for partial communication and understanding differentiated herd. Hence rationality cannot be treated across linguistic, ontological, and cultural differences. as simply an epistemological concept about the There is a philosophical tendency to talk of conditions under which one can know something; it rationality as if it were a problem with no historical also carries ideological overtones, privileging certain or sociological dimensions. This is to ignore the fact ways of knowing over others. Rationality is a constitu- that the concept of the individual as a rational actor that tive element in the moral economy. is now so basic to Western ways of thought is not Yet despite, or perhaps because of, this central role derived from first principles; it arose in conjunction of rationality, there are no fully articulated rules or with the development of modern science in the criteria for being rational in the acceptance of beliefs or seventeenth century. This was a period which saw in the pursuit of knowledge, nor is there a single type of great debates over the appropriate forms of rationality rationality. This sense of incoherence in the concept between the Cartesian rationalists and the Baconian reaches total intransigence in the recognition that empiricists. Whether true knowledge was to be derived ultimately there can be no rational justification for deductively from self-evident first principles or by being rational. Nonetheless critical rationalism as observation and experiment, it had already been advocated by Karl Popper has a primal persuasiveness accepted that the acquisition of such knowledge was Rationality, objectivity, and method 1873 within the capacity of human individuals. The on the vacuumas private, local, and artifactual until Boyle recognition that human reason and experience was was able to introduce a range of social, literary, and not inherently limited and could be a source of technical practices that enabled the knowledge pro- knowledge re-emerged in the twelfth and thirteenth duced in the isolation of the laboratory to be “virtually centuries in the West with the separation of the church witnessed” and reproduced for other audiences and in from the state and with the development of secular law other laboratories (see Knowledge Systems). from the accompanying canon law (Berman 1983). The Rationality is not a particular human capacity. Rather development of this conception of rationality was not there are forms and compounds of rationality which at universal. For example it was not paralleled in Islamic the societal level, as Foucault has shown, are dependent society where men were denied rational agency; they on particular social and historical institutions, con- were held to lack the capacity to change nature or to stituted through the interwoven practices, techniques, understand it. Knowledge was instead to be derived strategies, and modes of calculation that traverse them. from traditional authority. This is not to claim that there However, at the individual level we do not behave like has been no Islamic science or any Islamic discussion the ends/means optimization calculators that economic of rationality (Huff 1993). On the contrary, there have rationalism would have us believe we are. We are at least been major achievements in Islamic science but in a as interested in meaning, significance, and personal radically different moral economy. values as we are in economic concerns. Nor are we quite While the notion of the rational actor as uncon- the rational agents basing our knowledge on direct strained by circumstance or authority and moved only experience that the legal and philosophical theorists by logic and evidence has become embedded in our claim. A vast preponderance of our knowledge derives legal, economic, and scientific presuppositions, such an not from personal experience but from books, news- idealized conception is at variance with our lived reality papers, journals, teachers, and experts. In other words both at the societal and the individual level. At the our knowledge comes, directly or indirectly, from the societal level, modern Western capitalism has become testimony of others, in particular from those we trust. a bureaucratic system that, as Weber pointed out, Thus our individual lived rationality is based in a range relies on a calculative rationality (Weber 1979). The of social practices, traditions, and moralities that are administration and perpetuation of this system is suppressed and concealed in the portrayal of rationality crucially dependent on a system of rules from which as an ahistorical, universalistic form of reasoning legal and administrative calculations can be derived by exemplified by science. professional, objective, experts. Hence modern science and capitalism are interdependent; they were copro- duced on the basis of a calculability derived in part Objectivity from rational structures of law and administration. In Much the same can be said of objectivity. Objective Weber’s view it is the specific and peculiar rationalism knowledge is held to be the product of science that has of western culture that makes science unique to the established methods to ensure that individual, institu- west. Even if Weber was right, what needs further tional, and cultural biases are eliminated. On closer examination is how specific and peculiar that calcula- examination objectivity is not characteristic of one tive rationalism is. That form of rationality has a special kind of knowledge – science. Rather it is the number of interwoven components, for example the result of whatever institutionalized practices serve in a R acceptance of written documents as evidence as opposed particular culture to create self-evident validity. Objec- to oral testimony. This transition also occurred in the tive knowledge, in modern terms, is held to contrast twelfth and thirteenth centuries but required the develop- with subjective knowledge. It is knowledge that is not ment of a “literate mentality” before it became self- local, that is not contingent on the circumstance, evident that records and archives were more worthy of authority, or the perspective of the individual knower. belief than the word of “twelve good men and true” However, the concept of objectivity, like that of (Street 1984). Some, like Goody, have further argued that rationality, is not immutable; it is an historic compound. the accumulation of knowledge and the possibility of In the seventeenth century objectivity meant “the thing criticism and hence rationality are only possible in a insofar as it is known.” The concept of aperspectival literate culture. Similarly vision had to be rationalized to objectivity emerged in the moral and aesthetic philoso- provide grammar or rules for the relationship between the phy of the late eighteenth century and spread to the representation of objects and their shapes as located in natural sciences only in the mid-nineteenth century as space. Yet another component of the form of rationality result of the institutionalization of scientific life as a we equate with science was the acceptance of the validity group rather than an individual activity. of experimental evidence. Shapin and Schaffer have This characterization of objectivity as the “view argued in The Leviathan and the Air Pump that Thomas from nowhere” (Nagel 1986) represents one of Hobbes was able to dismiss Robert Boyle’s experiments the essential contradictions of scientific knowledge 1874 Rationality, objectivity, and method production. Knowledge is necessarily a social product; in mind, or minimally with some set of expectations it is the messy, contingent, and situated outcome of about what is interesting or what to look for. In this sense group activity. Yet in order to achieve credibility and our observations of the world are “theory dependent” or authority in a culture that prefers the abstract over the “theory laden.” concrete and that separates facts from values, knowl- As Duhem points out, all theories are enmeshed in a edge has to be presented as unbiased and undistorted, web of other theories and assumptions. The apparent as being without a place or a knower. conflict between an experimental result and a particular Objectivity, like democracy, is at best a worthy goal hypothesis cannot conclusively lead to the rejection of but one that is never capable of achievement. Since that hypothesis, since the strongest conclusion that can knowledge is the product of social processes it can be drawn is that the hypothesis under test and the web never completely transcend the social. Objective of theories and assumptions in which it is embedded knowledge cannot, for example, simply be knowledge cannot both be true. Since the experimental result by which is unaffected by nonrational psychological itself is insufficient to tell us where the flaw lies, we can forces, since scientists always have motivations even always maintain a theory in the light of an apparently if they pursue knowledge for its own sake. Nor can falsifying experiment if we are prepared to make objectivity be restricted to the avoidance of dogmatic sufficiently radical adjustments in the web of our commitment, because there have been scientists like assumptions. Conversely it is the case that for any Kepler whose obsession with regular solids and cosmic given set of facts there is an indeterminably large harmony led to his derivation of the laws of planetary number of possible theories that could explain them. motion. While it may be possible to avoid personal In addition to the problematic relationship of theory idiosyncrasy this can only be achieved through the and observation there is a difficulty concerning the establishment of communal or public knowledge. If language in which our claims about the world are knowledge is a communal product, then the question of expressed. All propositions or observation statements how the community should be constituted arises. contain descriptive predicates which imply a classifica- Should the scientific community be an essentially tion or categorization of the world based on postulated western institution? Consequently objective knowledge essences or natural kinds. We are stuck with some cannot simply be “value free” knowledge because what degree of circularity since we gain our knowledge about is counted as knowledge is itself a value. Similarly the natural kinds from theories which are in turn based on criterion of practical effectiveness cannot determine observations. There is no neutral observation language; objectivity since it too is based in community standards. our only option is to recognize and acknowledge the The only remaining possibilities for objective conventional character of our linguistic classifications. knowledge lie in the notions of correspondence with reality and experimental verification. There are well known difficulties here, since correspondent theories Scientific Method of truth and verification are dependent on empiricism Despite all these difficulties scientists are able to reach and the scientific method, both of which have been firm conclusions about the natural world. How is this subject to powerful criticism in the last half century or possible? Many would claim that even though it may be so. Essentially, what philosophers like Duhem, Quine, logically true that there are an indefinite number of and Wittgenstein have argued is that our ways of possible explanations for a given body of facts, in a knowing about the world are riddled with indetermi- given case there are typically a very restricted set of nacies; which is to say that there is no set of procedures alternatives and there are adequate means of selecting sufficiently powerful to determine which knowledge the right theory, or at least the best possible theory in claims are absolutely true and certain, nor is there a the circumstances, given the application of certain certain way of grounding such claims. There are criteria. For example, we obviously desire theories uncertainties inherent in all our ways of knowing that which are internally coherent, consistent with other have to be bridged by a variety of practical and social accepted theories, and simple rather than complex. strategies. Popper and Kuhn have argued that neither However coherence, consistency, and simplicity as deduction nor induction is capable of providing true well as other criteria like plausibility have all proved and certain knowledge. Furthermore observations and notoriously difficult to express in a way which can be theories are interrelated and hence neither can be an used to measure all theories in all circumstances. It is, independent foundation for the other. Both Popper and none the less, very tempting from our twentieth century Kuhn recognize that observations have point and standpoint, imbued as we are with the scientific ethos, meaning within the context or framework of a theory: to suppose that there must be a particular set of rules, we do not simply observe natural phenomena, we procedures, and criteria to which all scientists adhere. observe them in the light of some theory we already have Taken together they should constitute the scientific Rationality, objectivity, and method 1875 method, and by diligent application of this method we the first. Some further test is needed to test the quality should be able to arrive at all the scientific discoveries of the experiment – and so forth” (Collins 1985). of our age. However, Paul Feyerabend in Against This result in what Collins calls “the experimenter’s Method, for example, argues that no proposed set of regress.” In the normal course this is resolved by social rules and procedures has survived criticism or has been processes in which the judgment about whether to universally adopted by all scientists in all circum- accept a particular result is based on the relevant stances. Likewise he claims that in no case can it be community’s evaluation of the skills of the experi- shown that the success of science can be solely menter in question. It becomes deeply problematic attributed to its adherence to the scientific method. when the existence of the phenomenon itself is at issue, There can of course be endless debates about such as in the case of gravity waves. An experiment showing claims, but so far no one has been able to identify the the existence of such waves was followed by others one scientific method which has been adopted in all the seemingly denying their existence, or at least failing to sciences. Compare for example theoretical physics detect them. Which was correct? The existence of (mainly mathematical) and biology (mainly observa- gravity waves turns on the judgment of the community tional). Nor is there a method which has been about competently performed experiments, and those unilaterally accepted in a particular discipline. Com- judgments of competence are based on the accepted pare again, Newton’s espoused methodology (“I feign community knowledge about the nature of gravity no hypotheses”) with Einstein’s (bold hypotheses and waves. Replication then is not the test of their deductive tests). Further, particular instances of existence; rather it reflects the ability of the experi- scientific practice under close examination reveal a menter to achieve community standards of experimen- pragmatic willingness to suspend or modify any tal practice. particular version of the scientific method if necessary, Thus it would seem that conceptions of rationality, as Feyerabend has shown in his analysis of Galileo and objectivity, and the scientific method cannot be derived Copernicus. It seems then that there is no “single, from self-evident epistemological principles. They are invariant methodology of science.” Instead there are instead embedded in the historically contingent pro- series of complex interactions between method and cesses of scientific practice, whereby the resistances practice. As science and technology develop, so the and limitations of reality are encountered and accom- practitioners develop and negotiate the rules for doing modated. Science is a social activity that is essentially them in a local and contingent fashion. New meth- dependent on community and tradition, and the practice odologies are propounded in order to provide support of science is governed by concrete, discrete, local and credibility to a newly preferred scientific theory. traditions which resist rationalization. The notion of a great divide between Western and so- called primitive knowledge systems has turned crucial- Scientific Practice ly on the question of rationality of science. If, as the It could be argued that the indeterminacies of science arguments above suggest, science has a rationality of its and the lack of a specific scientific method are merely own, but not one that is especially privileged, how do philosophical and theoretical problems, and that we both account for and deal with similarity and science is firmly grounded in experimental practice. difference between cultures? How is it, on the one The best way to know whether a particular knowledge hand, that the peoples of the world are sufficiently alike R claim about the world is true or false is to subject it to to have universally developed complex languages, and experimental test and then have somebody else repeat yet those languages and their accompanying knowl- the experiment. edge systems have produced profoundly different There are two kinds of related difficulties with this cultures? On the other hand, how are we to ensure empirical approach. Experiments are inevitably per- communication and preserve cultural diversity? formed on a simplified, artifactual, and isolated portion In the entry on local knowledge it is claimed that the of reality. Hence the universal generalizations drawn common element in all knowledge systems is their from them are not indubitable. Cartwright (1983) goes localness, and that their differences lie in the way that so far as to claim that the Laws of Physics are, in effect, local knowledge is assembled through social strategies lies. Equally the effectiveness of experimental replica- and technical devices for establishing equivalences and tion as the litmus test of truth is somewhat undermined connections. It is no small reflexive irony that this entry by the role of skill or tacit knowledge in scientific on rationality and science and the encyclopaedia itself practice. “The problem being that, since experimen- are dependent on unspoken assumptions concerning tation is a matter of skillful practice, it can never be their credibility and authority which constitute a form clear whether a second experiment has been done of rationality. The encyclopaedia is based on the sufficiently well to count as a check on the results of assumption that widely disparate knowledge can be 1876 Rationality, objectivity, and method meaningfully assembled into a volume without loss of Dean, Mitchell. Critical and Effective History: Foucault’s coherence due to incommensurability. Furthermore it is Methods and Historical Sociology. London: Routledge, assumed that the individual articles, dependent as they 1994. Dear, Peter. From Truth to Disinterestedness in the are on evidence, analysis, and argument, are capable of Seventeenth Century. Social Studies of Science 22 being read, understood, and utilized by readers from all (1992): 619–31. cultures. In other words there is a strong resemblance Duhem, Pierre. The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory. between this encyclopaedia and the practice of science. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1954. Science is dependent on the assemblage of heteroge- Feyerabend, Paul. Against Method: Outline of an Anarchist neous inputs, but that assemblage is not achieved by the Theory of Knowledge. London: Verso, 1978. application of logical and rational rules or conformity Finnegan, Ruth. Literacy and Orality: Studies in the Tech- nology of Communication. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988. to a method or plan. Indeed it is not even dependent on Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the a clearly articulated consensus. Rather the assemblage Prison. New York: Vintage Books, 1979. results from the work of negotiation and judgment Hesse, Mary. Revolutions and Reconstructions in the that each of the participants puts in to create the Philosophy of Science. Sussex: Harvester Press, 1980. equivalences and connections that produce order and Hollis, Martin and Steven Lukes eds. Rationality and meaning. Perhaps then it has to be acknowledged that Relativism. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1982 Huff, Toby. The Rise of Early Modern Science; Islam, China there is a minimal rationality assumption, and that links and the West. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, between rationalities can either be created or ignored by 1993. common human endeavor. So, given the lack of Ivins, William M. Prints and Visual Communication. Cam- universal criteria of rationality the problem of working bridge: Harvard University Press, 1953. disparate knowledge systems together is one of creating King, M. D. Reason, Tradition, and the Progressiveness of a shared knowledge space in which on the one hand Science. Paradigms and Revolutions: Applications and ’ equivalences and connections between differing ra- Appraisals of Thomas Kuhn s Philosophy of Science. Ed. Gary Gutting: University of Notre Dame Press, 1980. tionalities can be discursively constructed; and on the 97–116. other hand where no common ground can be created, Kuhn, Thomas. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. agreement can be sought to work with the creative 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970. tension of difference. A good example of such competing Lansing, John Stephen. Priests and Programmers: Technol- rationalities in tension is the irrigation system of Bali. ogies of Power in the Engineered Landscapes of Bali. Stephen Lansing’s analysis shows the crucial role of the Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991. symbolic system of water temples in managing the flow Lave, Jean. Cognition in Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988. of the waters, a role that classic Weberian forms of Nagel, T. The View from Nowhere. Oxford: Oxford rationality have in the past simply dismissed as irrational University Press, 1986. (Lansing 1991). Yet the role of the water temples was Pickering, Andy. Objectivity and the Mangle of Practice. revealed by Lansing’s anthropological and computer- Annals of Scholarship 8 (1991): 409–25. based analysis. Communication, understanding, equality, Popper, Karl. Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of and diversity will not be achieved by others adopting Scientific Knowledge. London: Routledge Kegan Paul, 1963. Western information, knowledge, science, and rationali- Quine, Willard Van Orman. From a Logical Point of View: ty, it will only come from negotiating ways to work Logico-Philosophical Essays. New York: Harper Torch- together in joint and multiple rationalities. books, 1963. Salmond, Anne. Maori Epistemologies. Reason and Mora- References lity. Ed. Joanna Overing. London: Tavistock Pbls., 1985. 240–63. Albury, Randall. The Politics of Objectivity. Geelong: Deakin Schuster, J. A. and R. Yeo eds. The Politics and Rhetoric of University Press, 1983. Scientific Method. Dordrecht: Reidel, 1986. Berman, Harold. Law and Revolution: The Formation of the Shapin, Steven. A Social History of Truth: Civility and Western Legal Tradition. Cambridge: Harvard University Science in 17th Century England. Chicago: University of Press, 1983. Chicago Press, 1994. Bunge, Mario. Seven Desiderata for Rationality. Rationality: Shapin, Steven and Simon Schaffer. Leviathan and the Air The Critical View. Ed. Joseph Agassi and Ian Charles Jarvie. Pump: Hobbes, Boyle and the Experimental Life. Prince- Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1987. 5–17. ton: Princeton University Press, 1985. Cartwright, Nancy. How the Laws of Physics Lie. Oxford: Street, Brian V. Literacy in Theory and Practice. Cambridge: Clarendon Press, 1983. Cambridge University Press, 1984. Collins, Harry. Changing Order: Replication and Induction Weber, Max. Law, Rationalism and Capitalism. Law and in Scientific Practice. London: Sage, 1985. Society. Ed. C. M. Campbell and Paul Wiles. Oxford: Daston, Lorraine. Objectivity and the Escape from Perspec- Martin Robertson, 1979. 51–89. tive. Social Studies of Science 22 (1992): 597–618. Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Philosophical Investigations. Oxford: Davidson,Alastair. Arbitrage. Thesis Eleven 38 (1994): 158–62. Blackwell, 1958. Religion and science in China 1877

