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Romanised transliteration as printed by the translator, not the original script. This is what we hold.
1The three last steps are so; but the finding kK (great) in the top part of if does not in the same way carry conviction to the mind. * Thien 3ze, ‘the Son of Heaven,’ is a common designation of the sovereign of China, Originally 3ze performed in the expression the part of a verb, and Thien 3ze was equivalent to ‘he whom Heaven sons,’ that is, considers and treats as its son. See the second line of the ode, p. 318. XXVi PREFACE. and he wished to express his recognition of a personal Being who was to himself his almighty ruler? If these questions be answered in the affirmative, Ti would be a name applied to the Supreme Being, just as we rise from the paternal relation among ourselves and call him Father. Or, on the other hand, was Ti the designation of the Supreme Lord and Ruler, corresponding to our God, and was it subsequently applied to the earthly ruler, thereby deifying him, just as the title Divus was given to a Roman emperor? I believe that it was in this latter way that Ti came to be used of the sovereigns of China ; and therefore in again publishing a translation of the Shd, I resolved, that where the appellation is given in it to Y4o and Shun, and it is only to them that it is given, I would retain the Chinese term instead of_ rendering it, as formerly, by ‘emperor.’ The following are the reasons which weighed with me in coming to this resolution : First, the first really historical sovereign of China who used the title of Hwang Ti was the founder of the K/in dynasty ; and he assumed it in B.C. 221, when he had subjugated all the sovereignties into which the feudal kingdom of Kau had become divided, and was instituting the despotic empire that has since subsisted. The Kau dynasty had continued for 867 years, from B.C. 1122 to 256, and its rulers had been styled Wang or kings. co ' KA&u superseded the dynasty of Shang or Yin, that had endured for 644 years, from B.C. 1766 to 1123; and its rulers had similarly been styled Wang or kings. Shang superseded the dynasty of Hsia, which had lasted for 439 years, from B.C. 2205 to 1767, and its rulers had been styled Wang, or kings, and H4u, or sovereigns. Thus, from the great Yii, B.C.2205 to B.C. 221, that is, for nearly 2000 years, there was no Ti or emperor in China. During all that time the people had on the whole been increasing in numbers, and the nation growing in territory ;—how did it come to pass, that the higher title, if it had previously existed, gave place to an inferior one? PREFACE. XXVil
2During all that time the people had on the whole been increasing in numbers, and the nation growing in territory ;—how did it come to pass, that the higher title, if it had previously existed, gave place to an inferior one? PREFACE. XXVil Prior to the dynasty of Hsia, with the exception of the period of Y4o and Shun, the accounts which we have of the history of China have been, and ought to be, pronounced ‘fabulous’ and ‘legendary.’ The oldest documents that purport to be historical are the books in the Shd about Yao and Shun, and even they do not profess to be contemporaneous with those personages. The earlier accounts open with a Phan-kd, in whose time ‘heaven and earth were first separated.’ To him succeeded the period of the San Hwang, or Three August Lines, consisting of twelve Celestial, eleven Terrestrial, and nine Human Sovereigns, who ruled together about 50,000 years. After them come a host of different Lines, till we arrive at the W Ti, or Five Emperors. The first of these is commonly said to be Fdhsi, while he and two others are sometimes put down as the San Hwang, in order to bring in Yao and Shun as the last two of the Tis. I have entered into these details because of the account which we have of the king of K4in’s assuming the title of Hwang Ti. We are told:—‘ As soon as the king had brought the whole country into subjection, thinking that he united in himself the virtues of the three Hwangs, and that his merits exceeded those of the five Tis, he changed his title into Hwang Ti.’ The three Hwangs are entirely fabulous, and the five Tis are, to say the least, legendary. That there were either Hwangs or Tis ruling in China before the age of the Hsia dynasty cannot be admitted. Second, it has been stated above, and is shown in the Introduction to the Sha, pp. 13-19, that the books in the Shf, previous to the Hsia dynasty, are not historical in the sense of their being contemporaneous documents of the times about which they speak. They profess to be compilations merely from older documents; and when they speak of Yao and Shun as Tis, the title Ti precedes the name or designation, instead of following it, as it ought to do, according to Chinese usage, if Ti is to be taken in the sense of emperor. YAo Ti would be ‘the emperor Y4o,’ but we have Ti? Y4o, where Ti performs the part of an adjective. King Wn, the founder of the Kau dynasty, is XXVIii PREFACE.
