The Centre of the World in Ancient Astrology

Recently I was reading an article by Shlomo Sela about A Newly Discovered Treatise by Abraham Ibn Ezra (c.1089–c.1161) in which Sela discussed some of the astrological work done by Ibn Ezra during his stay in England. Among the many things that caught my attention was the discussion of three horoscopes, the first of which was for “the entry of the Sun into Aries in 1067 at the centre of the world” (italics mine). This horoscope varies from one calculated by modern computer and astronomical observations. It is set for March 15, 1067 at 7:24 AM at the “centre of the world” which is considered to be a point on the Equator south of India. The Ascendant is given in the text as 25 Aries 24 but the diagram in the article appears to have placed it at 25 Pisces 24. The second horoscope is set for Winchester, UK, and the third one is for the syzygy (Full Moon) preceding the great conjunction of Jupiter/Saturn, set for the centre of the world. According to the article, “the great conjunction is said to have occurred on 6 September 1067 and the preceding syzygy on 26 August.”

The reconstructed chart for the Aries Ingress of 1067 at the centre of the world from page 254 of the article looks like this:

[image error]1067 Aries Ingress at the Centre of the World at Aryn on the Equator (This chart reproduced from the article by Sela may be incorrectly drawn because the stated Ascendant in the text is at 2t ARIES 24, not 25 Pisces 24 as shown above.)

Sela points out that the “centre of the world” was said to be a place called Arin or Aryn. He also notes the following:

“The idea of casting horoscopes of great conjunctions for the centre of the world is in tune with Abraham Ibn Ezra’s teaching and is also found in the second treatise attributed to al-Kindī. Likewise, casting horoscopes for both the entry of the Sun into Aries and the syzygy preceding the great conjunction is what seems to be advocated in the present tripartite text (Part I, §3.3:3–4; Part II, §2:5–8; Part III, §2:2–3). It should be noted, however, that this stands in sharp contradiction to Abraham Ibn Ezra, who resorts to syzygy horoscopes only and strongly rejects the horoscope of the Sun’s entry into Aries.”

Where exactly is the “center of the world” which is called Aryn? Again quoting the translation of the newly discovered treatise from the article: “we already know that the longitude of Winchester from the Occident is 19° and that its longitude from the middle of the world is 71°, which amount to 4 hours and 44 minutes, and the uniform motion of the Sun in these hours and minutes is 11 minutes and 40 seconds.” In other words, the longitude of Winchester, UK, is 71 degrees along the Equator from Aryn, the center of the world. The authors of the article go on to correct these values somewhat, but we can form a preliminary estimate for the longitude of Aryn by measuring 71 degrees of longitude from Winchester, England:

In our modern coordinate system Winchester lies at 51.0598° N, 1.3101° W, so that moving 71 degrees to the east of Winchester would give a longitude of 69.69899° E for Aryn on the Equator. Some sources state that Aryn (Arin) refers to the city of Ujjain in India, which is not on the Equator, but the centre of the world, according to Ptolemy, is a point on the Equator which is more or less a midpoint of the known inhabited portion of the world in Ptolemy’s time.

The 1903 text  Hobson-Jobson: A glossary of colloquial Anglo-Indian words and phrases, gives some clarification of the meaning of Arin (bold mine):

“OOJYNE, n.p. Ujjayani, or, in the modern vernacular, Ujjain, one of the most ancient of Indian cities, and one of their seven sacred cities. It was the capital of King Vikramaditya, and was the first meridian of Hindu astronomers, from which they calculated their longitudes.”

“The name of Ujjain long led to a curious imbroglio in the interpretation of the Arabian geographers. Its meridian, as we have just mentioned, was the zero of longitude among the Hindus. The Arab writers borrowing from the Hindus wrote the name apparently Azin, but this by the mere omission of a diacritical point became Arin, and from the Arabs passed to medieval Christian geographers as the name of an imaginary point on the equator, the intersection of the central meridian with that circle. Further, this point, or transposed city, had probably been represented on maps, as we often see cities on medieval maps, by a cupola or the like. And hence the “Cupola of Arin or Arum,” or the “Cupola of the Earth” (Al-kubba alardh) became an established common place for centuries in geographical tables or statements. The idea was that just 180° of the earth’s circumference was habitable, or at any rate cognizable as such, and this meridian of Arin bisected this habitable hemisphere. But as the western limit extended to the Fortunate Isles, it became manifest to the Arabs that the central meridian could not be so far east as the Hindu meridian of Arin (or of Lanka, i.e. Ceylon).”