For those who do not accept the idea of The Science, Religion and Science in China it becomes crucial to establish a reasonable or practical criterion for nonscience and science. Research efforts in this regard have not been successful either. Another WEIHANG CHEN confusion comes from the fact that in ancient China achievements in technology and in science are not “Religion and science in China” is a controversial topic easily distinguishable. There are doubts about if it which requires some clarification before the discussion makes sense or even if it is possible to define these two can begin. Because the first serious efforts to bring concepts separately in the context of Chinese ancient Chinese classical study to the Western academic world culture. were initiated by Jesuit missionaries in the seventeenth With all these ambiguities in the main concepts and century, it became a Western tradition to look at many differences in the basic positions, the interaction between Chinese cultural phenomena from a religious point of religion and science in China has not been formed into a view and categorize them accordingly. For a long time regular study subject. In this article we will acknowledge in the West, the three main Jiao (systems of teachings that the concepts “religion” and “science” are both and beliefs) of Chinese traditions, Confucianism, Western concepts used in a Chinese context. “Religion” Daoism (Taoism), and Buddhism, were called three means a system of beliefs and “science” means religions. However, since the reconstruction of Chinese knowledge, especially theoretical or systematic knowl- classical study early in this century, Chinese scholars edge about nature, human beings, and life, but not about generally consider Confucianism and Classical Daoism human beliefs, activities, and relationships. Thus we will philosophies, popular Daoism a religion, and Chinese be able to achieve some clarity in our discussion. Buddhism both a religion and a philosophy. Today in the The question of why the scientific revolution did not West there is no consistent way of using these terms. take place in China has drawn much attention during All three are called either religions or philosophies or recent decades. A generally accepted conclusion is still both, according to the idea or method or focus of the far away, and may not even be important. In this article researcher. Furthermore, it is common practice to include we will explore the influence exerted by the main other beliefs and activities in the study of religion, such as Chinese ideologies on the nature and development myths, rituals, customs, popular superstitions, and court of Chinese science. Here “main Chinese ideologies” divination rediscovered through mythological, linguistic, means Confucianism and Daoism. Also, “Chinese or archeological findings. These new studies are in fact science” means and includes Chinese ideas, theories, turning the topic of “religion and science” into a much and knowledge about nature (including humans as broader topic of “culture and science.” natural beings) which were accepted by Chinese scholars On the other hand, the concept of “Chinese science” is or professionals in corresponding historical periods. even more uncertain. There is a strong tendency both in In the West in ancient times, science was under the the West and in present-day China to question the strong influence of religions, and in modern times, possibility of a different kind of science. The underlying religions were under the influence and pressure of the implication is the belief that there is only one science development of science. In China, science went along a for one universe – The Science, which is objective and different road; it started under the decisive influence of universal. With this belief in mind, explicitly or early Confucianism and philosophical Daoism. These R implicitly, historians of science generally consider two traditions governed the development of Chinese Western modern science as the best approximation of science. There were no serious conflicts between The Science, and use it as a measure to search for these governing ideologies and Chinese science until relevant materials in Chinese ancient relics and texts. By China began to bring in Western science on a large using the same measure, Chinese ancient ideas, theories, scale in the late nineteenth century. The conflict studies of nature, and activities dealing with nature are between Confucianism and Western science at that accordingly classified into “scientific subjects” and time has been a much studied topic. thereby evaluated. The same belief also provides criteria After Buddhism was introduced into China around for distinguishing nonscience from science. The danger the first century, it gradually became the primary of this viewpoint is that it will miss many of the organized religion. However, little can be found in the real merits in cultures other than Western ones. One development of Chinese science that was affected by example is that the deep-set dichotomy of “body and soul the development of Chinese Buddhism. One explana- (mind)” in the Western culture is typically a Greek tion of this phenomenon is that the characteristics of tradition and may not be shared by other cultures. This Chinese science, its subject matter and method, difference will show itself especially in the different had been firmly established before the Qing dynasty medical traditions. (221–206 BCE). The nature of that science is quite 1878 Religion and science in China compatible with the philosophy and practice of certain should have in all his/her activities including govern- kinds of Indian Buddhism. On the other hand, together mental, social, familial, and individual activities. Thus, with Confucianism and Daoism, Chinese science might Dao as the most fundamental principle or cosmological have exerted a strong influence upon the development law is objective and natural, and governs the whole of Chinese Buddhism, especially the Chan sect (the world which in Western categories splits into the origin of the Japanese “Zen”). Little research has been natural world, society, and individual life. done on this topic. To know Dao and therefore to act according to Dao Our main concern will be the influence of ancient is the goal of ancient Chinese study. The result of Confucianism and Daoism on Chinese science. We will this study is to gain Te. Te is both knowledge in the begin with ancient cosmological beliefs and the sense of knowing what is right, and virtue in the sense methodology associated with these beliefs. As Con- of practicing what is right. Like knowledge and virtue fucianism and Daoism are the two schools that have in the West, Te can be both innate and acquired. That is, been most influential in the making of Chinese culture, people are born with Te, to a greater or less degree, and have preserved a great quantity of texts and historical can acquire and accumulate Te through study and records for their teachings, and have been thoroughly practice in their lives. However, unlike the Western studied, the common features of these two schools will concepts of knowledge and virtue, Te can neither be provide a good starting point in searching the origin of defined by a general relationship, either functional or Chinese science. After this, we will also discuss how quantitative, nor be abstracted or theorized from its the difference between these two schools influenced special context – the human conditions which define the development of Chinese science in their own way. the reality of the individuals concerned. The reality of an individual is his/her Fate, which is Chinese Ancient Cosmological Beliefs basically determined by Heaven. That means it is out of human reach to change or control it. On the contrary, Fate It is important to examine the basic concepts that were is the realization of Dao in each individual’slife.It used in both Confucian and Daoist texts. Those that can be known either through study and practice, or by concern Chinese science are the concepts of Heaven, divination. Ancient Chinese divination, like a certain Earth, Human, Dao, Te, and Fate. Though Chinese kind of Greek oracle, does not tell what will happen in classics do not provide definitions for these concepts, the future but answers if actions are right or wrong we can study the way they were used in their textual according to Heaven’s way. Therefore, the concept of contexts and interpret their meaning approximately by “good fortune” is not defined by positive results to using Western concepts as follows: Heaven and Earth individual purposes, nor satisfaction of natural or form the natural world that Human lives in. Heaven is whimsical human desires, but by the realization of the the part that is farther away from Human but is more Dao. Therefore, ancient Chinese divination, typically fundamental in the sense that it ultimately governs and represented by the Yijing (I Ching, Book of Changes), decides everything that happens to Earth and Human. has a close relation with the ancient Chinese value Earth is the part of the natural world that surrounds system and moral principles as well as understandings of and interacts with Human directly. Human is the Dao, and thus exerts great influence on the development concept for every human being, who has a life that of Chinese science. has a beginning, a growing process, and an end. The Now when we look back at these beliefs, the distinction between Heaven and Earth is of great following conclusions are apparent: importance in the interactive mechanism between Human and Nature. Human can act directly on Earth 1. Because of the wide variety of its governed and change it and use it for his own purposes, but not phenomena, and because of its moral nature, Dao on Heaven. Earth is governed by Heaven and not by is not a deterministic regularity which decides in Human; therefore, the way Human deals with Earth every detail what happens in the world. Maybe it is, (e.g., agriculture and irrigation) can either be right or on the whole and in the long run, but certainly not in wrong according to whether it follows or violates the form of an instant causal relationship in everyday Heaven’s way. This sounds quite like the Western idea phenomena which are available for measurement of natural law and it seems compatible with modern and observance. Dao is not a natural law which is scientific views, but there is a crucial difference. The impossible to violate. Chinese “Heaven’s way”, which is called Dao, governs 2. If Dao is ultimately deterministic, it can be seen not only Earth, but also Human’s life and society, and in history. Therefore, to keep historical records therefore it is a moral matter whether one follows or is tremendously meaningful and important for violates it. To follow the Dao is not only a matter of the Chinese, and to study these records, what is what to do to achieve a certain purpose, like what called historiography in Western terminology, is science tells us in the West, but also what purposes one especially so. Religion and science in China 1879

3. If Dao is indeterministic in details, and can be However, Confucianism is not a religion in the violated by people for their wrong purposes, then it Western sense, because it has neither doctrine nor makes no sense to study Dao by mechanical reference to the supernatural. It gives no promise, no experimenting, nor by searching underlying regula- reward, and no consolation to its followers either in or rities in the observable movements of stars in beyond this life. It has no God, no church, and no heaven and things on earth. In other words, one organization. It is only a teaching. It teaches the cannot study Dao through instant causal relation- follower how to be a noble man (a Junzi) living a noble ships, because in these relationships there are no life in his special social context. observables which indicate whether what happened The ultimate goal of Confucius’ teaching, and was on the Dao or against the Dao. therefore the goal of Confucian learning, is the benefit 4. Chinese divination has a nature of empirical of the people. The essence of Confucianism lies in knowledge which comes from generalization of these two doctrines (1) a moral government, i.e., phenomenological and historical observations, and governing by moral examples and education instead of a nature of theoretical knowledge which employs by rules, law, and punishment, is the solution to social mathematical representation to calculate functional disorder and is to the highest benefit of the people; and relations in the change of affairs. Not only does it (2) the cultivation of a group of Junzi (noble men) in a exert great influence on the later development of society is a practical road toward moral government. Chinese science in its conceptual system and A Junzi is an elite scholar. He is elite because he has methodology, but also it could be looked upon as higher moral standards and is therefore a better person the earliest achievement of Chinese science. than a common man (Xiaoren, the small men); but he is not an elite in the Western sense, because his higher moral standards require that he has no social privileges Confucianism but only duties and obligations. To be a Junzi is both to Confucianism is the English word for Ru Jia (the lead a noble life and to have a noble personality; it is School of Scholars), which was founded by Confucius a lifelong task of self-cultivation without personal (551–479 BCE), the first private teacher in China. gains. One will choose to be a Junzi because he knows Confucius is the Latinized form of Kong Fuzi,a it is his fate. respectful way of addressing the master. Kong was his To be a Junzi is the immediate goal for a Confucian. family name. He lived in a time when the empire was Because Confucians believe that people’s benefit will being broken up into numerous feudal states. It was a be served best by bettering the government, people are time of change, disorder, and degeneration of the old left alone to deal with their own material needs, their moralities. When he started as an officer and political production, and their struggle with the natural sur- reformer, Confucius’ ideas of personal cultivation and roundings. Confucians take it for granted that common moral government failed to attract the rulers of his time. people are naturally wise enough to deal with all that So he turned to teaching and taught a large number of and take care of their own needs, and it is not Junzi’s private students, preparing them to be good court ministers task to learn and develop knowledge and ability in this as well as good teachers. Thus, he managed to exert an regard. Confucians believe that a moral society would influence by establishing a tradition of individual learning naturally become prosperous. and private education. In the second century BCE his ideas The Analects, a basic Confucian classic, recorded R and teachings were made authoritative by the Han that Confucius once refused to teach his student emperors, and the Classics Confucius edited and used in agricultural knowledge, saying the elder farmers and teaching became the only official textbooks in China until gardeners were better than he in this regard. This shows the beginning of the twentieth century. that Junzi’s learning should be limited to the scope of Confucianism is the Chinese ideology. From the human relationships, and science or scientific knowl- second century BCE to the beginning of the twentieth edge has no value to Junzi’s task of self-cultivation. century, it has been the orthodoxy. In a way, it is the This Confucian attitude toward scientific knowledge Chinese religion, because it provides a system of beliefs has its roots in the belief that the world Human lives in (or disbeliefs) and values which calls for faith and is governed by the Dao, and the best thing Human acceptance from students, and also because it is more can do is to follow the Dao. In Chinese cosmology it is a way of life for students to follow than a body of a Human choice, therefore a moral matter, to follow knowledge for them to master. There are always or to go against the Dao. Therefore, the Western task of scholars who spend their lives studying the text of changing the world according to man’s ideas, or Confucian Classics, but it is not through these studies reforming the world to suit man’s needs, would sound that Confucianism exerts its influence on Chinese absurd and dangerous to the ancient Chinese, for it society and culture. In this regard, Confucianism is more advocates going against the Dao. Human is a part of the comparable to Western religions than philosophies. universe, and not the governing part. Man is not 1880 Religion and science in China the lord of the earth and cannot give orders to Nature. But we cannot oversimplify this situation and accuse This is not to say that ancient Chinese did not make Confucianism of smothering a scientific revolution efforts to better their living conditions, but it does which would otherwise have happened in China. When mean that they did not give these efforts high priority we study the three branches of science Confucianism on the scale of social urgencies. valued, and compare them to Western ones, it can be After Confucianism was made authoritative by seen that they are metaphysically and methodologically Chinese emperors in the second century BCE nearly different. What Confucianism did to Chinese science all Chinese intellectuals became Confucians, who was external and only confined to social factors. formed an elite class in Chinese society. Generally speaking, Confucians looked down on technical and scientific knowledge and achievements because these Daoism neither had any use in self-cultivation, nor helped in The term Daoism in English has several meanings. In turning the government into a moral one. This attitude its basic meaning it is a translation of the Chinese Dao left the development and preservation of scientific Jia (the School of Dao), which was represented by two knowledge in the hands of professionals, many of whom Daoist classics: the Lao Zi and the Zhang Zi. In this were illiterate and kept their skills and knowledge as sense, Daoism (also called Classical Daoism or Daoist a family tradition. With the exception of astronomy, philosophy) is an ancient philosophical tradition. In its mathematics, and medicine, Chinese ancient technologi- second meaning Daoism is a translation of the Chinese cal and scientific achievements were seldom recorded or Dao Jiao (the religion of Dao, or Popular Daoism). It their records preserved. When the British scientist and includes a variety of later organizational developments historian of science Joseph Needham started to search of the Daoist religion, mostly imitating the form of extensively through the extant texts for these records, and imported Buddhism but incorporating the ideas of the began to publish the results of his search in the multi- Lao Zi and Zhang Zi. It was often involved in political volumed Science & Civilisation in China (1954–), it issues, sometimes was used to organize and mobilize shocked the world to see that Chinese themselves did not peasants’ uprisings, occasionally was used to seek remember what they had achieved. Certainly the ancient favors from the court, and was thereby supported by Confucians would not value these “achievements” as Chinese emperors. It was a folk religion and Confucians much as modern Westerners do. looked down on it as low culture and superstition. In its There is no doubt that this Confucian devaluation of third and very broad meaning, it is a vague concept that scientific activity, knowledge, and achievements has includes Classical Daoism, Popular Daoism, and some been a significant hindrance to the development of other schools that were similar to Classical Daoism. Chinese science. However, Confucians did value the These other schools include the School of Yinyang and study of astronomy, mathematics, and medicine, the School of Huang-Lao (the School of the Yellow though the former two were not necessarily as urgently Emperor and Laozi). It is in this last sense that we are needed by the people as the knowledge for agricultural now using the term Daoism. production. The reason Confucians accepted them as a Generally speaking Daoists emphasize individual proper scholarly study is for their use in divination. happiness rather than social welfare. They believe in Confucianism included divination in the basic teaching Dao, in cutting down one’s desires and wants, in living of Li (rites). Astronomy and mathematics were needed a simple, secluded, and natural life, and in cultivating in making calendars, which were important for the spiritual as well as physical immortality. In the last agricultural economy. Medicine was an early tradition aspect it is mysticism from a modern scientific point of and developed into such a complicated system that view, but the method it uses in seeking the way of it became an intellectual profession even before immortality, which according to Daoism should be Confucianism gained its orthodox position. realized in this life on earth, is very much empirical and Confucianism did allow for scientific and techno- congenial with the Western development of geography, logical knowledge to grow among the professionals. health care, and elixir alchemy. Thus, the influence of The Confucian attitude toward science is to leave it Daoism on the development of Chinese science is alone. Science and technology are not Confucians’ substantial. proper concerns, but they never go against them. Under The central idea that exerts a strong impact on the the reign of Confucianism there were no known cases development of Chinese science is the search for in which scientists and innovators were persecuted immortality in this life on earth. We do not know what because of their ideas or inventions. Confucianism the origin of this idea is and when its practice started. created unfavorable social attitudes and conditions for There are three approaches: the first is by cultivating scientific and technological development in China, one’s Qi, the second by making special drugs such as only because Chinese rulers made Confucianism the elixir of life, and the third by going deep into orthodox and turned the intelligentsia into Confucians. mountains or on the seas to find living immortals to Religion and science in Islam I: Technical and practical aspects 1881 learn from. The concept of Qi is one of the most ancient Graham, A. C. China, Europe, and the Origins of Modern Chinese concepts about nature and life. It was used, in Science: Needham’s The Grand Titration. Ed. Shigeru the sense of vitality, in the works of the warring-states Nakayama and Nathan Sivin. Chinese Science, Explora- tions of an Ancient Tradition. Cambridge, Massachusetts: philosophers, such as Mencius, Xun Zi, Zhuang Zi, and The MIT Press, 1973. 45–69. Lüshi Chunqiu in the fourth and the third centuries Huff, Toby E. The Rise of Early Modern Science. New York: BCE. The earliest extant text that mentioned elixir Cambridge University Press, 1993. 237–320. drugs is Hanfei Zi, which was in the third century BCE. Mungello, David E. On the Significance of the Question ‘Did Shi Ji (Records of the Historian, compiled during the China Have Science’. Philosophy East and West 22 (1972): – – second and the first century BCE) recorded that in 467 78 and 23 (1973): 413 6. the fourth and third century BCE the rulers of Chu and Needham, Joseph. Science and Civilisation in China. Vol. 5, Part 4. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980. Yan states sent envoys sailing to learn about the ways 210–323. of immortality. Nelson, Benjamin. Sciences and Civilizations, ‘East’ and These three approaches led to three developments ‘West’, Joseph Needham and Max Weber. Boston Studies of Chinese science. The first is Chinese medicine, in Philosophy of Science 11 (1974): 445–93. including health care techniques and Qigong. Qigong is Sivin, Nathan. Science and Technology in East Asia. New – an Eastern exercise which is based on the theory of York: Science History Publications, 1977. 11 21. interaction between body and spirit and the possibility of controlling one’s mental state by manipulating one’s body. The second is somewhat connected with the development of Chinese pharmacology, but more so Religion and Science in Islam I: with that of chemistry which led to the invention of Technical and Practical Aspects gunpowder. The third helped to preserve ancient myths and legends, and initiated the need to exploit the outside world which Confucians neglected. The earliest DAVI D A. KING Chinese geographical work, Shan Hai Jing, is basically the result of this effort. In Islam, as in no other religion in human history, the The Daoist influence on Chinese science is more performance of various aspects of religious ritual has congenial with the criteria of modern science. Daoists been assisted by scientific procedures. The organi- believe in the power of true knowledge for their own zation of the lunar calendar, the regulation of the purpose of immortality and that knowledge can be astronomically defined times of prayer, and the ˓ sought by experimenting or by learning from those determination of the sacred direction toward the Ka ba who know. They accept that the truthfulness of that in Mecca are topics of traditional Islamic science still knowledge should be tested by the results of its of concern to Muslims today, and each has a history applications. With their beliefs of Yinyang and Wuxing going back close to 1,400 years. But the techniques (Five Phases), which are not religious but ontological advocated by the scientists of medieval Islam on the and methodological, Daoism is the Chinese system one hand and by the scholars of religious law on of belief that led to the flourishing of Chinese the other were quite different, and our present knowledge medical theory and health care practices, which might of them is based mainly on research conducted during R be considered the highest achievements of Chinese the past 30 years on one small fraction of the vast science. literary heritage of the Muslim peoples. To understand Muslim activity in this domain we must realize that ▶ ▶ ▶ See also: Alchemy, Medicine in China, East and there were two main traditions of astronomy in the West: China in the Transmission of Knowledge East to Islamic Near East, folk astronomy and mathematical ▶ ▶ ▶ West, Magic and Science, Qi, Five Phases astronomy. (Wuxing), ▶Yinyang, ▶Geomancy in China, ▶Divina- tion, ▶Geography, ▶Gunpowder, ▶Gaitian, ▶Huntian The Regulation of the Lunar Calendar References The Islamic calendar is strictly lunar. The beginnings and ends of the lunar months, in particular of Bodde, Derk. The Attitude Toward Science and Scientific the holy month of Ramadan, and various festivals Method in Ancient China. T’ien Hsia Monthly 2 (1936): throughout the 12-month “year,” are regulated by the – 139 60. first appearance of the lunar crescent. Since 12 lunar Chan, Wing-tsit. Neo-Confucianism and Chinese Scientific Thought. Philosophy East and West 6 (1957): 309–32. months add up to about 354 days, the 12-month cycles Fung, Yulan. Why China Has No Science – An Interpretation of the Islamic calendar begin some 11 days earlier each of the History and Consequences of Chinese Philosophy. year, and the individual months move forward through The International Journal of Ethics 32 (1922): 237–63. the seasons. 1882 Religion and science in Islam I: Technical and practical aspects

