The twenty-eight “lunar stations” (ershiba xiu 二十八宿) are unique in Chinese intellectual history in that they served as functional equivalents for Indian nakṣatras, which are also a type of lunar station (or mansion), but in practice these were quite different from the comparable Chinese system. The native Chinese lore of lunar stations as it was understood in the Sui period was outlined in the Wuxing dayi 五行大義 by Xiao Ji 蕭吉 (c. 530–610), which is a manual of Chinese metaphysics free of any Buddhist influences. We might compare the content in this text to writings by contemporary Buddhists, such as Jizang 吉藏 (549–623) and Zhiyi 智顗 (539–598), to illustrate the extent to which native, rather than foreign, astral lore took precedence in the writings of Buddhists in the Sui and Tang periods. This study will demonstrate that Buddhists in China struggled with understanding the nakṣatras and even when faced with the opportunity to adopt an orthodox Indian model, they shifted toward a kind of hybridized system.
