Astrology And The Politics Of The Southern And Northern Dynasties

As a part of the political life of the ancient feudal society,astrology was long been valued by the rulers and had a great influence on the ancient emperor politics.Particularly when it came to the Southern and Northern Dynasties,the regime alternation was frequent,coupled with the influence of the "induction of heaven and man" concept of the Han dynasty,the theory of astrology gradually matured.Not only was its political meaning used skillfully by the rulers of the Southern and Northern Dynasties to conduct regime revolution,but also it used to be attached to the destiny during the regime alternation.The establishment of the Mandate of Heaven provided the support for the use of astrology,and the star official system and the division theory established a clear correspondence between heaven and the earth.It is necessary to clearly associate the stars of heaven with the states and counties on the earth.As a result,the use of astrology in politics has become more frequent and more accurate.In addition,the establishment of astronomical institutions offered convenience to observe and record astrological signs,and more conducive to integrating astronomical records and studying astrological divinations,which also letting the rulers have enough time to take political responses in time before and after astrological changes.This paper studies and analyzes historical materials to mainly study the abnormal astrological records and political events in the historical documents of the Southern and Northern Dynasties.Using graphic methods,contacting the astrological symbols of solar eclipse,the five-star and the comet with the historical events,so as to analysis the influence of these astrological phenomena on the politics of the Northern and Southern Dynasties.The first chapter of this article mainly starts with the background of the astrology,and discusses the basic theoretical concepts of astrology and the astronomical institutions during the Southern and Northern Dynasties.The first part begins with the perspective of the ancient astronomy,and makes a simple summary of the development of the star system and the theory of division.The ideological foundations such as "Heavenly Sensibility","The Destiny of Heaven can be transferred","The heaven's abnormity can see good and bad signs" have helped to understand the ancient's behavior of using the astrological attaching political activities.The second part uses of the tabular method to summarize the astronomical institutions of the North and South Dynasties and briefly outlines the significance of their establishment.The emperors paid great attention to the political influence of solar eclipse.So the second chapter focuses on the political functions of solar eclipses,which analyzes and summarizes the divination of solar eclipse using political events and introduces the political reactions of the emperors to the solar eclipse in detail.Except for the "saving the sun" activity of"Beating Drums to Save the Sun" ritual,they usually did the practice of cultivating morality and cultivating politics.The practice of moral education included avoiding the main hall,wearing plain clothes and advocating frugality,etc.Cultivating politics is a political remedy,for example,carrying out "crime of guilt edict","seeking wise man edict","seeking bluntly edict",disaster aid edict,pardoning the prisoners edict and other measures to reduce the impact of solar eclipse on politics.The ministers would also write bluntly when facing with the solar eclipse in an attempt to redress defective policies.The third chapter uses political events to analyze the meaning of the five-star divination and the comet divination.The divination meaning of the "combination of five stars" and "the appearance of comet" is mostly related to the "change of the regime",in terms of politics,it is the changement of dynasties and the rising of new kings.It often used in the emperors' meditations of the Northern and Southern Dynasties.The "Venus divination" and "Mars running into Tsze Tseang" of five stars are mainly related to the military wars and the political fate of the ministers.Facing these changes,both emperors and ministers need to take some remedial measures to weaken the impact of the transformation of stars on political ruling and to stabilize the dynasty for a longer time.