[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
Wim van Binsbergen: The astrological origin of geomancy (1996) p. 22
The system s inner workings and variations were described in moderate detail,
but the historical questions asked concerned diffusion of the geomantic corpus
once already established, not the origin itself of that corpus. Perhaps one
considered the problem already solved; for, as Steinschneider51 had already
claimed, it was clear that cilm al-raml could only have come from the desert
for where else could one possibly find the few handfuls of sand necessary for
this divinatory practice...? But even if we were to take the message implied in
c
the name ilm al-raml literally, and situate its origin in a sandy environment,
then it is still true that there are plenty of different deserts (including that of
Syria in West Asia, the Kalahari and Sahara in Africa, and the Gobi and the
Tarim deserts in East Asia) within the distribution area of the geomantic family
of divination systems, which after all encompasses the better part of the Old
World.
Since, there have again, to my knowledge only been very few serious
scholarly contributions to the earliest history of geomancy.52
A. Delatte and E. Delatte, Belgian classicists and historians of science, must
have realised that sand was not all that rare in Classical, i.e. Hellenic and
Hellenistic Antiquity, even outside deserts. As is generally known, sand was the
standard medium in which to work out mathematical problems. Plutarch tells us:
Just so at Syracuse, it is said, after Plato had arrived [ca. 387 BCE], and an insane ardour
for philosophy laid hold on Dionysius, the king s palace was filled with dust by reason of
the multitude of men that were drawing their geometrical diagrams in it... 53
51
1877 o.c.
52
A popular New Age type of account, without references and largely absurd, is: Pennick, N., 1992,
Ancient secrets of the earth: The oracle of geomancy , in: Matthews, J., ed., The world atlas of
divination: The systems where they originate how they work, Boston/Toronto/London: Bulfinch
Press/Little, Brown & Comp., pp. 195-201. Pennick includes a map (p. 196) which postulates a
possible origin in Greece, subsequent spread to Egypt 8th century CE, Sudanic belt 10th century,
which produces Ifa and Sixteen Cowries , the dominant West African versions of geomancy; from
Egypt 9th century alleged spread to Madagascar through Ethiopia etc., and along the same route to
India; 12th century western Europe from North Africa via Spain; and finally, 13th century as rabolion
from the Arabic world back to the Balkan and Eastern Europe in general. Of course, this misses the
essential question as to the origin of Arabic geomancy. It fails to realise that Hellenistic science
constitutes an absolutely essential link between Hellenic types of divination and Arabic ones. Now
Hellenistic science had its centre, never in Greece but in Alexandria so that whatever Hellenic
elements towards a Hellenistic proto-geomancy must have crossed the Mediterranean not in 700 CE
but nearly a millennium earlier. Moreover, against all evidence from astrology I shall come back to
this point Pennick s map links Hellenistic and Indian science by an unnecessary detour via Ethiopia
and Madagascar (although some nautical, coastal Indian Ocean connection is likely, as we know since
the rediscovery of the Periplus), and sees the role of North-west Africa in the development of
geomancy as merely passive.
Wim van Binsbergen: The astrological origin of geomancy (1996) p. 23
There is also the vignette a widely circulating and clichéd iconographic theme
of Archimedes working on a mathematical problem in the dust during the sack
of Syracuse (212 BCE):
What an ardour for study, think you, possessed Archimedes, who was so absorbed in a
diagram he was drawing in the dust that he was unaware even of the capture of his native
city! 54
Some time earlier Archimedes had found in the grain of sand his inspiration for
that amazing mathematical treatise on finity and infinity, Psammits arithmos,
Sand Reckoning.55 What is important here is not whether these admiring
accounts written several centuries after the event are biographically correct, but
the fact that they testify to the common use of dust, soil or sand for scholarly
purposes in the Hellenic and Hellenistic period. Not unlikely, sand was also not
only mathematical drafts but also for scribbles of a more occult nature.56
In A. Delatte s Anecdota Atheniensia, vol. i57 and from both Delattes in
their comment on yet another Byzantine geomancy,58 connections were traced
53
E.g. Plutarch, Quomodo adulator ab amico internoscatur, 52, D/7; in: Plutarch s Moralia: In
sixteen volumes, vol. I, F.C. Babbitt, tr., Loeb Classical Library, no. 197, Cambridge (Mass.): Harvard
University Press/London: Heinemann, p. 283.