For scholars of the sacred law, the month began with The Regulation of the Five Daily Prayers the first sighting of the crescent moon. This observation The times of the five daily prayers in Islam are defined is a relatively simple affair, provided that one knows in terms of astronomical phenomena dependent upon roughly where and when to look and the western sky is the position of the sun in the sky. More specifically, the clear. Witnesses with exceptional eyesight were sent to times of daylight prayers are defined in terms of locations that offered a clear view of the western horizon, shadows, and those of night prayers in terms of twilight and their sighting of the crescent determined the beginning phenomena. They therefore vary with terrestrial lati- of the month; otherwise they would repeat the process tude, and unless measured with respect to a local the next day. If the sky was cloudy, the calendar would meridian, also with terrestrial longitude. be regulated by assuming a fixed number of days for Because the months begin when the new moon is the month just completed. Also, the crescent might be seen for the first time shortly after sunset, the Islamic seen in one locality and not in another. Unfortunately day is considered to begin at sunset. Each of the five the historical sources contain very little information on prayers may be performed during a specified interval of the actual practice of regulating the calendar. time, and the earlier during the interval the prayer is Medieval astronomers, on the other hand, knew that performed, the better. The day begins with the maghrib ˒ the determination of the possibility of sighting on a or sunset prayer. The second prayer is the ishā or given day was a complicated mathematical problem, evening prayer, which begins at nightfall. The third is involving knowledge of the positions of the sun and the fajr or dawn prayer, which begins at daybreak. The moon relative to each other and to the local horizon. fourth is the z.uhr or noon prayer, which begins shortly The crescent will be seen after sunset on a given after astronomical midday when the sun has crossed the ˓ evening at the beginning of a lunar month if it is far meridian. The fifth is the as.r or afternoon prayer, enough away from the sun, and if it is high enough which begins when the shadow of any object has above the horizon not to be overpowered by the increased beyond its midday minimum by an amount background sky glow. Conditions required to assure equal to the length of the object casting the shadow. In crescent visibility on most occasions can be determined some medieval circles, the z.uhr prayer began when the by observations, but the formulation of a definitive set shadow increase was one-quarter of the length of the ˓ of conditions has defied even modern astronomers. The object, and the as.r prayer continued until the shadow positions of the sun and moon must be investigated increase was twice the length of the object. to see whether the assumed visibility conditions are In the first few decades of Islam, the times of prayer satisfied, but, even if they are, the most ardent were regulated by observation of shadow lengths by astronomer can be denied the excitement of sighting day and of twilight phenomena in the evening and early the crescent at the predicted time if clouds or haze on morning. Precisely how either the daylight or the the western horizon restrict his view. nighttime prayers were regulated is unfortunately not The earliest Muslim astronomers adopted a lunar clear from the available historical sources. Muezzins who visibility condition which they found in Indian sources. performed the call to prayer from the minarets of mosques It was necessary to calculate the positions of the sun and were chosen for their piety and the excellence of their moon from tables and then to calculate the difference in voices, but their technical knowledge was limited. setting times over the local horizon. If the latter was On the other hand, the determination of the precise 48 min or more, the crescent would be seen; if it was less, moments (expressed in hours and minutes, local time) the crescent would not be seen. In the early ninth century when the prayers should begin, according to the the astronomer al-Khwārizmī compiled a table showing standard definitions, required complicated mathemati- the minimum distances between the sun and moon cal procedures in spherical astronomy, that is, the study (measured on the ecliptic) to ensure crescent visibility of problems associated with the apparent daily rotation throughout the year, based on this condition and of the celestial sphere. Accurate as well as approximate computed specifically for the latitude of Baghdad. formulae for reckoning time of day or night from solar During the following centuries Muslim astronomers or stellar altitudes were available to Muslim scholars not only derived far more complicated conditions for from Indian sources and these were improved and visibility determinations but also compiled highly simplified by Muslim astronomers. Certain individual sophisticated tables to facilitate their computations. astronomers from the ninth century onward applied Some of the leading Muslim astronomers proposed themselves to the calculation of tables for facilitating conditions involving three different quantities, such as the determination of the prayer times. The earliest the apparent angular separation of the sun and moon, the known prayer-tables were prepared in the ninth century difference in their setting times over the local horizon, by al-Khwārizmī for the latitude of Baghdad. The first and the apparent lunar velocity. Annual ephemerides or tables for finding the time of day from the solar altitude almanacs gave information about the possibility of or the time of night from the altitudes of certain sighting at the beginning of each month. prominent fixed stars appeared in Baghdad in the ninth Religion and science in Islam I: Technical and practical aspects 1883 and tenth centuries. The extent to which these tables toward it. For Muslims it is a physical pointer to the deriving from mathematical procedures were used presence of God. Thus since the early seventh century ˓ before the thirteenth century is unknown. The earliest Muslims have faced the Sacred Ka ba in Mecca during examples are contained in technical works which must their prayers. Mosques are built with the prayer-wall ˓ have had fairly limited circulation; the muezzins facing the Ka ba, the direction being indicated by a certainly had no need of them. Only a professional mihrāb or prayer-niche. In addition, certain ritual acts . ˒ astronomer could use the tables, together with some such as reciting the Qur ān, announcing the call to kind of observational instrument for measuring the prayer, and slaughtering animals for food, are to be ˓ sun’s altitude and reckoning the passage of time. performed facing the Ka ba. Also Muslim graves and It was not until the thirteenth century that the tombs were laid out so that the body would lie on its ˓ institution of the muwaqqit appeared in mosques and side and face the Ka ba. (Modern burial practice is madrasas. These professional astronomers associated slightly different but still Mecca-oriented.) Thus the ˓ with a religious institution not only regulated the prayer direction of the Ka ba – called qibla in Arabic and all times, but constructed instruments, wrote treatises on other languages of the Islamic commonwealth – is of spherical astronomy, and gave instruction to students. prime importance in the life of every Muslim. In thirteenth-century Cairo, new tables were available, During the first two centuries of Islam, when mosques and these set the tone for astronomical timekeeping all were being built from Andalusia to Central Asia, the over the Islamic world in the centuries that followed. In Muslims had no truly scientific means of finding the medieval Cairo there was a corpus of some 200 pages qibla. Clearly they knew roughly the direction they had of tables available for timekeeping by the sun and for taken to reach wherever they were, and the direction of regulating the times of prayer; in numerous copies the the road on which pilgrims left for Mecca could be, and, tables are associated with Ibn Yūnus. in some cases, actually was used as a qibla. But they also Impressive innovations in astronomical timekeeping followed two basic procedures, observing tradition and were made in other medieval cities, especially Damas- developing a simple expedient. In the first case, some cus, Tunis, and Taiz, although by the sixteenth century authorities observed that the Prophet Muh.ammad when Istanbul had become the main center of this activity. he was in Medina (north of Mecca) had prayed due Highly sophisticated tables of special trigonometric south, and they advocated the general adoption of this functions were compiled to solve problems of spherical direction for the qibla. This explains why many early astronomy for any latitude. Tables for finding the time of mosques from Andalusia to Central Asia face south. day from the solar altitude at any time of year were Other authorities said that the Quranic verse quoted compiled for Cairo, as we have mentioned, and also for above meant standing precisely so that one faced the ˓ Damascus, Tunis, Taiz, Jerusalem, Maragha, Mecca, Ka ba. Now the Muslims of Meccan origin knew that Edirne, and Istanbul. Medieval tables for regulating the when they were standing in front of the walls or corners ˓ times of prayer have been found for a series of localities of the Ka ba they were facing directions specifically between Fez in Morocco and Yarkand in China. Such associated with the risings and settings of the sun and tables have a history spanning the millennium from the certain fixed stars. They knew that the major axis of the ninth century to the nineteenth. rectangular base of the edifice points toward the rising Astronomical tables for regulating the prayer times point of Canopus, and the minor axis points toward had to be used together with instruments; only in summer sunrise and winter sunset. These assertions R ˓ this way could one ascertain that the time advocated about the Ka ba’s astronomical alignments, found in in the table had actually arrived. The most popular newly discovered medieval sources, have been con- of these instruments were the astrolabe and the firmed by modern measurements. quadrant. Hundreds of Islamic astrolabes and several In addition Arabic folklore associates the sides of the ˓ dozen quadrants are preserved in the museums of Ka ba with the winds and rain. These features and the world, only a small fraction of the instruments associations cast new light on the origin of the edifice, actually made by Muslim astronomers. An alternative and in a sense confirm the Muslim legend that the ˓ means of regulating the daytime prayers was available Ka ba was built in the style of a celestial counterpart ˓ to the Muslims in the form of the sundial. Many called al-bayt al-ma mūr: indeed it seems to have been mosque sundials from the later period of Islamic an architectural model of a pre-Islamic Arab cosmolo- astronomy survive to this day, though most are now gy in which astronomical and meteorological phenom- nonfunctional. ena are represented. The religious association was achieved first by a number of statues of the gods of the pagan Arabs which were housed inside it. With the The Determination of the Sacred Direction advent of Islam, these were removed, and the edifice ˓ The Ka ba in Mecca was adopted as the focal point of has for close to 1,400 years served for Muslims as a ˒ the new religion since the Qur ān advocates prayer physical focus of their worship. 1884 Religion and science in Islam I: Technical and practical aspects

˓ The corners of the Ka ba were associated even in coordinates and the computation of the direction of one pre-Islamic times with the four main regions of locality from another by procedures of geometry or the surrounding world: Syria, Iraq, the Yemen, and trigonometry. The qibla at any locality was defined as “the West.” Some Muslim authorities said that to face the direction of Mecca along the great-circle on the ˓ the Ka ba from Iraq, for example, one should stand terrestrial sphere. in the same direction as if one were standing right in Muslims inherited the Greek tradition of mathemati- ˓ front of the north eastern wall of the Ka ba. Thus the cal geography, together with Ptolemy’s lists of first Muslims in Iraq built their mosques with the localities and their latitudes and longitudes. By the prayer-walls toward winter sunset because they wanted early ninth century observations were conducted in ˓ the mosques to face the north eastern wall of the Ka ba. order to measure the coordinates of Mecca and Likewise the first mosques in Egypt were built with Baghdad as accurately as possible, with the express their prayer-walls facing winter sunrise so that the intention of computing the qibla at Baghdad. Indeed, prayer-wall was “parallel” to the north western wall of the need to determine the qibla in different localities ˓ the Ka ba. Inevitably there were differences of opinion, inspired much of the most sophisticated activity of the and different directions were favored by particular Muslim geographers (see below). groups. Indeed, in each major region of the Islamic Once the geographical data are available, a mathe- world, there was a whole palette of directions used for matical procedure is necessary to determine the qibla. the qibla. Only rarely do the orientations of medieval The earliest Muslim astronomers who considered this mosques correspond to the qiblas derived by computa- problem developed a series of approximate solutions, tion. Recently some medieval texts have been identified all adequate for most practical purposes, but in the early which deal with the problem of the qibla in Andalusia, ninth century, if not before, an accurate solution by the Maghrib, Egypt, Iraq and Iran, and Central Asia. solid trigonometry was formulated. The accurate Their study has done much to clarify the orientation of formulae derived by the Muslim astronomers from mosques in these areas. In order that prayer in any the ninth century onward are impressive, and are reasonable direction be considered valid, some legal mathematically equivalent to the modern formula. texts assert that while facing the actual direction of the Muslim astronomers also compiled a series of tables ˓ ˓ Ka ba ( ayn) is optimal, facing the general direction of displaying the qibla for each degree of latitude and ˓ the Ka ba ( jiha) is also legally acceptable. longitude difference from Mecca, based on both In various texts on folk astronomy, popular encyclo- approximate and exact formulae, the first of these pedias, and legal treatises, we find the notion of the being prepared in Baghdad in the ninth century. ˓ world divided into sectors about the Ka ba, with the Over the centuries, numerous Muslim scientists qibla in each sector having an astronomically defined discussed the qibla problem, presenting solutions direction. Some 20 different schemes have been by spherical trigonometry, or reducing the three- discovered recently in the manuscript sources, attesting dimensional situation to two dimensions and solving to a sophisticated tradition of sacred geography in Islam. it by geometry or plane trigonometry. They also The earliest schemes of Islamic sacred geography formulated solutions using calculating devices. But date from the ninth century, but the main contributor to one of the finest medieval mathematical solutions to the its development was a Yemeni legal scholar named qibla problem was reached in fourteenth-century Ibn Surāqa, who studied in Basra about the year 1000. Damascus: a table by al-Khalīlī displays the qibla for Ibn Surāqa devised three different schemes of sacred each degree of latitude from 10° to 56° and each degree geography, with the world arranged in 8, 11, and 12 of longitude from 1° to 60° east or west of Mecca, with ˓ sectors around the Ka ba. Each sector of the world entries correctly computed according to the accurate ˓ faces a particular section of the perimeter of the Ka ba. formula. This splendid table (rediscovered only in the Simpler versions of his 12-sector scheme occur in such early 1970s) was not widely known in later Muslim popular geographical works as the Taqwīm al-buldān scientific circles. Muwaqqits of later centuries wrote of Yāqūt al-Rūmī (ca. 1200) and the Āthār al-bilād treatises about the determination of the qibla but did not of al-Qazwīnī (ca. 1250) as well as the encyclopedia mention this Syrian table. By the fourteenth century the ˓ S.ubh. al-a shā of al-Qalqashandī (ca. 1400). From the correct values of the qibla of each major city had long fifteenth century to the nineteenth, we find a prolifera- been established (correct, that is, for the medieval tion of schemes with different numbers of divisions coordinates used in the calculations). Simple qibla- between eight and 72 divisions of the world around indicators fitted with a magnetic compass and a ˓ the Ka ba. gazetteer of localities and qiblas became common, Muslim astronomers from the eighth century onward and the modern variety represents a continuation of this concerned themselves with the determination of the tradition. qibla as a problem of mathematical geography. This Some of the most important Muslim contributions to activity involved the measurement of geographical mathematical geography are to be found in a series of Religion and science in Islam I: Technical and practical aspects 1885 treatises by the early eleventh-century scientist al- nineteenth centuries. Thus most of the accurately Bīrūnī. In one treatise he set out to determine for his computed qiblas of the medieval astronomers could be patron the qibla at Ghazna (in what is now Afghani- judged as being in error by a few degrees anyway. stan), first establishing the necessary geographical coordinates and then calculating the qibla by different procedures. Since 1989 three Persian qibla-indicators, Other Applications of Science to Daily Life made in Isfahan about 1675, have became available for The Islamic laws of inheritance, based on prescriptions ˒ study. They bear a cartographic grid so devised that one in the Qur ān, are complicated, and their application can read the direction and distance to Mecca directly. involves some skill in arithmetic. Both legal scholars Mecca is at the center of the grid and one has only to lay and certain mathematicians wrote on this subject, but the diametrical rule over any city marked on the map only two or three simple works by legalists have been (between Spain and China, Europe and the Yemen) to studied and until recently no research of consequence read off the qibla on a circular scale around the grid and had been conducted on the large number of available the distance on the diametral rule. The origin of this sources. There is also a vast corpus of literature on remarkable device is still under investigation; but the weights, measures, and arithmetical techniques. underlying mathematics is described in two treatises on Muslims also developed geometric designs for the conic sections, one from tenth-century Baghdad and decoration of religious architecture and also secular the other from eleventh-century Isfahan. The tradition artifacts. The acceptability of such ornamentation is behind the Isfahan world maps represents the most discussed by various legal scholars, but their writings sophisticated contribution to mathematical geography have yet to be properly studied. Only two Muslim known between Antiquity and the Renaissance. mathematicians are known to have included remarks on The alignment of medieval mosques reflects the fact geometric design in their writings, a fact which that the astronomers were not always consulted on their confirms the suspicion that this was an art passed orientation. But now that we know from textual sources down amongst the practitioners. Some years ago a which directions were used as a qibla in each major manuscript of an artisan’s manual with guidelines for locality, we cannot only better understand the mosque generating numerous patterns is now published. orientations but also recognize numerous cities in the The legal scholars of medieval Islam used methods Islamic world that can be said to be qibla-oriented. In for regulating the calendar and prayer times and for some, such as Taza in Morocco and Khiva in Central finding the sacred direction which were simple and Asia, the orientation of the main mosque dominates the adequate for practical purposes. Their ingenuity in orientation of the entire city. In the case of Cairo coping with differences of opinion never lost sight of various parts of the city and its suburbs are oriented in the basic purpose of Quranic and Prophetic injunctions. three different qiblas. The new Fatimid city of al- Some of the greatest of the Muslim scientists dealt with Qāhira, founded in the tenth century, faces winter the calendar, prayer times, and the qibla, and in these sunset, which was the qibla of the Companions of the areas, as in others, their mathematical creativity and Prophet who erected the first mosque in Egypt in their quest for greater accuracy was impressive. In later nearby Fustat some three centuries previously. The later centuries (after the thirteenth), competent astronomers Mamluk “City of the Dead” faces the qibla of the were appointed to the staffs of major mosques in order astronomers. The predominant orientation of architec- to advise on these specific subjects. But the solutions R ture in the suburb of al-Qarāfa is toward the south, developed by Muslim scientists were invariably too another popular qibla. The splendid Mamluk mosques complicated for widespread application in the medieval and madrasas built along the main thoroughfare of the milieu. Although the scholars of the sacred law and the old Fatimid city are aligned externally with the street scientists proposed different solutions for the same plan, and internally with the qibla of the astronomers: individual problem, there are few records of serious one can observe the varying thickness of the walls discord between the two groups in the medieval when standing in front of the windows inside the sources. The legal scholars criticized mathematical mosque overlooking the street outside. This is an area astronomy mainly insofar as it was used by some as the of the history of urban development in the Islamic handmaiden of astrology, which was an anathema to world which has only recently been studied for the first them. The scientists seldom spoke out against the time, not least because, prior to the discovery of the simple procedures adopted by the legal scholars. textual evidence, it was by no means clear which directions were used as qiblas; even if a qibla at variance See also: ▶Astronomy, ▶Calendars, ▶Qibla and from the true qibla was clearly popular, it was not known Islamic Prayer Times, ▶Astrolabe, ▶Quadrant, ▶al- why.The first accurate longitude values of localities in the Khalīlī, ▶Ibn Yūnus, ▶al-Khwārizmī, ▶Ottoman Islamic world become available only with the systematic science, ▶al-Bīrūnī, ▶Maps and Mapmaking, ▶Ge- scientific cartographic surveys of the eighteenth and ometry, ▶Weights and Measures 1886 Religion and science in Islam II: What scientists said about religion and what Islam said about science

