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 Unfortunately its Proceedings could not be published.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.