“They therefore shifted it westward, but shifted the mystic Arin along the equator westward also. We find also among medieval European students (as with Roger Bacon, below), a confusion between Arin and Syene. This Reinaud supposes to have arisen from…Ptolemy, a place which he locates on the Zanzibar coast, and approximating to the shifted position of Arin. But it is perhaps more likely that the confusion arose from some survival of the real name Azln. Many conjectures were vainly made as to the origin of Arym, and M. Sedillot was very positive that nothing more could be learned of it than he had been able to learn. But the late M. Reinaud completely solved the mystery by pointing out that Arin was simply a corruption of Ujjain. Even in Arabic the mistake had been thoroughly ingrained, insomuch that the word Arm had been adopted as a generic name for a place of medium temperature or qualities.” (Hobson-Jobson, 1903, p637)

Hobson-Jobson clarifies that the longitutde of the centre of the inhabited world (the mystical point Arin on the Equator, which served as a prime meridian for ancient Hindu astrologers) may have originally been considered to be that of Ujjain, India (23.1765° N, 75.7885° E) but that Arab astrologers tweaked the longtiude from 75.7885° E to move it westward by several degrees. This tweaking would account for the value used by Ibn Ezra of about 69.69899° E for Aryn.

The next two charts shown the Aries Ingress of 1067 cast for the “centre of the world.” The first chart is set for the longitude of Ujjain, India and the second chart to the value of the longitude of Arin used in the treatise by Ibn Ezra which in the original text has an Ascendant of 25 Aries 24 but the modern computer version has an Ascendant of 25 Taurus 51.

[image error]1067 Aries Ingress at the Centre of the World taken as the longitude of Ujjain, India, on the Equator at 075E46.




[image error]1067 Aries Ingress at the Centre of the World taken as the mysitical point Aryn on the Equator at 69d 42m East, about 6 degrees west of the longitude of Ujjain, India, as modified by Arab astrologers.

Ben Dykes in Astrology of the World: II (2014) refers to the Centre of the World as “Tarah” and on page 414 he translated al-Rijal as stating:

“Know that when Ptolemy wanted to know the longitude of the tract of the Earth, he took from the well-known Canary Islands in the Roman sea (it is not known what comes after them except that the Sun sets there), to the remotest city of China in the east — and it is not known what is beyond that place as well, except that the Sun rises from it”

Ptolemy then took the midpoint along the Equator of the two remotest parts of the Earth (assuming a 180-degree span from the Canary Islands in the west to the easternmost point in China) to be the Centre of the World. In this scheme the Centre of the World lies 90 degrees to the east of the Canary Islands. The westermost point of the Canary islands lies at 16.6291° W, moving to the east 90 degrees would place the Centre of the World at about 73E22, which is close to the longitude of Ujjain at 75E46.

Interestingly, some Hindu astrologers continue to use the longitude of Ujjain to calculate the planetary day and hour lords for their horary and electional work. There is yet another and even older prime meridian in Hindu astrology set for the longitude of the mythical Yamakoti, which Ernst Wilhelm places at 00N00 latitude and 165E46 longitude in today’s coordinates, probably based on some ancient theory about the extent of the habitable world. It makes little sense to use these ancient prime meridians today because we now live in a world that is inhabited in all of its 360 degrees.

A fascinating part of the story of the “centre of the world” is the transmission of ideas back and forth among Indian, Persian, Jewish and Arab astrologers and the attempts of European translators to make sense of the Arabic and Hebrew texts when they translated them into Latin.

Addendum (29 May 2020):

Rok Koritnik left the following informative comment on FaceBook, so I decided to reproduce it below, along with his map. Looking at the map it occurs to me that Romaka may correspond to the western boundary of Africa or the Canary Islands, which were believed to be the line of demarcation of the inhabited world to the west because beyond that point was only ocean. Then the other points or meridians may simply have been mathematical constructs, 90 degrees apart, to divide the world into equal quarters, only the first two of which were inhabited by humans. Thus, Lanka (Aryn, Ujjain) was the “centre of the inhabited world” and Yamakoti was its easternmost boundary. Siddhauri would then be the point on the Equator exactly opposite the centre of the world. It is possible that ROMAKA refers to the westernmost boundary of the ROMAN Empire in the Canary Islands. Here is Rok’s comment with his map:

“Surya Siddhanta mentions four places, 90 degrees apart on the equator: Yamakoti, Lanka, Romaka and Siddhapuri.

I’ve created a map to show where they were located, because the distance from Ujjain to Yamakoti is known.

It would be nice to know why it was Yamakoti that served as the ancient prime meridian for the people of India and then later Ujjain became one.

In one way, when I think about this it would make sense to me that Giza is the center of the world, because it is situated at the center of Earth’s landmass. But it is not on the equator, so…“

[image error]