References then concerned only with the traditional values of their preindustrial communities. Today’s revivalist Muslim Kennedy, Edward S. A Commentary upon Biruni’s Kitab Tahdid al-Amakin, An Eleventh Century Treatise on leaders, themselves often engineers or trained scientists Mathematical Geography. Beirut: American University and not theologians, fight for a new society based on a of Beirut Press, 1973. harmonious practice of Islam and science. Or govern- Kennedy, Edward S., et al. Studies in the Islamic Exact ments build mosques with technological showpieces Sciences. Beirut: American University of Beirut Press, (e.g., minarets with laser beams as indicators of the 1983. qibla, the direction of Mecca, as recently in Morocco), King, David A. Islamic Astronomical Instruments. London: and museums and universities dedicated to the “Islamic Variorum, 1987. Rpt. Aldershot: Variorum, 1995. ” King, David A. Islamic Mathematical Astronomy. London: sciences . The scientific achievements of the West are Variorum, 1986; 2nd rev. ed. Aldershot: Variorum, 1993. considered to be the inheritance of great Muslim sages King, David A. Astronomy in the Service of Islam. Aldershot: of the Middle Ages. Thus modern technology cannot Variorum, 1993. be a dangerous evil because it belonged to the Muslims King, David A. The Orientation of Medieval Islamic first. But it has been alienated by the West, truncated Religious Architecture and Cities. Journal for the History from its heart, which is the recognition of Allāh, of Astronomy 26 (1995): 253–74. King, David A. World-Maps for Finding the Direction and the Creator of all beings. This was the view of the Distance to Mecca. Innovation and Tradition in Islamic influential leader of the Muslim Brothers, Sayyid Qutb Science. Leiden: Brill, 1999. (1906–1966). Although he was executed under King, David A. Synchrony with the Heavens: Studies in Nasser’s government in Egypt in 1966, his brief Astronomical Timekeeping and Instrumentation in Medie- sermon on This Faith, Islam is still representative of val Islamic Civilization. Vol. 1: The Call of the Muezzin some sections of opinion in the Muslim community. – (Studies I IX). Leiden: Brill, 2004; Vol. 2: Instruments of Observers from the outside world, where the dispute Mass Calculation (Studies X–XVIII). Leiden: Brill, 2005. Necipoglu, Gülrü. The Topkapı Scroll – Geometry and between religion and science has largely turned into a Ornament in Islamic Architecture…. Santa Monica, CA: relic of the past, if it does not lead into ethical The Getty Center for the History of Art and the discussions about the effects of scientific and techno- Humanities, 1995. logical progress on human values, find it difficult to do Rebstock, Ulrich. Rechnen in islamischen Orient – Die justice to this preoccupation of their Muslim neighbors, literarischen Spuren der praktischen Rechenkunst, Darm- which they usually interpret in analogy to apparently stadt, 1992. similar ideologies in their own realm, such as Schmidl, Petra. Volksastronomische Abhandlungen aus dem ’ “ ” mittelalterlichen arabisch-islamischen Kulturraum, Zur fundamentalism in America s Bible Belt . However, Bestimmung der Gebetszeiten und der Qibla bei al-Asbahi, the religious as well as the scientific realities involved Ibn Rahiq und al-Farisi. Doctoral Dissertation, Institute for differ greatly on both sides. Instead, the insights of the History of Science, Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, history of science as well as that of religion should be Frankfurt, 2005. (Edition, translation and commentary on drawn upon when the relationship between the two the most important surviving documents on the applica- fields is to be treated objectively. As the history of tions of folk astronomy.) The Encyclopaedia of Islam. 2nd ed. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1960 science has brought to light a whole spectrum of onwards. changing methods and conceptualizations that over the centuries have been interpreted as “science”, so also “religion” has been described by its historians as being practiced variously by just about every people, culture, Religion and Science in Islam II: What time, or even individual. Generalizations about the Scientists Said About Religion religious factor in human activities, in the West always identified with dogmatic teachings, are just as false as and What Islam Said About Science those about an unhistorically monolithic science, but even more widespread. The surprisingly bitter reaction to the attack of some European powers and individuals ANTON M. HEINEN will be more readily understood if the interaction of science and Islamic religion, from the outset centered The interaction between religious life and scientific on increasing knowledge, is rightly appreciated. enterprise in the culture that evolved under the impact The case of scientific technology probably was of Islam is one of the predominating themes in today’s chosen as a favored battlefield because the Western discussions and writings of Muslims all over the world. critics, proudly flying the flag of enlightenment, had It has continued to be such ever since the beginning of previously used it as a weapon against the Islamic the last century, when European forces, with their religion. Thus, cultural and technological back wardness newly developed technological means, extended their became a religious issue for Muslim intellectuals. rule over large areas with Muslim populations until Curiously enough, it was the philosophical and scientific Religion and science in Islam II: What scientists said about religion and what Islam said about science 1887 work of Ibn Rushd (Latin Averroes, 1126–1198), who As it is today, with more sources to judge by, the roots as “the Commentator” (namely of Aristotle) had been of the scientific movement in Islam itself are more accepted as master by the European scholars through- generally recognized as having exerted a stimulating out the Middle Ages, which stood in the center of this influence on the introduction of the more complete ˒ modern attack on Islam. That he had not been able to scientific heritage of pre-Islamic cultures: the Qur ān influence his co-religionists in the Islamic world to the and its exegesis, jurisprudence, philology, etc. same extent as the Jewish and Christian schoolmen in The first line of defense was taken up by such ˓ Europe was the main reason that Islam in the last rationalist reformers as Shaykh Muh.ammad Abduh century was made responsible for the worst obstruction (1849–1905). He argued that Quranic religion was in against scientific progress. The main exponent for this no way opposed to, but on the contrary totally in attack was Ernest Renan’s L’Islam et la science, written harmony with science. The guidelines of his argument in 1883; the Arabic writings of Farah Antūn in the were taken from the apologetic discussions about the ˓ . . journal Al-Jāmi a (Cairo, 1902–1903), easily accessi- necessity of miracles as testimonials for the true ble for Egyptian intellectuals, made this attack on Islam prophet: miracles supposedly revealed the divine even more effective. From then on, the relationship nature of Jesus, the Son of God, while the Prophet between science and religion, both seen in the crystal- Muhammad had only referred to the factual evidence of . ˒ lized and almost ahistorical notions of that time, was the Arabic Qur ān in support of his divine message. turned into the most crucial question for any global (Miracles like the splitting of the Moon by the Prophet, view of Islam in human history. The question was as they were described in popular literature, were raised on more general grounds: “Why did the Muslims apparently not considered in this argumentation of fall back, while the others made progress?” The more modernist theology.) That the fact of revelation, divine ˒ general and fundamental questions have stood in the speech entering the limits of creation, or the Qur ān as foreground; the more particular ones, e.g., the Islamic an inimitable revealed book, were proposed by the position vis-à-vis alchemy, astrology, geocentric vs. Prophet as the decisive miracle, or that creation and heliocentric astronomy, or such consequential medical recreation after death were described as miracles questions as anatomical dissections, preventive mea- permeating the whole of human existence, all these sures against epidemics, abortion, birth control, etc., truly “miraculous” events apparently were not consid- have been strangely pushed into the background, ered to interfere with the course of nature. ˓ although numerous treatises over the centuries have Unfortunately, Abduh’s apologetic argumentation been written on them. was later exaggerated by his disciple Rashīd Rid. ā In defense, the beginnings of the spread of scientific (1865–1935) who claimed science for Islam. In his activity in Islamic culture, and then its high period, commentary of the revealed book, all knowledge was ˒ were chiefly taken for reference, not the obvious traced to the Qur ān, even modern technological and stagnation in the later Middle Ages. The latter pheno- medical inventions. For example, the Arabic Jinn were menon has hardly been studied, and almost no convin- identified with the microbes of contemporary medicine. cing explanations have ever been proposed. But it is But progress soon let such hasty identifications appear revealing that no responsibility for such an intrusion outdated, and today this unhealthy spirit of “Islamiza- into scientific development has been assigned to the tion” is much less prevalent. Islamic religious authorities, as has been the case of the More common, and truer to the revealed Quranic R Inquisition trials in Christian countries. texts, is the derivation of an original Muslim science But, in confrontation with medieval historians from the so-called “sign-verses,” i.e., those verses that centered on Europe, it was not easy to reclaim the prescribe the inquiry into such signs in creation as the scientific heritage for the Muslims, for this heritage was sun, moon, stars, earth, and sea, life in all its forms, in primarily seen as that of the ancient Greeks whose fact whatever enters the realm of human experience. works had been translated into Arabic. And since these Corresponding texts can be found in the works of works, some centuries later, were again translated from Muslim scientists throughout Islamic history, in the Arabic into Latin, the Arabs apparently were assigned Tah. dīd nihāyāt al-amākin (The Determination of the the humble role of transmitters only, like the merchants Coordinates of Positions for the Correction of Dis- in an import and export business. For Renan, the tances Between Cities) of the mathematician and cultural role of Islam was actually limited to the astronomer al-Bīrūnī (973–1051), in the Fas.l al-maqāl preservation of ancient culture for and transmission to (On the Harmony of Religion and Philosophy) of the Europe, where it would be revived. That such transla- philosopher Ibn Rushd (1126–1198), or the interviews tions from pre-Islamic Hellenistic culture involved a of the living Nobel prize winner Abdus Salam. Such an heavy indebtedness was not denied by Arab historians. inquiry, as should be noted against a frequent mis- However, in their view this ancient heritage was understanding of Western scholars, was not to lead to integrated into an already established Islamic society. higher developed proofs for the existence of God, for it 1888 Religion and science in Islam II: What scientists said about religion and what Islam said about science would be contrary to the faith of Islam that such proofs extensive knowledge, under the constant guidance of should be needed. But Muslims of all times have the Almighty. Such a method may have been at the root interpreted the Quranic counsels of “considering the of the widespread mysticism of nature in Islam. As wonders of creation” as the most effective promotion of S. H. Nasr has observed, some of the greatest scientists scientific research. The results were not predetermined; in Islam (e.g., Qut.b al-Dīn al-Shīrāzī, AD 1236–1311) not even the existence of the Creator was imposed as are known to have practiced Sūfism as well. But the logical consequence of a binding argument. But the Tafakkur also presents a corrective for the unitarian faithful scientist was to find himself placed in the more view of Islamic science described above, Muslim overwhelming presence of a personally approachable thinkers asserted God’s unity in all spheres of reality, God Almighty. The inner spiritual motivations for an thus reducing the multiplicity of created phenomena Islamic science, not the passing discoveries, were of the into a forced monism. The contrary can also be said, ˓ greatest significance. because by always keeping the spiritual goal of ta z.īm How far along the way of an open and progressive Allāh (Magnification of God) in mind, the Muslim science a Muslim scholar could be led by the sign- researcher, instead of closing it, would instead turn ˒ passages of the Qur ān is best illustrated by Ibn more and more leaves of Allāh’s grand book of nature. Rushd’s treatise Fas.l al-maqāl. Even though he was The linguistic particularity of the Arabic language, a high functionary of Islamic law at the court of the always concentrating on individuality (shawādhdh), strict Almohad administration, Ibn Rushd wrote this naturally could enforce this tendency. work as a legal defense of objective and universalist It has become a standard argument that Islam needed scholarship. Beginning from the Quranic injunctions to such sciences as astronomy, mathematics, and geogra- respond with thought and inquiry to the wonders of phy for ritual obligations like the pilgrimage to Mecca, creation, he gradually moved on to the defense of the establishment of the qibla (direction to Mecca) of gradual progress beyond incomplete scientific results, new mosques, or even any prayer according to the relying in the process on the heritage of pre- and non- traditional prescriptions. But some scholars feel this Islamic sages. Hence, the great lawyer could even point should not be overstressed: even a legal authority accept preliminary results, teachings known to include like Abū Hanīfa (d. 767) warned that spatial orientation errors. To tolerate such partially erroneous theories, was not essential for the submission of the worshipper while always proceeding toward deeper insights, was to the Creator, and numerous religious leaders main- for him a basic consequence of the human condition. tained a quite relaxed attitude when confronted with While not denying prophetic revelation as the source of greater mathematical exactness in the setting of the the Islamic religious movement, Ibn Rushd with this qibla. On the other hand, quite simple devices were open system may be said to have reached the highest sufficient for these needs. The number of treatises on peak of the Islamic scientific worldview. the mathematical problems of the qibla are not neces- It cannot be surprising that natural research on the sarily in proportion to its importance for the Muslim background of the Quranic finding of the Creator, community. whose inner nature is above all human speculation, in Of greater significance, and easily demonstrable, is the signs he had placed for humanity into his creation, the promotion of mathematical works by the theological has sometimes been understood along Pantheistic lines. principles of Islamic law. As the mathematician and Knowledge did seem to acquire a higher character for astronomer in the Biblical tradition was encouraged by salvation, or even a certain participation in the unitarian the saying that God had created the whole world with nature of the One God. Influential theologians like al- numbers (Wisdom 11,20), so the Muslim was convinced Ghazālī (1058–1111), but also leading scientists up to that the divine lawgiver had left nothing to the arbitrary Abdus Salam in present times, insisted on Allāh’s decisions of sinful mankind, not even the shares of personal nature as Creator. Scientific disciplines, there- inheritance to be distributed among the members of a fore, were to be used only for specific human purposes, family: “…the male shall receive the portion of two and no one but God himself granted his highest blissful females…” (Sūra 4, 175 ff). The natural consequence knowledge to the faithful who had clung to the fulfillment was the discovery and perfecting of algebraic rules of his revealed will. Since God himself as Creator was which future lawyers had to learn for the administra- also the author of all instruction, the growth of knowledge tion of bequests; in other words, some mathematical and the production of new inventions were not really instruction even entered legal schools usually blamed for possible for man restricted to his own created capacities. having marginalized the rational and natural sciences. But, as heir to a tradition of scholars who already had There it achieved full recognition as the respectable ˓ ˒ worked at filling a still Hellenistic science with Islamic “science of shares” ( ilm al-farā id). spirit, al-Ghazālī also proposed the method of Tafakkur, The most characteristic and generally applied a kind of meditation on the various phenomena of argument in support of orthodoxy and orthopraxis in creation, which could lead to greater insights and more Islamic intellectual history has certainly been the Religion and science in the Native Americas 1889 principle of Sunna. With carefully examined traditional References reports it had to be established that questionable Abdus Salam and Jacques Vauthier. Abdus Sulam un teachings or practices were sanctioned by words or physicien. Prix Nobel de Physique 1979. Entretien avec actions/omissions of the Prophet himself or his Jacques Vauthier. Paris: Beauchesne, 1990. Companions, or, in the case of Shiite Islam, the Imams. al-Bīrūnī. Kitāb Tahdīd nihāyāt al-amākin (The Determina- As this had already been done for the concepts and tion of the Coordinates of Positions for the Correction of arguments of the theologians and jurists, the procedure Distances between Cities). Trans. Jamil Ali. Beirut: did not stop at science, where it would seem to have American University of Beirut, 1967. Dhanani, Alnoor. The Physical Theory of Kalām. Atoms, been singularly inappropriate. Thus one of the most ˒ Space, and Void in Basrian Mu tazilī Cosmology. Leiden: copied treatises of the Middle Ages, an indicator of ˒ ˒ E. J. Brill, 1994. its popularity, was the al-Hay a al-sanīya fī al-hay a Frank, Richard. Creation and the Coranic System. Al-Ghazālī al-sunnīya by al-Suyūtī (1445–1505), a cosmographi- and Avicenna. Heidelberg: Heidelberger Akademie der cal work totally made up of well-attested traditional Wissenschaften, 1992. fragments of early theories. Ghazālī,Abū Hāmid. Al-Munqidh min al-dalāl (Freedom and The apparently simplistic view that truth can only be Fulfillment). Trans. R. J. McCarthy. Boston: G. K. Hall & Co., 1980. what has been taught or practiced by respected members Heinen, Anton M. Islamic Cosmology. Beirut: Orient-Institut of the Muslim community, testified to by an interrupted der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, 1982. chain of trustworthy witnesses, may have been ground- Ibn Rushd, Abū al-Walīd. Fasl al-maqālfīmā bayn al-hikma ˒ . . ed in the deeper conviction that all values are sanctioned wa al-sharī a min al-ittis.āl (Averroes on the Harmony of by the harmony with the laws of a well-established Religion and Philosophy). Trans. G. F. Hourani. London: Luzac & Co., 1961. community. Scientific progress cannot be judged good ˓ Khāzinī, Abdarrahmān. Kitābmīzān al-hikma. Hyderabad: and sane if it does not fit into the proven structures of a ˓ ˓ . ˓ . Dā irat al-Ma ārif al- Uthmānīya, 1359 H/1940. Trans. N. justice-oriented society or a healthy environment. In Khanikoff. Journal of the American Oriental Society 6 Islam this social order and the harmony with a God- (1860): 1–28. created nature are directly derived from religion; hence, King, David A. Makka. The Encyclopedia of Islam. 2nd ed. their demands on the work of the scientists belong to the Vol. 6. Leiden: Brill, 1987. 180–7. religious, not the ethical or secular, realm. Nasr, Seyyed H. The Need for a Sacred Science. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993. Jurisprudence, no doubt, has been the most impor- ’ tant discipline in the intellectual formation of the Renan, Ernest. L lslam et la Science. Oeuvres Complètes. Vol. 1. Paris: M. Lévy, 1883. Muslims throughout their history. Some historians, Rosenthal, Franz. Das Fortleben der Antike im Islam. Zurich: considering the numerical superiority of law teachers Artemis Verlag, 1965. English Trans. Emile and Jenny and their students at the colleges and universities in Marmorstein. The Classical Heritage in Islam. London: Muslim lands, have blamed the lawyers for having Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1975. pushed the sciences to the margins of academic institutions. On the other hand, hardly any other religious community has been so deeply formed by the ideal of realizing all its vital functions according to Religion and Science the principles of justice. The work of the scientists has not remained unaffected by this ideal. Thus long before in the Native Americas R Simon Stevin in his Weeghconst (Theoretical Statics, 1586) prepared the “democratization of science”, which eventually gave it a special measure of vitality ÅKE HULTKRANTZ in Western nations, his Arab predecessor al-Khāzinī (fl. first half of the thirteenth century) had published If science may be said to be concerned with “observa- in the Kitābmīzān al-h. ikma (Book of the Balance of tion, description, definition, classification, measure- Wisdom) a remarkable memorandum on science’s ment, experimentation, generalization, explanation, being rooted in an all-encompassing justice. This is, prediction, evaluation, and control of the world,” as it however, an aspect of the interaction of science and is in the International Encyclopedia of the Social faith in Islam which has hardly been studied, in spite of Sciences, it is easy to conclude that all these practices its significance for the appropriation of technology by have occurred among American Indians, mostly within widely spread popular organizations, guilds, and Sūfi a religious and mythological perspective. Some brotherhoods, or the stagnation up to modern times. scholars presuppose that American Indians have lived in a natural–supernatural continuum where the distinc- See also: ▶Religion and Science I, ▶Qibla and Islamic tion between this and the other world (however we ˓ Prayer Times, ▶Ibn Rushd, ▶Hay a, ▶al-Suyūt.ī, care to define it) practically falls down. Others, ▶al-Khāzinī, ▶Science as a Western Phenomenon including this author, are under the impression that 1890 Religion and science in the Native Americas the indigenous people postulated two experimental world; its roots are fixed in the underworld and worlds, the natural world around them in everyday life, nourished by subterranean rivers or a well. Its top and the mysterious world of myth and religion which reaches the sky that rests on it. Sometimes the world occasionally breaks into the natural world, for instance column stretches through several skies until it reaches in dreams and rituals. In the long run this mysterious the highest sky. Symbols of the different species of (supernatural) world seems to constitute the real, true animals living on different levels are supposed to dwell world; at least some religious Native thinkers believe on the tree: lowest down snakes or fishes, on the earth this is the case. It is not impossible that many Indian level deer and buffalo, highest up birds like eagles and visionaries believed this without verbalizing their falcons. Some tribes relate that unborn souls inhabit the beliefs. crown of the world tree. Other tribes believe that the In any case, Indian observations and explanations world tree, that often has a forked top, is identical to have, in their own thinking, been linked to religious the Milky Way which is “the backbone of the sky” and evaluations. Everyday reality was mostly experienced the road taken by the souls to the hereafter. The world from a profane point of view where experiences has also formed the passageway downward for the gods followed each other in a foreseen way. Where this when they cared to visit the ground and upward for was not the case, or uncertain courses of events and the shamans when in their séances their souls went unknown places are met, the other dimension is to the supernatural world to receive information of resorted to. Since the latter dimension is the most the gods (and, in some cases, to release a diseased difficult to understand, and rules humankind’s life, the person’s captured soul from the realm of the dead). The interpreters of that world, medicine men, shamans and world tree is ritually modeled in the middle pole of priests, and artisans that catch symbols and spiritual ceremonial structures, such as the Plains Indian Sun realities, are more important than experts on the Dance hall, which is itself a ritual reproduction of the everyday world. We can state that in Native America cosmos. The Sun Dance ceremony is a repetition of the range of spiritual experts has been much wider than the cosmic creation. that of technological experts. The world tree expresses an inclination for a The anthropologist Paul Radin has shown that there heavenly world. American high culture supplants the exists what he calls “two general types of tempera- tree or pillar symbol with a temple mound, mostly a ment” among, in particular, American Indians: “the pyramid. On the top of this pyramid the gods have their man of action and the thinker, the type which lives habitats (read: statues), and many pyramids enclose the fairly exclusively on what might be called a motor level bodies of deceased princes. The sacred temple areas in and the type that demands explanations and derives Mexican pre-Columbian cities are modeled after the pleasure from some form of speculative thinking.” It is supposed heavenly geography. characteristic that in order to describe the thinkers and The other world picture which has been distributed their accomplishments he turns to the specialists on in agricultural areas has its parallels in the agrarian religion (and then a bit arbitrarily joins “historians,” civilizations of the Old World. In this case the attention i.e., mythological raconteurs, with such specialists of on the supernatural world is, at least partly, directed experimental religion as medicine men and shamans). downward, to the underworld. Here is the place from American Indians are on the whole not skeptics, since which man, like the plants, once in mythic time came dreams, hallucinations, and traditions of visits to the up, often climbing on a reed. Myths even talk of four other world by eminent spiritualists give strength to successive underworlds, one darker than the other, or their religious beliefs. Collective rituals give these qualified through different colors. Inundating waters beliefs a realistic stamp. Only when different religions or other difficulties started the evacuation. Myths tell collide and a relativism of values ensues do religious us that valuable animals, like the buffalo in North brooding, skepticism, and indifference take over. There America, also came up from the nether world. Men is thus little space for other than religiomythical and animals appeared from a grotto which ever since incitements in penetrating the marginal recesses of has been said to be the center of the world. After death the empirical world. the living beings returned to the underworld, like the The dominance of religious thinking in what science plant returns to it when it withers. The underworld today would call secular matters is obvious in the fields realm of the dead is mostly the place to which shamans of cosmology and medicine. There are two great world send out their soul to retrieve the lost soul of a sick pictures in America. One is certainly the older one, with patient. Some divinities, be it the lord-lady of the dead Paleolithic–Mesolithic origins and connections with or the spirits of vegetation, may be found in the the hunting tribes in the Old World. It depicts a underworld. Universe where the world pillar or the world tree forms These world pictures are supposed to be stable, as the axis which connects heaven and earth. It is often when the Lenape (Delaware Indian) Supreme Being said that this pole or tree is situated in the middle of the with his hand holds the upper part of the world pole. Religion and science in the Native Americas 1891