54 [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl akte20.pev.pl
Wim van Binsbergen: The astrological origin of geomancy (1996) p. 22
The system s inner workings and variations were described in moderate detail,
but the historical questions asked concerned diffusion of the geomantic corpus
once already established, not the origin itself of that corpus. Perhaps one
considered the problem already solved; for, as Steinschneider51 had already
claimed, it was clear that cilm al-raml could only have come from the desert
for where else could one possibly find the few handfuls of sand necessary for
this divinatory practice...? But even if we were to take the message implied in
c
the name ilm al-raml literally, and situate its origin in a sandy environment,
then it is still true that there are plenty of different deserts (including that of
Syria in West Asia, the Kalahari and Sahara in Africa, and the Gobi and the
Tarim deserts in East Asia) within the distribution area of the geomantic family
of divination systems, which after all encompasses the better part of the Old
World.
Since, there have again, to my knowledge only been very few serious
scholarly contributions to the earliest history of geomancy.52
A. Delatte and E. Delatte, Belgian classicists and historians of science, must
have realised that sand was not all that rare in Classical, i.e. Hellenic and
Hellenistic Antiquity, even outside deserts. As is generally known, sand was the
standard medium in which to work out mathematical problems. Plutarch tells us:
Just so at Syracuse, it is said, after Plato had arrived [ca. 387 BCE], and an insane ardour
for philosophy laid hold on Dionysius, the king s palace was filled with dust by reason of
the multitude of men that were drawing their geometrical diagrams in it... 53
51
1877 o.c.
52
A popular New Age type of account, without references and largely absurd, is: Pennick, N., 1992,
Ancient secrets of the earth: The oracle of geomancy , in: Matthews, J., ed., The world atlas of
divination: The systems where they originate how they work, Boston/Toronto/London: Bulfinch
Press/Little, Brown & Comp., pp. 195-201. Pennick includes a map (p. 196) which postulates a
possible origin in Greece, subsequent spread to Egypt 8th century CE, Sudanic belt 10th century,
which produces Ifa and Sixteen Cowries , the dominant West African versions of geomancy; from
Egypt 9th century alleged spread to Madagascar through Ethiopia etc., and along the same route to
India; 12th century western Europe from North Africa via Spain; and finally, 13th century as rabolion
from the Arabic world back to the Balkan and Eastern Europe in general. Of course, this misses the
essential question as to the origin of Arabic geomancy. It fails to realise that Hellenistic science
constitutes an absolutely essential link between Hellenic types of divination and Arabic ones. Now
Hellenistic science had its centre, never in Greece but in Alexandria so that whatever Hellenic
elements towards a Hellenistic proto-geomancy must have crossed the Mediterranean not in 700 CE
but nearly a millennium earlier. Moreover, against all evidence from astrology I shall come back to
this point Pennick s map links Hellenistic and Indian science by an unnecessary detour via Ethiopia
and Madagascar (although some nautical, coastal Indian Ocean connection is likely, as we know since
the rediscovery of the Periplus), and sees the role of North-west Africa in the development of
geomancy as merely passive.
Wim van Binsbergen: The astrological origin of geomancy (1996) p. 23
There is also the vignette a widely circulating and clichéd iconographic theme
of Archimedes working on a mathematical problem in the dust during the sack
of Syracuse (212 BCE):
What an ardour for study, think you, possessed Archimedes, who was so absorbed in a
diagram he was drawing in the dust that he was unaware even of the capture of his native
city! 54
Some time earlier Archimedes had found in the grain of sand his inspiration for
that amazing mathematical treatise on finity and infinity, Psammits arithmos,
Sand Reckoning.55 What is important here is not whether these admiring
accounts written several centuries after the event are biographically correct, but
the fact that they testify to the common use of dust, soil or sand for scholarly
purposes in the Hellenic and Hellenistic period. Not unlikely, sand was also not
only mathematical drafts but also for scribbles of a more occult nature.56
In A. Delatte s Anecdota Atheniensia, vol. i57 and from both Delattes in
their comment on yet another Byzantine geomancy,58 connections were traced
53
E.g. Plutarch, Quomodo adulator ab amico internoscatur, 52, D/7; in: Plutarch s Moralia: In
sixteen volumes, vol. I, F.C. Babbitt, tr., Loeb Classical Library, no. 197, Cambridge (Mass.): Harvard
University Press/London: Heinemann, p. 283.
54 [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]