History of Oriental Astronomy

The History of Astronomy in the Orient has been vigorously researched in the last several decades. We may recall here the publications of Joseph Needham's monumental volumes on Science and Civilisation in China, one volume of which is devoted to Chinese Astron omy, S. Nakayama's A History of Japanese Astronomy (Tokyo, 1969), and the School of Edward Kennedy's writings on Islamic Astronomy,1 which particularly culminated in the studies of the Critique of Ptolemaic Astronomy by the Islamic astronomers belong ing to Na~lruddin rusI's School, established at Maragha Observatory during the l3-l4th 2 centuries. In this backdrop of the emphasis on astronomy in the Orient, the first IAU Colloquium (No.9 1 ) on "History of Oriental Astronomy" was organised during the IAU General Assem bly, held in New Delhi, Nov. 13-16, 1985. The Proceedings ofthe Colloquium were then 3 published. The second effort by this Commission was to organise another International Colloquium on Interaction of European and Asian Astronomy, held in Vienna in Sept. 4 1990. Unfortunately its Proceedings could not be published. Noteworthy is that the Far East or the East Asia did not lag behind in this endeavour.

Zusammenfassung
Proceedings of the Joint Discussion-17 at the 23rd IAU General Assembly, organised by the Commission 41, held in Kyoto, Japan, August 25-26, 1997

Inhalt
1.1 The Two Supreme Stars, Thien-i and Thai-i, and the Foundation of the Purple Palace.- 1.2 Islamic Astronomical Tables in China: The Sources for the Huihui li.- 1.3 The First Equation Table for Mercury in the Huihui li.- 1.4 Three Star Maps: Results of the Impact of Western Astronomy on Korean Tradition in the 18th Century.- 1.5 Projection Methods in East Asian Star Maps.- 1.6 Gnomon Measurements and the Obliquity of the Ecliptic.- 1.7 The Legends of Vasi??ha A Note on the Ved??ga Astronomy.- 1.8 Spherical Trigonometry and the Astronomy of the Medieval Kerala School.- 1.9 Astronomical Dating and Statistical Analysis of Ancient Eclipse Data.- 2.1 Philippe de La Hire at the Court of Jayasimha.- 2.2 European Astronomy in Indo-Persian Writings.- 2.3 Toshio Takamine's Contact with Western Astrophysics.- 2.4 The Earliest Evidence of the Introduction of Kepler's Laws into China as is observed in the Lifa wenda.- 2.5 Tebbutt vs Russell: Passion, Power and Politics in Nineteenth Century Australian Astronomy.- 2.6 A New Museum of Astronomy in Korea.- 2.7 Oriental Astronomy: History of East Asian Mathematical Astronomy Homage to K. Yabuuti and A. Sayili.- 3.1 Revisiting An Eighth-Century Chinese Table of Tangents.- 3.2 Recent Advances in the Studies of History of Astronomy in China.- 3.3 Eclipse Records in Early Korean History: The Koryo-sa.- Full Programme of the Joint Discussion.- About the Contributors.