However, in earthquake areas this is not the case. Argentina and Bolivia believe that herbs and trees are According to anthropologist Lowell J. Bean, the subordinated to their “owners,” certain animals and Cahuilla of Southern California believed birds. Thus, the wild red pepper is owned by the red- eyed dove. The dove in its turn obeys a lord of the thatall matter was subject to unpredictable change … forest who is also the lord of honey. We learn that the For example, dramatic changes in topography are latter is a supernatural being, whereas the dove is a vividly and frequently recalled…This instability natural bird. In this connection it should be pointed out was true from the beginning. Creation of the earth that in many places, scholars have observed a folk and life itself was fraught with indecision, mis- classification of natural plants and animals. Indian takes, and conflicts of power between the creator tribes have constructed taxonomies with a series of brothers. hierarchical levels. In these cases it seems that only This is a neat example of how environmental changes natural species have been segregated. It is another are referred to mythical incidents. matter when Plains Indian medicine men arrange their Also in another topic, medicine and medical practice, guardian spirits, which appear in animal disguise, in an religion outbids what we might consider a more order according to their efficiency: they are ranked as “scientific” approach. Certainly, there is, even behind spirits, not as animals, and may be included in a supernatural gestures, the beginning of a systematic hierarchy. It is a remarkable fact that this hierarchical and naturalist treatment of sick persons in a simple thinking occurs in societies which are otherwise hunting milieu. The herbalists who supply herbs, characterized by their equality. cobwebs, sap, or leaves for wounds, or handle internal We have seen how the world picture, or the view of medicine for the patient, follow what they have learnt the Universe, is arranged according to religiomythical or what their own experiences have taught them. models in original Native American thought. In Observation and practice over the years thus guided addition to what was said above it can be noted that their use of natural medicine, and today’s science of stars and planets are also included in these models. The laboratory medicine can sometimes corroborate the sun and moon may be understood as divinities or positive medical properties of these medicines. If symbols of divinities; the sun is often a manifestation anything the choice of useful medicaments points out of the Supreme Being, the moon a manifestation of the scientific endeavors of American Indians. Mother Earth, or the god (goddess) of vegetation. The However, there are other doctors as well, and their planets and stars incarnate other supernatural beings, curing is considered more important. Medicine men often the culture hero and hunting spirits. The and shamans invoke supernatural powers in order to Blackfoot and other tribes tell myths according to deliver the sick from a serious disease (or a disease which the main actors are transformed into well-known which they comprehend as serious). Gods and spirits stars when their adventures have finished. Among the are then thought to be the active medical powers, and Pawnee all dominant gods are stars, the chief one the disease itself may be a demoniac being. In other among them being the high god Tirawa who is words, the more serious the disease is, the more identified as the North star. Thus, the stars are supposed frequently supernatural powers have to be invoked. to be living, spiritual beings, something which is also Of course, even simple herbalist methods may be demonstrated in their movements over the sky. Such a accompanied by religious blessings. portrait of the star charter is the presupposition of R Such a continuum between this world and the other astrology. In the classical antiquity of the Old World world may, superficially seen, seem to make the some supreme power, or fate, ruled the star movements; distinction between them invalid, but this is not so. in America, the prime movers could be the stars American Indians have had recourse to systems which themselves, or some power behind the stars. In both would not satisfy Western logic; their logic is often worlds omens and policies were dictated by these created from the needs of the situation. In religion, powers, and thus what some call a pseudoscience, completely reciprocally exclusive belief chains may be astrology, took form to find out the nature of these resorted to, depending on the situation. In the same dictates. manner, Indians may interpret phenomena as derived Among the high civilizations, such as the Maya of from this world or the other world, but also, in single Southern Mexico and Guatemala, parts of the clergy cases, see a continuous line between them. made observations of the sky for astrological purposes. As a further example of such thinking the hierarchy It has been said that in Mesoamerica and South of biological masters may be mentioned. In many America people tracked the positions of the stars in places in both Americas animals and plants are order to know how they themselves should behave, supposed to be controlled by masters who rule over when they should plant, and when they should perform them and own them. These masters may be animals of sacrifices, whereas in North America the signs from the some sort, or supernatural beings. The Mataco in heaven were an aid to good living, not frightening 1892 Rice fields reclamation in southern India information. This distinction is probably too exagger- which gods held sway at any given time, and ated. In North America there was great fear when, during influence it by knowing when and whom to eclipses of the sun or the moon, the celestial body was propitiate. supposed to be swallowed up by some monster. It is also possible that the Maya writing with its Astrology has, all over the world, paved the way for multivalent hieroglyphs was first developed to serve astronomy; this is also true in North and South sacerdotal ends. In any case, during the Classic Period, America. The great annual festivals, the fertility the Maya texts deal with astronomy, the connections ceremonies, and other occasions for ritual celebrations between stars and gods, and associated ceremonies. could begin when star constellations were favorable. We could of course argue that there was in aboriginal The Tapirape Indians of the Amazonian forest know America an appreciation of knowledge and learning that when the Pleiades disappear in the west the rainy that had no religious causation; but it can be scarcely season is over. The prehistoric northern Plains Indians understood as a scientific ambition. Skills in technolo- constructed medicine wheels on mountain tops (or, if gy, and inventions (Inca road building, Maya corbelled there were no mountains in the area, on the open plains) vaults, Mexican wheel toys, etc.), rarely deserve this which archeologists and astronomers interpret as designation either. Inuit coast maps are a wonder of calendar monuments, used for the determination of precision and may pass for art. Truly profane science the summer solstice. For instance, the famous Medicine was not part of the American Indian world. Wheel on the ridge of the Bighorn Mountains in Wyoming has the form of a wheel with a central cairn See also: ▶Eclipses, ▶Astronomy, ▶Medicine, ▶Med- united with the peripheral stone ring through 28 spokes icine Wheels, ▶Mathematics, ▶Magic and Science, of stone. Other cairns are situated close to the periphery. ▶Medicine in Native North America From one of the latter cairns one can perceive the sun over the central cairn on Midsummer’s Day. There are reasons to assume that the structure also had cultic References functions. Its ground plan mirrors the world picture with Alvarsson, Jan-Åke. The Mataco of the Gran Chaco. the world pillar in the middle of the world, as was Uppsala: Academiae Upsaliensis, 1988. described earlier. Among other things, the 28 spokes Aveni, Anthony F., ed. Native American Astronomy. Austin: correspond to the 28 roof poles of the Sun Dance lodge. University of Texas Press, 1977. This might also correspond to the 28 lunar mansions in Bean, Lowell J. Mukat’s People: The Cahuilla Indians of Chinese, Islamic, and Indian astronomy. Southern California. Berkeley: University of California In the matter of astronomical calculations the Maya Press, 1974. Hultkrantz, Åke. The Religions of the American Indians. were the masters. In order to arrive at exact computa- Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979. tions they developed mathematics, used multiplication Nordenskiöld, Erland. The American Indian as an Inventor. tables, and calculated the days of the year. With these The Huxley Memorial Lecture for 1929. Journal of the means the Maya priest-astronomers managed to bring Royal Anthropological Institute 59 (1929): 273–309. the Venus cycle into relation with the year, and they Radin, Paul. Primitive Man as Philosopher. New York: Dover were also able to construct a table for predicting solar Publications, 1957. eclipses (although the latter were not always visible in Sturtevant, William C. Studies in Ethnoscience. Transcultural Studies in Cognition. Ed. A. K. Romney and R. G. the Maya area). Such eclipses were considered to be D’Ándrade. Menasha, Wisconsin: American Anthropologist dangerous. The foreknowledge of the times they would Special Publication, 1964. 99–131. appear made it possible for the priests to take action to Thompson, J. Eric S. The Rise and Fall of Maya Civilization. help the threatened human beings. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1954. Thus it appears that the beginning of science was motivated by its use for religious and ritual purposes. The Maya scholar, Eric Thompson, has this to say about the Maya intellectual achievements: Rice Fields Reclamation in It is remarkable that the intellectual successes of the Maya were not (from our point of view) Southern India practical; they were the outcome of spiritual needs. The Maya astronomers strove for knowl- edge, not as an end in itself, but as a means of K. T. RAMMOHAN controlling fate, a kind of astrology. There was, he felt, an orderliness in the heavens to which the Backwaters are large water bodies that are receptacles gods conformed; once that was learned, he could of rivers but contain saline water as they are connected predict the future through exact knowledge of to the sea. The Vembanad backwater system in far Rice fields reclamation in southern India 1893 southern India covers an area of over 21,000 ha, of reclamation also is indebted to these castes, measures 96.5 km in length, and is 3 to 8 m deep. especially Pulayas, who had long resorted to reclaiming Designated as a Ramsar site in 2002, the Vembanad is shallow backwaters for cultivation, as they owned no the largest estuarine system on India's western coast and land themselves. as a transitional ecotone between land and sea, offers Reclamation occurred during the summer when protection to innumerable living organisms, including water level in the lake dipped. It involved two major clams and waterfowl (Nair 2003). Population expansion operations: building a circular dyke (outer main dyke or and economic pressures of commercial agriculture and ring dyke or mata) to enclose the backwater area tourism, however, have put pressure on the backwater proposed to be reclaimed and draining water out from causing it to considerably dwindle over time (Narayanan the enclosed area. Dykes had to be built where water 2003). was 8 to 10 ft deep. This involved several stages. First, While reclamation of Vembanad backwater for coconut palm trunk piles in two parallel lines were habitation and cultivation has a history that dates back driven into the bed of the backwater area to be many centuries, the scale of operation was small until reclaimed. These were fenced with bamboo screens on the nineteenth century. From this period, Travancore either side. The space enclosed by the bamboo screens was rapidly drafted into the world economy as a source was then tightly packed with clay, sand and brushwood. of varied goods: coffee, tea, coconut oil, coir, and later Clay had to be lifted from the lakebed at a depth of rubber. It was crucial for the export economy to be 10 to 12 feet and transported by country boats to the price-competitive in the international market. Export site. The dyke-enclosed area was then drained by using production was labour intensive. To keep prices low, an array of waterwheels of different sizes, mounted wages had to be kept low. This in turn required keeping one upon the other, operated day and night. After food prices under check. However, the demand for rice draining the area, usual agricultural operations could be was rising and its supply was falling. Besides normal commenced. With high water levels surrounding the demographic expansion, the immigrant workforce in field and the lake being prone to tides, constant vigil the plantations marked new demand. The relocation had to be maintained against any breach in the dyke. of agricultural workers to coir weaving factories in Land and water management was central to cultivation. the coastal urban centres also possibly raised the All operations, including ploughing, sowing, weeding demand for rice. Earlier, in the countryside, their food and harvesting, were dependent on timing and any comprised some rice and a large share of tubers. In the delay could ruin the crop. town, lacking access to tubers that were not a marketed Rice cultivation in reclaimed lands was highly labour- commodity, people substituted rice. As demand for rice intensive and its success depended on the availability of rose, its supply fell. This was mainly due to the decline a captive workforce round the clock. Male workers built of hill cultivation of rice consequent to the setting up of and maintained the dykes, and ploughed the field; the plantations (Rammohan 1996). rest of the operations were mostly done by women. The princely government of Travancore sought to These workers were initially slaves and their masters address the growing mismatch between supply and were mostly members of upper castes like Brahmins and demand of rice in three ways: import of rice from Nayars and communities like Syrian Christians. From Bengal, Burma, and Siam; propagation of cassava as a the mid-nineteenth century, with the abolition of slavery, rice substitute; and encouraging the creation of new they were partially liberated but were still attached to R rice lands by reclaiming the Vembanad backwater. the masters and their land. As land changed hands they Large-scale reclamation began towards the late nine- had new masters. Some of them were settled in thatched teenth century, with the princely government granting mud huts in the master's homestead so that their services short-term exemption from tax on reclaimed lands and could be had anytime in the day or night. Others were extending loans at concessional rates to the cultivators. settled on or near the dyke so that they could keep vigil Even with cheap and servile labour, reclamation was over the dyke in times of heavy rains and act immediately expensive. Usually one person was given permission, if a breach occurred. The ring dykes demarcated but he carried out reclamation by forming partnerships individual fields while most fields were protected by with a few others. Networking was mostly confined outer dykes, built and maintained jointly by the farmers. within a caste or community or among castes and During the early years of reclamation, water was communities of similar social status. Nayars and drained by using waterwheels made of wood. With the Christians, jointly and severally, floated most of the introduction of mechanical pump sets towards the end partnerships. Lower castes and communities lacking of the nineteenth century reclamation activity received financial resources and influence in government could a further boost. While earlier, only small blocks of not undertake reclamation. Workers of Pulaya and 40–60 acres used to be reclaimed, large blocks Paraya castes, considered ‘untouchable’ by their higher of hundreds of acres could now be reclaimed. Over caste landlords, did most of the work. The technology 5,000 acres were newly reclaimed. The first pump sets 1894 Road networks in ancient native America that were introduced during the late nineteenth century crawled up and positioned itself on the edge of the leaf- were worked by producer gas and those introduced blade. The worms were swept away into a basket using in the early decades of the twentieth century were a stick or a broom. Water was let into the field at regular run by kerosene or diesel. A British engineering firm intervals till the harvest, which occurred in February or based in Cochin, Geo Brunton Company, boat builders March. The ear heads were garnered with sickles and and operators of steamboats, introduced the first threshed with feet. The grain was winnowed and sun- pump sets. The company hired these out to farmers. dried on the threshing floor and conveyed to the The company's men, many of them Anglo-Indians, granaries in country canoes. The grain was boiled, sun- operated the pump sets. With increase in demand, dried and pounded by hand into rice. In certain parts new suppliers like Marshall Sons and Company of of reclaimed areas, a deep-water variety of rice was Edinburgh operating through its branch at Madras also cultivated. Its ear heads floated on the surface of water entered the scene (Rammohan 1996). and were harvested from the canoes (Pillai and Panikar Agricultural operations in the reclaimed tracts began 1965; Tharamangalam 1981). in January or February. The field was ploughed using bullocks or oxen as draught animals. The soil of the References reclaimed backwater was acidic and to neutralise it, lime was applied. The field was then flooded by Nair, R. R. Conflicts Over the Commons: A Study of Clam opening the sluices in the dyke. The field remained and Clamshell Collection in the Vembanad Backwater, submerged throughout the south western monsoon Kerala. M.Phil. Dissertation. Kottayam: Mahatma Gandhi University, School of Social Sciences, 2003. (June to August). By August when the water receded Narayanan, N. C. Against the Grain: The Political Ecology of the field was again ploughed. This was a difficult Land Use in a Kerala Region, India. Ph.D. Dissertation. operation as the worker had to wade through waist- The Hague: Institute of Social Studies, 2003. deep and muddy water with the draught bullock or Pillai, V. R. and P. G. K. Panikar. Land Reclamation in buffalo. Following this, the outer dykes were repaired Kerala. New York: Asia Publishing House, 1965. and waterwheels set up at different points. The wheel Rammohan, K. T. Material Processes and Developmentalism: was mounted vertically on a horizontal axle. The Interpreting Economic Change in Colonial Tiruvitamkur, 1800 to 1945. Ph.D. Dissertation. Thiruvananthapuram: wheels were of different sizes; the number of spokes Centre for Development Studies, 1996. was usually in multiples of 6 and ranged from 6 to 36. Rammohan, K. T. Tables of Rice: Kuttanad, Southwest India. To drain large areas an array of waterwheels, arranged Thiruvananthapuram: Centre for Development studies, 2006. in ascending order of size was used. The wheels were Tharamangalam, J. Agrarian Class Conflict: The Political operated by gangs ranging from 8 to 10 workers, Mobilization of Agricultural Labourers in Kuttanad, South who perched themselves on bamboo scaffolding and India. Vancouver and London: University of British pedalled the water away. This was hard labour and Columbia Press, 1981. Verghese, K. E. Slow Flows the Pampa: Socio-economic work was carried out in four shifts. The workers changes in a Kuttanad village in Kerala. New Delhi: ascertained the time by looking at the sun, moon and Concept Publishing Company, 1983. stars. Alternatively, a half shell of coconut with a fine hole pierced at its bottom was used like an hourglass with water substituting for sand. The shell was placed in water and when water entering from below filled it Road Networks in Ancient entirely it was reckoned as a unit of time. Drainage operations were conducted for many fields at a time. Native America As water levels receded, the inner dykes and irrigation channels were repaired. The soil was then raked with a harrow, weeded and worked into a soft puddle. RUBÉN G. MENDOZA,GRETCHEN W. JORDAN Water was then let into the field up to knee-depth. Sowing was done in October or November after Pre-Columbian road networks in ancient America – the monsoon subsided. Seeds, sprouted in screw-pine specifically, the Southwestern United States, bags, were broadcast in water. The field was then Mesoamerica, and Peru – provide a point of departure completely drained and kept dry for a week. Water was for exploring current issues in the study of non-Western then let in, and when seedlings were about a month old, technology. It should be noted that other major road some transplanting was done to reduce the uneven- networks have been documented for the Mississippian ness resulting from broadcast sowing. The field was complex of eastern North America, Casas Grandes completely drained after transplanting and manure – in Chihuahua, Mexico, and the Maya sacbe road cow dung, green leaves, hay, and ash – applied. networks of the Maya lowlands of Mesoamerica. Pesticides were not used. The most common pest was These networks are currently the subject of ongoing a worm. As water level in the field rose, the worm investigations. Road networks in ancient native America 1895

