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Christianity and Modern Science have rendered the subject of this course obsolete in English. Though likened to “astrology,” the correct term is “mathematics” – not as we know it today but as it was known in Buddhism and throughout Eurasia prior to the European Enlightenment. The real subject is science proper, that is, not so much the understanding of nature as we conceive the role of Science today but the ordering of chaos, a subject as vital today as ever – whether ostensibly obsolete or not. Though Mongolian Buddhist mathematics (a.k.a. astronomy/astrology/science) might seem arcane and extraneous, its syncretistic, catholic tradition among the Mongols preserves layers of influence that reveal not only the history of traditional science across Eurasia but the fundamental principles of knowledge. In this course we will examine the relationship between science and religion from the point of view of the problem of time. In the process we will see definitively how subjects such as apotropaic medicine, magic, ritual, divinity, and divination – all too often studied fruitlessly in isolation – are inter-related in and integral to traditional science and predicated upon empirical observation in nature. We will examine the role traditional mathematics played in Asian society from the time of the Mongol Empire through the modern era. We will see too how Buddhist mathematics compares with Modern Science and other knowledge systems of Eurasia; how mathematics fits within the greater Buddhist tradition; and how it relates to Inner Asian shamanism.
Goodbody Hall 157 | 1011 East 3rd St. | Bloomington, IN 47405-7005 | Phone: (812) 855-2233 | Fax: (812) 855-7500 | ceus@indiana.edu