About the Origin of the "Eleven Planets". Astrological Resonances between Iran and China.

The present article aims to call attention to a subject of ancient uranography, in which the evident presence of certain Irano-Chinese resonances merit interest, and deserve at least to be discussed in order to provoke new investigations. The anniversary of the first publication of the volume Sino-Iranica (Chicago 1919) by Berthold Laufer exactly one century ago is a fitting occasion for this preliminary discussion. Few studies have well emphasized the fact that around the 8th century CE, the Chinese number of planets was expanded not only to nine bodies, according to the Indian model, in which under the designation of navagraha- we find the five planets visible to the naked eye, the two luminaries, plus two additional (and invisible) dark planets (Rāhu and Ketu), but to eleven with the peculiar addition of another two (invisible) pseudo-planets, named Zǐqì 紫氣, and Yuèbèi 月孛. The present article shows that a precedent of an expansion of the number of the planets to 11 bodies, with the presence of four pseudo-planetary bodies.