The three primary road networks of concern here are raised roadbeds also characterize the system. Several those of the North American Chaco Anasazi or architectural features are associated with road segments. Ancestral Pueblo of west-central New Mexico, Me- These range from simple cairns and shrines to residential soamerican road networks centered on La Quemada room-blocks and Great House communities with Great and Xochicalco, Mexico, and the Inca system of Kiva ceremonial structures. Stylistically uniform, these Peruvian South America. These networks vary in scale, features and structures employ Bonito-style construc- with the La Quemada complex representing a highly tion of core-veneer masonry and massive walls. integrated, valley-wide network, dating to the period There are no historical data available describing between AD 700 and 900. The Chaco network covers a the Chacoan road system. To date, all interpretations circuit of over 300 linear miles of ground-verified have been based on archaeological research and remote constructed road segments and features spanning the sensing techniques. Gordon Vivian pioneered this period from AD 920 to 1140. The Inca road network research in 1948. From 1971 to 1977, the Remote was expanded in a vigorous campaign to integrate all Sensing Project of the Chaco Center – in conjunction pre-existing road segments in the period between AD with the National Park Service and the University 1438 and 1532. This system incorporates over 2,000 of New Mexico – undertook investigations of the linear miles of roads into the single most massive Chacoan road network. Their efforts focused on the use archaeological feature in the Americas (Hyslop 1984). of ground verification studies for the extensive mapping of road alignments appearing in aerial photographs. From 1980 to 1983 the New Mexico The American Southwest Bureau of Land Management undertook a comprehen- The formalized road network of Chaco Canyon, New sive effort to document the road network by means of Mexico, connects the canyon core with peripheral ground verification (Kincaid 1983). pueblo communities lying at relatively great distances from the core area. Over 500 miles of roads are indicated through the analysis of aerial photographs; Mesoamerica however ground survey data are as yet incomplete, Studies pertaining to Mesoamerican road networks are leaving unresolved the question of continuity in the relatively recent, and most such studies have empha- network. The sociopolitical complexity of the Anasazi sized ground verification and mapping. The sites of of the San Juan Basin is closely tied to the problem of Casas Grandes, La Quemada, Xochicalco, Teotihuacan, road network continuity (Vivian 1990). If the road and the Maya lowlands have been the subject of most network was contiguous throughout, this would support surveys to date, while the Tarascan and Sonoran regions the contention that Chaco served an administrative have been the subject of the most recent surveys. The function as the center of a regional system extending road networks of these regions provide a glimpse into from Southwestern Colorado to Southeastern Utah, into both the Late Classic, and the Protohistoric develop- Western Arizona and Northwestern New Mexico. Lack ments of the fourteenth through sixteenth centuries AD of continuity in the road network indicates a less (Mendoza 2001). integrated system, and a more autonomous character for The area of La Quemada, Zacatecas, lies within a the outlying communities. semiarid region of Mesoamerica’s Northern Frontier. Functional aspects of the Chaco road system are as This area is dominated by a series of hill-fort centers, R yet unclear. Functional considerations center on the each of which is characterized by the presence of civic- nature and control of goods transported as well as with ceremonial precincts, agricultural terraces, and second- the degree of interaction between core and peripheral ary centers with related defensive features. An extensive communities. Proposed interpretations include (a) a intra-regional network of roads connected the pri- defensive role for outlying pueblos, (b) protection of mary centers of La Quemada and Los Pilarillos with trade routes, (c) ceremonial functions, (d) political secondary centers, and in turn, isolated mound groups, administration, and (e) the transport of subsistence- isolated platforms, defensive positions or fortifications, related goods. It has also been suggested that outlying and agricultural terraces. This system, by contrast with pueblos served as rural sustaining communities directly that of Chaco Canyon, served to integrate communities affiliated with representative groups of the canyon core within a tightly constricted area. Road segments linking (Kincaid 1983). the La Quemada road network with regions beyond the Chacoan road construction exhibits several charac- valley have yet to be fully mapped or verified. teristic features. Most notable is the absolute linearity The specific road-related features identified with of the roads, despite potential topographic obstacles. La Quemada include (a) formal causeways or other The great North Road deviates less than one degree elevated road segments; (b) road segments terminating from its northerly course in over 46 km. Masonry road at elevated platforms; (c) causeways of between 5 and elements such as flanking walls, or curbs, ramps, and 7 m to 12 and 14 m in width with road-bed elevations of 1896 Road networks in ancient native America between 30 and 40 cm; (d) causeways that extend to the movement of goods and services was critical to wide, low platforms and stairways with precipitous trade and exchange in Mesoamerica. Like the ancient descents down steep escarpments; (e) parallel road and informal paths that preceded them, formalized roads canal or other irrigation segments; and finally (f ) where served to guide and expedite the movement of goods the larger causeways are concerned, such roads are and services on both an intra- and inter-regional scale. identified with defensive positions. At La Quemada, A typology of Aztec era roads was recorded by the aforementioned features are taken to represent a Fray Bernardino de Sahagun, the sixteenth century sociopolitical pattern geared to militarism or related Franciscan cleric who documented such aspects of defense activity (Trombold 1991b). postconquest central Mexican culture (Sahagun 1963). Where the road networks of the Mesoamerican Of the seven types of roads identified by Bernardino de Epiclassic era (ca. AD 650–900) are concerned, the Sahagun the ochpantli and oquetzalli road types have central Mexican city-state of Xochicalco, Morelos, been isolated as representative of the Xochicalco road provides a salient example. The site of Xochicalco, types. The first term pertains to the “main road” and the like its La Quemada contemporary, is situated in a second to the “royal road” networks of the Aztec era. strategically located acropolis-centered hill-fort locality. The well groomed roads of Xochicalco are interpreted Most of the road segments identified with Xochicalco as the royal road type. This interpretation is based on emanate from the hill-fort to other centers within the the monumental nature of the associated architecture valley below, and as such, Xochicalco provides a (primarily defensive in character), the cut-stone pave- characteristic example of roads as symbols of power, ments, and the relatively large width of the roadbed prestige, and levels of regional integration. In other itself. In addition, archaeologist Kenneth Hirth distin- words, this position holds that Mesoamerican road guishes between “road” and “thoroughfare.” Roads networks function primarily as mechanisms for social are “transportation arteries at the regional level which integration or as symbols of the power and prestige of connect two or more spatially separated sites”;thor- social or religious elites (Hirth 1991). The scale and oughfares are “streets and other communication corri- magnitude of construction activity invested in the road dors which organize space and/or direct traffic flow systems of Mesoamerica have led some scholars to within the community” (Hirth 1991). The fragmentary speculate that such roads were less functional and more nature of the data precludes a region-wide economic and ceremonial in character. Monumental construction social interpretation of the Xochicalco network. and related public works are taken as indicators of The Xochicalco road network exhibits a number of political power, and thereby elite command of critical distinct architectural characteristics, including: resources (such as slaves and construction personnel) a. Stone-surfaced intra-site rough-cut mosaic pave- in the valley during the pre-Columbian era (Trombold ments or roadbeds of 3–5 m widths 1991a). b. Intra-site masonry ramps Mesoamerican economic systems, by virtue of the c. Parallel platforms flanking key road segments or nonexistence of draft animals, and thereby, wheeled thoroughfares leading into the site core area vehicles, were limited to human burden bearers. d. Roads which bisect massive rampart walls with Despite this limitation, such systems were every bit narrow gateways in order to access intra-site as formal as those of other Old and New World polities. thoroughfares Primitivist interpretations of New World economies e. Intra-site pavements or roadbeds edged with cut- have unnecessarily minimized the perceived scale of stone masonry blocks economic formations in Mesoamerica and the New f. Stucco used along flanking masonry edging in the World despite available ethnohistorical data. The extent intra-site sectors and magnitude of investment in road construction, and g. Intra-site pavements made flush with surfaces scale of integration made evident by the contiguity in traversed and modified with ramps – both smooth the system, is again a key indicator of the types and stepped of sociopolitical formations that once prevailed in h. Lateral masonry walls flanking intra-site pavements Mesoamerica. The Aztec era provides only a hint at i. Access causeways along circuits of defensive what prior civilizations engaged in the way of road ditches or moats network investment in construction and maintenance, j. Evidence for the use of a probable wooden bridge and by any account, the investment was substantial and spanning a defensive moat adjacent to Cerro de la culturally significant. Robert Santley’s recent projec- Bodega tion of road networks for the Basin of Mexico presents us with a system that was highly integrated and equally Transport architecture extending beyond the site complex (Santley 1991). perimeter consists of less formal construction techni- The utility of a formalized – organized, linear, ques in addition to significantly less evidence of overall weatherproof – road network over which to maintain integration with the site core of Xochicalco. Road networks in ancient native America 1897

Recent studies provide indications of a massive road roadways. Second, the Inca were exceptionally effi- network that connected the Classic period center of cient in their use of resources, both natural and human. Teotihuacan with an ancient trade corridor linking that Pre-existing roadways were frequently incorporated site with the Puebla Basin, and by extension, the into the Inca network. Inca engineers did not seek to Mexican Gulf lowlands. Unlike the more defensive modify natural topography to any great extent unless character of the La Quemada and Xochicalco road required to do so in order to achieve safe passage. networks, the Teotihuacan corridor linking Teotihuacan Where road modifications were concerned, locally with a whole host of ancient mercantile centers in the available materials were utilized and work was per- Mesoamerican highlands and Gulf coastal plain served formed by locally organized labor pools under the a key transport function for the movement of goods and supervision of a road administrator. Third, the Inca services provisioned and sought by Teotihuacan. brought to bear a vast body of technical knowledge and The road-associated settlement hierarchy of the expertise, accumulated over the course of centuries Teotihuacan Corridor, as well as the recent identifica- among the diverse ethnic groups of the empire. Finally, tion of specific features of transport network architec- the efficiency of the road network insured that Inca ture along the Teotihuacan Corridor, is currently under rulers could maintain communication with – and thereby, study. Additional features of Mesoamerican transport the integration of – every corner of the empire. network architecture include (a) causeways – such as Four primary state roads divided the empire into the Street of the Dead – measuring some 40 m in width; cosmologically defined quadrants (Urton 1981). The (b) the presence of Momoztli structures, or elevated sacred geography associated with road networks reflected platforms or shrines (often laden with trade offerings) the Inca preoccupation with cosmology defined vis-á-vis situated at the crux of important crossroads along the extant social divisions. Cuzco, the political and adminis- corridor; (c) an approximate inter-site road width of trative center of the Inca state, was linked via these 24 m, and 60 cm depth, for sites located on the sacred paths to the most ancient shrines and temples. Teotihuacan Corridor; (d) spur roads that connect road- Roadways not only defined the partitioning of sacred associated settlements with the principal arteries of the space, they also served as linkages in a massive transport Teotihuacan Corridor and with other key nodal points and communication network. or market centers; (e) related architectural styles and Road characteristics varied considerably in terms of construction along the course of the transport network; construction methods and the extent of labor invest- (f ) roughly equidistant spacing of road-associated ment. Construction methods varied with the highly settlements at 8–9 km intervals for specific Teotihua- fractured and variable topography of the region, and as can related centers; and (g) stepped ramps, road such, a single road might include both road segments shrines, crossroads, and attendant roadbed linearity. with very complex architectural features and evidence The overall network is dendritic in structure, in that for intensive labor investment, and simple unpaved or the main road connects with primary centers, which are earthen pathways. Ultimately, road construction varied in turn connected to a constellation of secondary with localized conditions, topographic obstacles, avail- centers sharing affinities with key terminals along the able materials and labor, and the importance of the Teotihuacan Corridor. specific road segment to ceremonial and ritual activities. Coastal routes varied from simple “pole-roads” to broad thoroughfares with stone or adobe sidewalls. R Peru Pole-roads were paths marked by linear arrangements The most intensively studied ancient road system of of wooden posts placed at intervals. High-altitude roads South America is that of the Inca Empire, extending on nonagricultural lands were, by contrast, engineered over a vast area from Ecuador to Chile, from the coastal for durability in order to withstand harsh climatic deserts to the Andean highlands, into the Bolivian conditions. Such roads incorporated elaborate stone forests. This network included some 20,000 miles of curbs, retaining walls, and paving. These later construc- roadways and encompassed 40,000 miles at the point of tions are among the best-preserved roads in evidence for European contact. This road system constitutes “South the Andes. Roads traversing agricultural fields are America’s largest contiguous archaeological remain,” characterized by very high sidewalls – of 1 or 2 m in and provides valuable insights into the organization height – designed to protect crops from travelers or and technology that are hallmarks of the Inca state livestock such as llamas and alpacas. Such walls were (Hyslop 1984). likewise built of stone or adobe. Agricultural roads were In contemplating the vastness of this road network, relatively narrow so as to minimize their impact on the one is struck by the enormity of the Inca achievement. availability and productivity of arable lands. First, there is the effectiveness of the political Where roads crossed wet plains or slopes, stone infrastructure that organized and mobilized a labor paving was used to preserve the roadbed. If flooding force specialized in the building and maintenance of was unavoidable, the road was constructed on an 1898 Rockets in ancient Korea elevated surface or causeway. Inca causeways were of network supported the state’s practical needs for rubble-core construction, with or without stone retain- efficient military mobilization, colonization, economic ing walls. In those instances where existing slopes were maintenance, and administration. In addition, the less than 10° off horizontal, the Inca used a combina- complex network of roads supported the ideological tion of stone or rock-cut ramps, stairways, or switch- needs of the Inca hierarchy, providing a highly visible backs in order to buffer ascent and descent. Depending set of linkages between the people and the state. on the steepness of the existing slope, structures ranged from a single retaining wall to a series of walls and References benches built on the downhill side of the slope, and intended to serve as secondary retaining features. Hirth, Kenneth. Roads, Thoroughfares, and Avenues of Bridges are among the most spectacular structures Power at Xochicalco, Mexico. Ancient Road Networks and engineered by the Inca. While sixteenth century European Settlement Hierarchies in the New World. Ed. C. D. Trombold. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. construction employed the principle of the arch in 211–21. bridge construction, the Inca were able to span greater Hyslop, John. The Inka Road System. New York: Academic distances through a variety of engineering principles Press, 1984. and techniques. Early Spanish explorers marveled at the Kincaid, Chris. Chaco Roads Project, Phase I: A Reappraisal sight of Inca suspension bridges which were unknown of Prehistoric Roads in the San Juan Basin. Ed. C. in Europe. Though made of woven and braided fiber Kincaid. New Mexico: Department of the Interior, Bureau coils, these suspended structures supported considerable of Land Management, 1983. Mendoza, Ruben G. Transportation. In The Oxford Encyclo- pedestrian traffic, in addition to European horses and pedia of Mesoamerican Cultures. Vol. 3. Ed. David carts of the conquest period. Other types of spans built Carrasco. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. by the Inca included floating bridges supported by 260–262. pontoons of reed bundles, wooden bridges manufactured Sahagun, Fray Bernardino de. Florentine Codex. General from logs placed over stone abutments (with or without History of the Things of New Spain. Book 11, Earthly cantilevers), and a variety of stone bridges. Culverts were Things. Trans. C. Dibble and A. Anderson. Santa Fe: stone-lined troughs left open, or capped, if necessary for School of American Research and the University of Utah, 1963. safe passage. Somewhat wider rivers were spanned by Santley, Robert S. The Structure of the Aztec Transport stone columns placed adjacent to one another, thereby Network. Ancient Road Networks and Settlement Hier- forming “multicell” culverts which supported the over- archies in the New World. Ed. C. D. Trombold. Cambridge: lying roadbed. Some stone bridges employed canti- Cambridge University Press, 1991. 198–210. levered abutments supporting very large stone pavers. Trombold, Charles D. ed. Ancient Road Networks and Finally, natural rock formations were utilized as bridged Settlement Hierarchies in the New World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991a. areas where available. Trombold, Charles D. Causeways in the Context of Strategic An integral component of Inca era road networks was Planning in the La Quemada Region, Zacatecas, Mexico. the tambo system. Tambos were multiuse structures or Ancient Road Networks and Settlement Hierarchies in the facilities maintained by the Inca state but administered New World. Ed. C. D. Trombold. Cambridge: Cambridge locally. Hyslop estimates that between 1,000 and 2,000 University Press, 1991b. 145–68. of these facilities were in use throughout the Inca Urton, Gary. At the Crossroads of the Earth and the Sky: empire. Tambos exhibit considerable variation in size, An Andean Cosmology. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981. ranging from sites with a few isolated structures to Vivian, R. Gwinn. The Chacoan Prehistory of the San Juan large administrative centers representing a multitude Basin. San Diego, CA: Academic Press, 1990. of activity areas. Storage and lodging constitute the primary uses for which tambos were employed. Storage structures included silos, corrals, and adjoining rooms. Lodging in tambo facilities was temporary, and Rockets in Ancient Korea intended either for travelers or as permanent residence for local administrators. Tambos were also employed in the processing of raw materials, military and ceremoni- CHAE YEON-SEOK al activities, local administration, and craft production. Tambos were equidistantly spaced on any given route The development of Korean rockets as tactical weapons at intervals representing a day’s travel time. According began in the late fourteenth century. According to to recent Inca road surveys, tambos were spaced at Koryo Sa (The History of the Koryo Dynasty) and intervals that average between 15 and 25 km. The Cho Son Wang Cho Silok (The Historical Records of combined tambo system and vast complex of roadways the Choson Dynasty), King Wu (1377–1389) of formed a critical component of the state’s infrastructure. the Koryo dynasty (918–1392) ordered the establish- This highly efficient transport and communication ment of the Hwa-tong-do-gam (General Bureau of Rockets in ancient Korea 1899

Gunpowder Artillery) in 1377 on the recommendation propellant cases of Sin-Gi-Jeon and Ju-Hwa (running of Choi, Mu-Son (1325–1395). Commissioned tempo- fire), a term used for rocket-propelled arrows of the rarily at the height of Japanese piracy, the Bureau was Koryo Dynasty. It is inferred from these historical charged with administering the manufacture of gun- records that the Ju-Hwa manufactured at Hwa-tong-do- powder and firearms. gam was the first Korean rocket. Choi, Mu-Son produced a variety of gunpowder and According to Kuk Cho Ore Sorye, the arrow shaft of firearms in the newly commissioned Bureau. Fire the Ju-Hwa is made of a bamboo stick, and the arrows, called Haw-Jon, manufactured at Hwa-tong- arrowhead is iron. The tail fins of the arrow are feathers. do-gam between 1377 and 1391 near the end of Koryo Although there is neither a direct nor detailed description Dynasty were not, unlike some Chinese counterparts, attesting that Ju-Hwa was rocket-propelled, that may rocket-propelled arrows but exclusively incendiary be inferred from other historical records. Choson Wang arrows. They were shot with a bow. Figure 1a Cho Silok records King Sejong speaking to an official illustrates the fire arrow as described in Kuk Cho Ore PyeongAn, in HamGil province: Sorye (Introductory Remarks on National Rituals/ Running-fire is very efficient and incomparable Formalities of National Functions) of the Chosun because it can be fired easily using a quiver by a Dynasty (1392–1910) published in 1474. Figure 1b mounted soldier. It is detrimental to the enemy; its shows a drawing of fire arrows in metric units loud noise and shape instill fear and incite surrender. converted from the Korean measurement system in Once used at night, its exhaust flame lightens the which one chuck corresponds to 312.4 mm, one chun fields and shakes the enemy’sspirits. to 31.2 mm, one pun to 3.1 mm and one le to 0.3 mm. When used where the enemy is lying in ambush, Unfortunately there is no direct documentary evidence its flame and smoke cause the enemy to disclose attesting that firearms manufactured at Hwa-tong-do- themselves for fear. Running-fire does not fly gam involved rocket-propelled firearms. However, Kuk straight and it spends more powder and requires Cho Ore Sorye contains illustrations of rocket-propelled more precaution than cannon. firearms called Sin-Gi-Jeon. Moreover, Hwa Po Sik Un Hae (Korean Annotation of Gunpowder and Firearms “Its loud noise and shape,” implies a propulsive device Method, 1635) makes reference to the identity of the which produces thrust by ejecting combustion gases

R

Rockets in Ancient Korea. Fig. 1 Drawings of Hwa-Jeon (a) Fire arrow (Ju-Hwa). Drawing from Kuk Cho Ore Sorye 1474). (b) Fire arrow (Hwa-Jeon). Drawing in metric units (from Chae 1981). u1 : arrow shaft, u2 : arrowhead, u3 : black powder, u4 : fins. 1900 Rockets in ancient Korea

Rockets in Ancient Korea. Table 1 Powder charge of Choson Wang Cho Silok, such firearms are no longer rockets and cannons in fifteenth century Korea mentioned by those names after 1448 and onward, but instead a new set of names of firearms begins to appear, Rockets Cannon and guns namely Sin-Gi-Jeon, literally meaning “magical ma- Name Powder Name Powder chine arrow.” However, the specifications and weight weight manufacturing methods of the medium-sized Sin-Gi- Large 2,628 g Chun Ja 870 g Jeon described in Hwa Po Sik Eon Hae are identical to running Chong those for the Ju-Hwa. Thus, it is inferred that the Sin- fire Tong (General Gi-Jeon was based on the Ju-Hwa and developed cannon) further to include versions of various sizes: small (So), Medium 41.4 g Dae Wan Gu 870 g medium (Chung), large (Dae), and multiple bomblets running (Large magical machine arrows. fire motor) Dae-Sin-Gi-Jeon (Large Magical Machine Arrow) Figure 2 shows a drawing of the Dae-Sin-Gi-Jeon (large magical machine arrow) in the Kuk Cho Ore and thus produces the loud noise. “Once used at night, Sorye, and a drawing reproduced in metric units. The its flame lightens the field,” excludes the possibility propellant case filled with black powder is a cylindrical that Ju-Hwa was a cannon or rifle as it produced “flame tube made of paper. It is 695 mm long, 17.8 mm thick, and smoke” during flight. In addition, the motion of and the internal diameter is 63.1 mm. Both ends of the ancient rockets does not generally follow a straight line propellant case were sealed with paper several times because it depends on stabilizing sticks made of and attached to the front end of the bamboo shaft by bamboo with an exhaust hole in the powder charge in strings. At the bottom end of the propellant case, the propellant case. Most of the weight of a solid- opposite the warhead, a hole was made to allow exhaust propellant rocket is due to the propellant. Ju-Hwa fumes to exit. The bamboo shaft is 5.3 m long with the “spends more powder” than a gun or cannon as it cross-sectional diameter increasing from 10 mm at the continues to eject combustion gas in flight. front to 29.5 mm at the rear. At the rear of the bamboo shaft three feathers were evenly distributed in between. According to Hwa Po Sick Eon Hae, the medium “ ” running fire was charged with 41.4 g of black powder. The Firearms Illustration in Kuk Cho Ore Sorye Extrapolating the weights of small and large running records that they are bird feathers. However, there is no fires from the weight of the medium-sized running fire feather of size 30 mm × 840 mm, and it is reasonable and proscribed volumes of propellant cases of the small to conjecture that they were made of leather, consider- and large running fire, the weight of small and large ing that arrows fired from a cannon at that time were running fire is given by 12 and 2,628 g, respectively. equipped with feathers made of leather. The weight of black powder for a large running fire is An explosive tube is mounted on the front end of the significantly larger than that of the largest cannon used propellant case. A detonating fuse extends from the in fifteenth century Korea with the black powder explosive tube through a hole made on the surfaces of weight of 870 g (Table 1). the explosive tube and the propellant case into the propellant case. Such an arrangement enabled the ex- plosives to detonate during or near the end of the flight Korean Rockets of the Fifteenth Century to the target. The overall length of the Dae-Shin- The reign of King Se Jong (1418–1450) of the Choson Gi-Jeon, including the explosive tube, reached 5.6 m. dynasty marked a turning point in the development of Dae-Sin-Gi-Jeon was primarily used to launch an firearms, moving beyond the imitation of Chinese offensive on enemies across the Aprok river at its models and creating a distinctive Korean model. In the estuary from Eui-Ju City. Considering the width of 30th year (1448) of the reign of King Se Jong the the estuary, the Dae-Sin-Gi-Jeon is surmised to range details and manufacturing methods of firearms and from 1.5 to 2 km. ready-to-launch munitions were compiled, illustrated The San-Hwa-Shin-Gi-Jeon (Fire scattering magical and published in the Chong Tong Deong Rok machine arrow), an application of Dae-Sin-Gi-Jeon, (Reproduced Records of Firearms and Gunpowder). was also used. Instead of employing the explosive tube No copy of Chong Tong Deong Rok had survived, but of Dae-Sin-Gi-Jeon, the front part of the propellant part of it is in Kuk Cho Ore Sorye. case was occupied by a bundle of paper explosives According to Hwa Po Sik Eon Hae, three types of called So-Bal-Hwa (small fire burner) connected by a rocket-propelled arrows were in wide use in their detonating fuse. San-Hwa-Sin-Gi-Jeon was designed mature form by the 29th year (1447) of King Se Jong’s to disperse paper explosives ignited when they were reign: large, medium, and small running fires. In near the target. Rockets in ancient Korea 1901

Rockets in Ancient Korea. Fig. 2 Large magical machine arrow (a) Propellant case from Kuk Cho Ore Sorye, 1474. (b) Drawing in metric units. u1 : warhead, u2 : propellant case, u3 : bamboo, u4 : fins.

long, a diameter of 110 mm and an overall length including stabilizing sticks of 4.3 m.

Medium and Small Magical Machine Arrow (Chung- & So-Sin-Gi-Jeon) The Chung-Sin-Gi-Jeon (medium magical machine arrow) has a 1.4 m long bamboo shaft with a 200 mm long propellant case attached to the front. An arrowhead weighing 5.5 g is fixed at the front end of the Chung-Sin-Gi-Jeon, and at the rear end are attached 17.8 cm long bird feathers. There is no mention on the range of Chung-Sin-Gi-Jeon, but it is estimated to range from 150 to 200 m. R A detailed drawing showing the internal structure of the medium magical machine arrow is reproduced in Fig. 4. The lower part of the propellant case is bound with twine as in the large magical machine arrow. The propellant case is charged with powder up to the height of 175 mm leaving an empty space with a corresponding height of 25 mm. A small explosive tube (so-bal-hwa-tong) 56.2 mm long, 47.8 mm in Rockets in Ancient Korea. Fig. 3 Image of large magical circumference, 4.4 mm thick and 6.9 mm in internal machine arrow. diameter is inserted into the propellant case. The length from the end of the cylindrical case to the attachment Dae-Sin-Gi-Jeon is the largest rocket ever made twine is 6.3 mm, and the diameter of the nozzle is employing explosive cases made of paper, and a 2.2 mm. Finally, the powder in the propellant case of reproduced version is shown in Fig. 3. It was 350 years the medium magical machine arrow was connected later that rockets of comparable size were manufactured with fuses. elsewhere; in 1805 William Congreve of England pro- The So-Sin-Gi-Jeon (small magical machine arrow) duced 6-pound rocket with a propellant case 550 mm is the smallest version of the series as shown in Fig. 5. 1902 Rockets in ancient Korea

Rockets in Ancient Korea. Fig. 4 Medium magical machine arrow. (a) Drawing from Kuk Cho Ore Sorye, 1474. Drawing in metric units. u1 : warhead, u2 : propellant case, u3 : bamboo, u4 : fins.

Rockets in Ancient Korea. Fig. 5 Drawing of small magical machine arrow in metric units.

Its propellant case, 15 cm long with a cross-sectional propellant case was bound with twine as in the large diameter of 15 cm, is attached to the front of a 100 cm- magical machine arrow. The propellant case was long bamboo shaft. At the rear end bird feathers are charged with powder up to the height of 579.5 mm, attached. The diameter of the exhaust hole installed in leaving an empty space corresponding to the height of the propellant case is 4 mm, and the range is estimated 115.6 mm. Several layers of paper were attached to be about 200 m. Figure 6 shows pairs of reproduced to the top surface of the powder. Several land fire running fire, and small and medium magical machine tubes (Ji-Hwa-Tong) attached to small explosive tubes arrows reproduced in 1979. (So-Bal-Hwa-Tong) were placed on the top of the propellant case with their fuses attached to the Multiple Bomblets Magical Machine Arrow propellant charge. (San-Hwa-Sin-Gi-Jeon) The “Firearms illustration” section of the Kuk Cho Ore The multiple bomblets magical arrow is similar to the Sorye provides detailed explanations on manufacturing large magical machine arrow in size, but it differs in the arrows, including charging propellant cases. A long, warhead system. A propellant case serves as a warhead coned-shaped awl was inserted through the hole in the instead of an explosive tube. bottom of the propellant case. Then a small quantity of The detailed internal structure of the propellant case powder was spread and hardened with an empty and explosive system of the multiple bomblets magical cylindrical iron stick with its external diameter equal to machine arrow is shown in Fig. 7. The lower part of the the internal diameter of the propellant case. Rockets in ancient Korea 1903

Rocket Launch Device: Hwa-Cha (Fire Cart) in sequence or with a gun tube pad capable of and Launch Pad launching 200 Se-Jeon (bullets). Figure 8 shows a The structure of the launch pads for rockets is relatively drawing of the fire cart in Kuk Cho Ore Sorye and a simple, since it primarily serves the function of drawing reproduced in metric units. providing a direction to the target. Even now, launch The most notable feature of the Hwa-Cha is that the pads of rocket cannons retain such simplicity, resem- inclination of the launch pad was variable. The general bling a piece of a chimney. feature of carts up to the reign of King Se Jong was to During the reign of King Moon Jong (1450–1452), load a launch pad on the axle of the wheel. However, proper launch pads were developed for the Sin-Gi- the car invented during the reign of King Moon Jong Jeon. King Moon Jong himself was interested in the employed a column on and in the middle of the axle of development of firearms. When he was a crown prince the wheel, which enabled the launch pad to be inclined he assumed some responsibility at the Bureau of up to 40°. The first Hwa-Cha was dispatched in 1,451, Weapons. He also played a pivotal role in developing a and in the same year 700 additional carts were soon Hwa-Cha (fire cart). Hwa-Cha could be loaded either dispatched to strategic coastal regions and fortresses. with a launch pad capable of launching 100 Sin-Gi Jeon During peace time Hwa-Cha served as wagons. The diameter of the wheel is 874.7 mm. The hub is made of wood, 225 mm wide and 206.2 mm in diameter. Each wheel has 15 spokes. The spindle on which the wheels revolve is made of wood, 1,312.1 mm long, and consists of three parts: a middle square pillar and two end columns which are inserted into two wheels. Two wide posts are set up at both ends of the top side of the middle square pillar. A small post is set up at the center of the square pillar. Thin wooden boards are attached between each wide post. Two yokes are set up at both ends of the wide posts. An upper center crossbar is placed between the ends of both wide posts. It has a hole in the center for the small post. A rear crossbar is attached at the rear of (four-cornered part) of both yokes. Several thin wooden crossbars are attached between the rear crossbar and the upper center crossbar. This forms a wooden box to hide some arms. Its length and width are 624.8 and 515.5 mm. Four U-shaped nails are driven into the front and middle of the column part of the yokes to insert rods, which are used to pull the fire cart. Two men could draw the cart on level ground, but it would require another man pushing from behind going uphill, and Rockets in Ancient Korea. Fig. 6 Pairs of running fire two more men had to push the cart when it was going R and small and medium magical machine arrows. up a steep hill.

Rockets in Ancient Korea. Fig. 7 Drawing of multiple bomblets magical machine arrow in metric units. u1 : warhead, u2 : propellant case, u3 : bamboo, u4 : fins. 1904 Rockets in ancient Korea

Rockets in Ancient Korea. Fig. 8 Hwa-Cha (Fire cart) (a) Drawing from Kuk Cho Ore Sorye, 1474. (b) Drawing in metric units. u1 : yoke, u2 : axletree, u3 : small post, u4 : wide post, u5 : upper center crossbar, u6 : lower center crossbar, u7 : rear crossbar, u8 : front crossbar, u9 : rod, u10 u13 u17 u19 u20 u22 u24 : thin wooden beam; u18 : U-shaped nail.

Rockets in Ancient Korea. Fig. 9 Drawing of magical machine arrow launcher in metric units. u1 : first crossboard, u2 : second crossboard, u3 /u4 : top/bottom wide boards, u5 : rectangular block of wood, u6 : third crossboard, u7 : column, u8 : side wide board, u9 : small square column, u10 : detailed board, u11 : assistant column; u12 : thin column; u13 : cylindrical-hole-wood-block.

Figure 9 shows a drawing of the launch pad for crossboards. The first crossboard is 1,171.6 mm long, magical machine arrows based on the descriptions in 109.3 mm wide, and 47 mm thick. It has a 62.4 mm Kuk Cho Ore Sorye. It consists of a rectangular box diameter hole in the center into which the small post of containing blocks with 100 cylindrical holes and a the fire cart is inserted. The main body of the launcher supporting mechanism. They are comprised of seven is supported by two columns, small square columns, rows of blocks. The end of each block is pierced with a and assistance columns. wire and both ends of the wire are attached to the The design of the fire cart and the magical machine external surfaces of the side boards of the rectangu- arrow launcher enabled the cart body to be raised above lar box. The supporting mechanism houses the rectan- the axle by short pillars to regulate the angle from 0° to gular box and consists of a set of columns and 43°. The magical machine arrow launcher when fully Rockets in ancient Korea 1905

Rockets in Ancient Korea. Fig. 10 Fire cart and magical machine arrow launcher (Hangju Fortress Museum, Korea). (a) Magical-machine-arrow-launcher with medium and small magical machine arrows. (b) Fire cart equipped with a launch pad. loaded could launch 100 medium or small magical machine arrows in groups of 15 at a time. According to the Moon-Jong-Silok, 700 fire carts were built in Korea in 1451. Figure 10 shows a version of a fire cart and launch pad loaded with small and medium magical machine arrows reproduced in 1979. The first Korean rocket manufactured in Hwa-tong-do- gam between 1377 and 1389 provided the technological heritage for forthcoming rockets called Sin-Gi-Jeon. Kuk Cho Ore Sorye served as a technical manual for manufacture and operation of the rockets. While the large R Sin-Gi-Jeon is the largest rocket ever made amongst those employing a propellant case made of paper in the fifteenth century, the use of the unit of length “le” corresponding to 0.3 mm demonstrates that Sin-Gi-Jeons were manufac- tured with a considerable level of precision. Historical records attest that 33,000 or so running fires and magical machine arrows were maintained in Korea by 1447, and dispatched for action with the fire cart from 1451. These weapons are believed to have served as powerful weapons for raiding Chinese and Japanese bandits. Unfortunately, neither the Sin-Gi-Jeon nor the fire Rockets in Ancient Korea. Fig. 11 Flight test of small and cart survives, primarily because they were made of medium Sin-Gi-Jeon at Daejeon Expo 93. wood and paper. In order to verify the technical feasibility of drawings and manufacturing methods in in 1993. Figure 11 depicts the moment of the flight test Kuk Cho Ore Sorye, small and medium Sin-Gi-Jeons of 100 small and medium Sin-Gi-Jeons in 1993. The were reconstructed together with their fire carts and Sin-Gi-Jeons traveled between 100 and 200 m in launch pads for a flight test at the Daejeon Exposition distance. The successful test cleared the obscurity 1906 Rockets in China surrounding the rockets which had arisen from the fact was an ordinary rocket for setting things on fire. Its that there were no remaining models; it demonstrated rocket tube made of paper was fastened to the point of a that they were nearly flawless in terms of design and lance or an arrow. During the thirteenth to fourteenth function. centuries the Song, Jin, and Mongol troops all used improved rockets to fight with each other. They even References used the reaction weapon abroad. For instance, single rockets and multiple rocket-launchers with a common – Chae, Yeon-Seok. Early Firearms in Korea (1377 1600). fuse were used by the Mongols in the Battle of Leignitz Seoul: Il-Ji Publishing Co., 1981. in Poland in 1241, known as the “Chinese dragon Chae, Yeon-Seok. A study of Early Korean Rockets, J. of ” the British Interplantary. Vol. 38, 1985. belching fire in the West. Winged rockets must have Choson Wang Cho Silok, History of Choson dynasty. been made in about 1300, since it was described in the Koryo Sa, (History of Koryo Dynasty), officially compiled by Huolong Jing (Fire-Dragon Manual, ca. 1350). Chong, In-Ji, et al., in 1451. Modern Reprints, Yonsei In the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) rocketry entered a University Press, Korea 1955. new epoch. Two-stage rockets were designed and made Kuk Cho Ore Sorye, Firearms Illustration. Vol. 4, 1474. at the beginning of the fourteenth century. There were Lee, So. Hwa Po Sik Eon Hae, 1635. Park, Heung-Su. A Study of Korean Measures. Dae Dong various kinds of different rockets from single ordinary Mun Hwa, 4, 1967. ones to multiple rocket-launchers and wheelbarrows, as well as winged rockets and rocket-propelled bombs. Their range reached 200–500 paces (330–825 m). There was a special rocket troop in the Ming army and Rockets in China rocket weapons were used as standing weapons by land and naval forces and cavalry troops. It is interesting that a Chinese military officer, Wan Hu (fl. 1440–1495), PAN JIXING built a flight device made of 47 big rockets for a flight experiment. He was the first in history to try to use Traditionally, a rocket is a flying device launched by rockets for flight as a means of transportation. All of direct-reaction using a solid black powder of high- these ancient achievements in the field of rocket nitrate composition. The appearance of rockets signified technology can be found in the military work entitled a revolution in the development of firearms. All modern Wubei Zhi (Treatise on Armament Technology) written rockets were gradually developed on the basis of by Mao Yuanyi (ca. 1570–1637) in 1621. After rocket traditional ones. In Ancient China the rocket was technology was perfected in China it was spread to generally called huojian (fire-arrow) which sometimes other parts of the world. It went first to the Arab world meant incendiary arrow and sometimes rocket. Both in 1240–1260, then to Europe in 1260–1270. The term of them were invented in China. It is necessary to rochetta first appeared in Italian literature in 1330. In differentiate one from the other. From 968, the classical the eighteenth century rockets were popular in some fire-arrow was sent by low-nitrate gunpowder in paste major European countries. Rockets arrived in other form from a bow or crossbow. It was thus an incendiary Asian countries in the same time during the Mongol- arrow, although it was the earliest gunpowder weapon. Yuan period, first in Vietnam and Korea, then in India Since the beginning of the twelfth century solid and Southeast Asia. gunpowder of high-nitrate composition and fuses were In 1805 the British military officer William Congreve made and used for making fireworks and firecrackers. (1772–1825) developed modern rockets made of iron Some of them were directional devices, such as the di tubes with black powder, which had a range of 2,300 m. laoshu (earth-rat), qihuo (flying fire), and others. This But after the mid-nineteenth century rocketry ceased to provided a necessary premise for making rockets. develop, because modern cannons seemed to be more During 1127–1234 the invention and military use of powerful and effective. Since the beginning of the rockets were perfected in China on the basis of fireworks twentieth century rockets have been given more technology. There were two types of early rockets attention and studied carefully. As a result, various having different names. new types of rockets have been developed and used, The so-called pili pao (thunder-bolt missile) used especially since World War II. Joseph Needham says: in the Battle of Caishi between the Song and Jin was actually the earliest rocket-propelled bomb in the In this day and age, when man and vehicles have world. It was an enlarged ertijiao (double-bang fire- landed on the moon and when the exploration of cracker) and was made according to the principle of outer space by means of rocket-propelled craft is qihuo (flying fire) used by the Song people in an earlier opening before mankind, it is hardly necessary to time. The fei huojiang (flying fire-lance) used in the expatiate upon what the Chinese started when they Battle of Kaifeng between the Jin and Mongols in 1232 first made rockets fly. Rockets in India 1907

References Royal Artillery Museum, Woolwich Arsenal in England have these dimensions: Jixing, Pan. On Two Problems in the History of Science. – Kyoto: Doshisha University Press, 1986. Casing 58 mm outer diameter 254 mm long, tied ---. Zhongguo Huojian Jishu Shigao (The History of Rocket with strips of hide to a straight 1.02 m long sword blade. Technology in China). Beijing: Science Press, 1987a. Casing 37 mm outer diameter – 198 mm long, tied English Edition will be published by Astronautic Publish- with strips of hide to a bamboo pole 1.9 m long. ing House in Beijing. These rockets had a higher thrust and range than ’ – ---. On the Origin of Rockets. T oung Pao 73 (1987b): 2 15. anything in use at that time in Europe, as confirmed by Needham, Joseph. Science and Civilisation in China. Vol. 5. later tests in England. The range is often quoted as Pt. 7. Epic of Gunpowder. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986. 477–524. about 1,000 yards. There are however other accounts Yilin, Zhu. China’s Ancient Rockets. Quest: The History of that speak of rockets that generally weighed 3.5 kg, tied Spaceflight Magazine 5 (Fall 1996): 35–7. to 3 m bamboo poles, and with a range of up to 2.4 km; this was by European standards an outstanding performance for the time. The superior performance of these rockets cannot be Rockets in India attributed to the propellant, which was a standard material like gunpowder. There was nothing unusual about the aerodynamics either; it turns out that their RODDAM NARASIMHA superiority lay in the material employed for the casing. The casing was a metal cylinder made of hammered Fire arrows (agni-bān. a), shot with the energy of a taut soft iron. Although it was crude, it represented a con- bow-string were used in India and other civilizations for siderable advance over earlier technology, as European thousands of years. Rockets are different in that they are rockets of the time had combustion chambers made of self-propelled. It is widely agreed that the first recorded some kind of pasteboard. For example, Geissler in use of rockets comes from China in the eleventh century Germany used wood, covered with sailcloth soaked CE. The invention travelled rapidly (presumably through in hot glue. The use of iron (which at that time was the Mongols) to Europe, where it was first mentioned in generally of much better quality in India than in 1258 CE and was experimented with and used up to the Europe), increased bursting pressures, which permitted fifteenth century. The Moghuls in India also used it the propellant to be packed to greater densities; this is during the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. what gave the rockets their outstanding performance. However rockets fell into disuse with the increasing There was at that time a regular Rocket Corps in accuracy and power of artillery. Tipu’s Mysore Army with a strength of about 5,000, The re-emergence of the rocket as a significant with several units of rather more than a hundred men military weapon during the eighteenth century in the each. There are accounts that mention the skill of the princely state of Mysore in South India is a fascinating Mysorean operators in giving the rockets an elevation little episode in the history of technology in India, with that depended on the varying dimensions of the an interesting sequel in nineteenth century Britain and cylinder and distance to the attack target. Furthermore, Europe. Haidar Ali, a bold officer in the army of the the rockets could be launched rapidly using a wheeled Raja of Mysore, and his son Tipu Sultan, used the cart with three or more rocket ramps. R rocket frequently in various battles in South India, The first account we have of the use of these rockets including the four “Anglo-Mysore Wars” fought in the is in the Battle of Pollilur, fought on 10 September second half of the eighteenth century (Haidar’sfather 1780 during the Second Anglo-Mysore War near a had already commanded 50 rocketmen for the Nawab of small village about 180 km east of Bangalore. Haidar Arcot, another South Indian prince). The interest in the and Tipu achieved a famous victory in this battle, and it events of the late eighteenth century arises from two is widely held that a strong contributory cause was that facts: the balance of industrial power began to one of the British ammunition tumbrels was set on fire shift from Asia to Europe in that period, and interesting by the Mysore rockets, a scene that is celebrated in a accounts have been left behind by European observers. famous mural that can be seen at the summer palace in The rockets used by the Mysoreans consisted of a Tipu’s capital Sri-ranga-pattana. Writing about this metal cylinder (“casing”) containing the combustion war, Sir Alfred Lyall, a British historian of the early powder (“propellant”), which was tied to a long twentieth century, remarked that, as a consequence of bamboo pole or sword that provided the required this defeat, “The fortunes of the English in India had stability to the missile. It bears a strong resemblance to fallen to their lowest water-mark.” the much smaller “rocket” that is a part of the fireworks A celebrated victim of such a rocket attack was that are still commonly seen during the Indian festival Colonel Arthur Wellesley (later Duke of Wellington of lights, Deepavali. Two specimens preserved in the and the hero of Waterloo), who suffered a traumatic 1908 Rope and knots in ancient Egypt encounter with rockets in a mango grove just outside the oldest, predating stone working. Due to the Sri-ranga-pattana in 1799. From these and other perishable materials used for rope, no extant examples accounts it is clear that the British were caught off have survived in Egypt until the predynastic period. guard by the Indians’ use of rockets, which at the least The material used most widely for the production of caused great fear and confusion. They started developing rope was papyrus (Cyperus papyrus) and other sedges their own rockets in the early years of the nineteenth of the Cyperus family. For large ropes, the entire stem century. The programme began when several Indian was used, while smaller string was made of the rind of rocket cases were collected and returned to Britain for papyrus stems. The production of papyrus sheets for analysis. Further development was chiefly the work of writing required the thick triangular stems to be peeled Col. (later Sir) William Congreve, who tested the biggest and sliced. The peelings made a strong raw material skyrockets then available in London. Their range was from which extremely fine string could be made. Many found to be about 500–600 yards, less than half that of the examples of such string were found in archaeological Mysore rockets. He then developed his own, using the contexts, for instance in cordage from the Giza Plateau, facilities of the Royal Laboratory at Woolwich Arsenal. in the rubbish tips of the building phases of Khufu’s Congreve used these rockets during the Napoleonic pyramid (ca. 2600 BCE). Its popularity continued into wars and in several engagements during the Anglo- the New Kingdom. At the workmen’s village of American War of 1812, sometimes with little and on Amarna (ca. 1350 BCE) remains of a papyrus amphora other occasions with great effect. They were still rather carrying net were excavated (Wendrich 1989: 182–5). unreliable and inaccurate, but had greater range than Cordage was made in a large variety of ways. The cannons and could even be fired from rowboats. It was fibers were spun or twisted in either S or Z direction a spectacular but unsuccessful attack on Fort McHenry (see Fig.1). Two or three strands were plied to form the that led to the reference to “the rockets’ red glare” in the string, usually twisted in the opposite direction of the US national anthem, which began as a patriotic song orientation of the strands. Two or three strings might be composed by Francis Scott Key, who was witness to twisted into a cable. Again the orientation was usually the attack. the opposite of the twist direction of the ply. One major reason for interest in this episode is that it The production of yarn or fine string followed three occurred during a time of global transition in geopoli- steps: (1) spinning and splicing (adding short prespun tics, economics, and technology. Clearly, even in the lengths by twisting the fibers in the same direction as late eighteenth century there were several Indian products the spin) using a spindle whorl; (2) plying in the technologically superior to Western equivalents, and both opposite direction, and (3) cabling in the same orienta- sides recognized this. But the British effort that followed tion as the spin. This type of string was usually made of had the sophistication of research and development flax and had a diameter of approximately 0.5–2 mm for today. Scientific principles were applied, designs made, the spun and spliced yarn, 1–3 mm for the plied string, products developed and tested, and all of this was and 2–5 mm for a cable. Flax was typically spun and carefully documented – a process alien to Indians of spliced in S direction, then Z-plied and S-cabled (Kemp that time. The Indian rockets were well made but not and Vogelsang-Eastwood 2002: 75–6). standardized, being the creation of traditional artisans.

References Narasimha, R. Rockets in Mysore and Britain, 1750–1850 A.D. PD DU 8503. Bangalore National Aerospace Labora- tories, 1985. ---. Rocketing from the Galaxy Bazaar. Nature 400: 123, 1999.

Rope and Knots in Ancient Egypt

WILLEKE WENDRICH

From securing a ship, to tying cattle to a post, building shelters and curing headaches, rope and string were a multipurpose commodity in ancient Egypt. The tech- Rope and Knots in Ancient Egypt. Fig. 1 S and Z nology to make rope and string is presumably one of orientation of spinning, plying, or cabling. Rope and knots in ancient Egypt 1909

Rope and Knots in Ancient Egypt. Fig. 2 Representation of rope making, using weights in the tomb of Nefer, Saqqara. To the right: detail of the action of the man seated in the middle.

Producing string of other materials was often done worked into small bundles or tufts, which were then in one phase. Grass string, for instance, was spun and used to make a very hard red-brown string or rope. This plied in one movement of the hands, the opposite material was also worked in the hand-rolling method. direction of spin (usually z) and ply (usually S) locking Knots and knotting are part of understanding the use the string immediately and preventing it from unravel- of rope. In all periods of ancient Egyptian history, from ing (Wendrich 1999: 298–300). Materials for which this at least the predynastic period onward, standard knots technique was used were tall hard grasses (Desmosta- such as the overhand knot, the reef knot (also known as chya bipinnata and Imperata cylindrica), leaf and leaf square knot), and the netting knot were known and sheath fibre of the date palm (Phoenix dactylifera), widely used. Studying everyday objects from refuse leaf of the doam palm (Hyphaene thebaica) and dumps, clarifies that then, as now, certain people were probably also papyrus peel. The result of this hand- better versed in the art of knotting than others. The rolling technique was a string consisting of two yarns, occurrence of a considerable percentage of ‘granny usually ‘spun’ in Z-direction and plied in S-direction knots,’ faulty reef knots, testifies to that effect (sZ2 string). A third plying strand (sZ3 string) was added (Wendrich 1999). separately, by doubling the end of one of fiber bundles Depictions of knots and knotting on Egyptian and working back along the string. For ropes, the entire monuments had a very specific meaning. The hiero- length of string was folded double and twisted into a glyph for ‘protection’ (ancient Egyptian shen) repre- cable (sZ2[S]2 rope). sented a rope ring, which surrounded what needed to be Papyrus rope, however, was usually not cabled. The protected. The cartouche, (French for ‘bullet’) was the enormous ropes used in shipping consisted of multiple protective oval inscribed around the name of the strands of complete papyrus culms [stems] twisted Pharaoh. It represented an elongated rope oval tied at together. Such giant plied ropes were built of up to the base. 15 thick strands of papyrus culms, each with a diameter Knotting had a particularly important protective of approximately 30 mm, resulting in a thick rope of function in Ancient Egypt. The tit amulet, also known 160 mm in diameter. We have few depictions of rope as the “Isis knot” represented a looped knot with four R making, for instance in the tomb of Nefer at Saqqara ends hanging down. The tit, often made of the red (Fig. 2), dating to the Fifth Kingdom, ca. 2465–2323 semiprecious stone jasper, is thought to be either the BCE. This seems to be a more industrial approach than girdle of the goddess Isis, or a tampon, with the func- the hand-rolling method, which could typically be done tion of protecting pregnant women from a miscarriage by anybody at anytime, whenever a piece of string was (Wendrich 2006). A more symbolic interpretation needed. The use of swinging weights to make long should be given to the quite common depiction of two lengths of rope was most probably needed to twist nameless Nile gods, or the gods Horus and Seth, complete papyrus stems. Presumably the stems were knotting the lotus and the papyrus (or the lily), symbols first dried, then soaked (to render them pliable again), for Upper and Lower Egypt respectively, around a twisted into rope and left to dry, so that the twist trachea with lungs. This was the hieroglyph for the verb would settle into a strong plied rope. Toward the Greco- semaa and the knotting of a reef knot around this Roman period, grass, papyrus, and doam palm leaf hieroglyphic sign symbolizes the unification of the string became less ubiquitous and the material that was Nile Valley and the Delta, the two lands that together used most often was the leaf sheath fiber of the date formed Egypt. In ancient religious texts, such as the palm. This hard brown fiber did not need much Pyramid Texts, the Coffin Texts, and the Book of the preparation. Soaking in water for half a day would Dead, several references were made to knotting. In all soften the fibrous sheets enough to enable them to be cases this seemed to be a protective action, in keeping 1910 Rope and knots in ancient Egypt with the important protective function of knots in References medical and magical texts. This forms a stark contrast ‘ ’ ‘ ’ Kemp, Barry J. and Gillian Vogelsang-Eastwood. The with terms used for binding, or fettering, which were Ancient Textile Industry at Amarna. London: Egypt used in funerary contexts to describe serious dangers to Exploration Society, 2001. the deceased. The mummy wrappings were literally Teeter, Emily. Techniques and Terminology of Rope-making considered fetters that prevented the dead from in Ancient Egypt. Journal of Egyptian Archaeology. functioning in the afterlife. The action of knotting, 73 (1987): 71–77. however, was related to encircling, the protective ---. The World According to Basketry: An Ethno-Archaeolog- embrace, and the guarantee of the integrity of body ical Interpretation of Basketry Production in Egypt. 1 Research School of Asian African and Amerindian Studies and ba. (CNWS), Leiden, 1999. Wendrich, Willeke. Entangled, Connected or Protected? The Power of Knots and Knotting in Ancient Egypt. Through a Glass Darkly: Magic, Dreams and Prophecy in Ancient Egypt. Ed. Kasia Spaszkowska. Swansea: Classical Press 1 The ba, a concept often translated as ‘soul,’ is an integral of Wales, 2006. 243–69. part of a person. The ba is depicted as a bird with a human Wendrich, Willemina. Preliminary Report on the Amarna head and is the free-ranging part of a human being. When a Basketry and Cordage. Amarna Reports V. Ed. Barry J. person dies, the body is entombed, but the ba can exit the Kemp. London: Egypt Exploration Society, 1989. tomb, to return each night to the body. 169–210. Rope and knots in ancient Egypt 1911

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