3YAo Ti would be ‘the emperor Y4o,’ but we have Ti? Y4o, where Ti performs the part of an adjective. King Wn, the founder of the Kau dynasty, is XXVIii PREFACE. invariably mentioned as Wan Wang, ‘ Wan the king.’ To say Wang W4n would be felt at once by every Chinese scholar to be inadmissible; and not less so is Ti 'Y4o for ‘the emperor YA4o.’ It was the perception of this violation of usage in Chinese composition, five years ago, that first showed me the error of translating Ti Y4o and Ti Shun by ‘the emperor Y4o’ and ‘the emperor Shun.’ It is true that in the early books of the Sha, we have Ti used alone, without the adjunct of Y4o or Shun, and referring to those personages. In those cases it does perform the part of a substantive, but its meaning depends on that which belonged to it as an adjective in the phrases Ti Yao and Ti Shun. If it be ascertained that in these it means ‘the Deified,’ then when used singly as a noun, it will: mean Divus, or the Divine One. Third, the sovereigns of the Hsia, the Shang, and the Ku dynasties, it has been seen, were styled Wang and not Ti. Confucius speaks repeatedly in the Analects of Y4o and Shun, but he never calls either of them by the title of Ti. Mencius, however, uses it both of the one and the other, when he is quoting in substance from the accounts of them in the ShQ. This confirms the view that the early books of the Sha were current after the middle of the Kau dynasty, very much in the form in which we now have them ; and the question arises whether we can show how the application of the title Ti as given in them to Y4o and Shun arose. We can. The fourth Book of the Li A? is called Yiieh Ling, ‘the Monthly Record of the Proceedings of Government.’ ‘In it certain sacrificial observances paid to the five Tis are distributed through the four seasons. The Tis are Fi-hsi, Shin-nang, YQ-hsiung or Hsien-yiian, Kin-thien, and K4oyang, who are styled Thai H4o (the Greatly Resplendent), Yen Ti (the Blazing Ti), Hwang Ti (the Yellow Ti), Shao HAo (the Less Resplendent), and Awan Hsii (the Solely Correct) ; with each Ti there is associated in the ceremony a personage of inferior rank, who is styled Shain (iH =a Spirit). The language descriptive of the ceremony is the same in all the cases, with the exception of the names and PREFACE. xxix months. Thus the first entry is:—‘In the first month of spring, on such and such days, the Ti is Thai H4o, and the Shan is Kau-mang.’ Now this K4u-mang was a son of Shao Hao, several hundreds of years later than Thai Ho, so that the associating them together in this ceremony could only have arisen in later times.
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
Romanised transliteration as printed by the translator, not the original script. This is what we hold.
1The three last steps are so; but the finding kK (great) in the top part of if does not in the same way carry conviction to the mind. * Thien 3ze, ‘the Son of Heaven,’ is a common designation of the sovereign of China, Originally 3ze performed in the expression the part of a verb, and Thien 3ze was equivalent to ‘he whom Heaven sons,’ that is, considers and treats as its son. See the second line of the ode, p. 318. XXVi PREFACE. and he wished to express his recognition of a personal Being who was to himself his almighty ruler? If these questions be answered in the affirmative, Ti would be a name applied to the Supreme Being, just as we rise from the paternal relation among ourselves and call him Father. Or, on the other hand, was Ti the designation of the Supreme Lord and Ruler, corresponding to our God, and was it subsequently applied to the earthly ruler, thereby deifying him, just as the title Divus was given to a Roman emperor? I believe that it was in this latter way that Ti came to be used of the sovereigns of China ; and therefore in again publishing a translation of the Shd, I resolved, that where the appellation is given in it to Y4o and Shun, and it is only to them that it is given, I would retain the Chinese term instead of_ rendering it, as formerly, by ‘emperor.’ The following are the reasons which weighed with me in coming to this resolution : First, the first really historical sovereign of China who used the title of Hwang Ti was the founder of the K/in dynasty ; and he assumed it in B.C. 221, when he had subjugated all the sovereignties into which the feudal kingdom of Kau had become divided, and was instituting the despotic empire that has since subsisted. The Kau dynasty had continued for 867 years, from B.C. 1122 to 256, and its rulers had been styled Wang or kings. co ' KA&u superseded the dynasty of Shang or Yin, that had endured for 644 years, from B.C. 1766 to 1123; and its rulers had similarly been styled Wang or kings. Shang superseded the dynasty of Hsia, which had lasted for 439 years, from B.C. 2205 to 1767, and its rulers had been styled Wang, or kings, and H4u, or sovereigns. Thus, from the great Yii, B.C.2205 to B.C. 221, that is, for nearly 2000 years, there was no Ti or emperor in China. During all that time the people had on the whole been increasing in numbers, and the nation growing in territory ;—how did it come to pass, that the higher title, if it had previously existed, gave place to an inferior one? PREFACE. XXVil
2During all that time the people had on the whole been increasing in numbers, and the nation growing in territory ;—how did it come to pass, that the higher title, if it had previously existed, gave place to an inferior one? PREFACE. XXVil Prior to the dynasty of Hsia, with the exception of the period of Y4o and Shun, the accounts which we have of the history of China have been, and ought to be, pronounced ‘fabulous’ and ‘legendary.’ The oldest documents that purport to be historical are the books in the Shd about Yao and Shun, and even they do not profess to be contemporaneous with those personages. The earlier accounts open with a Phan-kd, in whose time ‘heaven and earth were first separated.’ To him succeeded the period of the San Hwang, or Three August Lines, consisting of twelve Celestial, eleven Terrestrial, and nine Human Sovereigns, who ruled together about 50,000 years. After them come a host of different Lines, till we arrive at the W Ti, or Five Emperors. The first of these is commonly said to be Fdhsi, while he and two others are sometimes put down as the San Hwang, in order to bring in Yao and Shun as the last two of the Tis. I have entered into these details because of the account which we have of the king of K4in’s assuming the title of Hwang Ti. We are told:—‘ As soon as the king had brought the whole country into subjection, thinking that he united in himself the virtues of the three Hwangs, and that his merits exceeded those of the five Tis, he changed his title into Hwang Ti.’ The three Hwangs are entirely fabulous, and the five Tis are, to say the least, legendary. That there were either Hwangs or Tis ruling in China before the age of the Hsia dynasty cannot be admitted. Second, it has been stated above, and is shown in the Introduction to the Sha, pp. 13-19, that the books in the Shf, previous to the Hsia dynasty, are not historical in the sense of their being contemporaneous documents of the times about which they speak. They profess to be compilations merely from older documents; and when they speak of Yao and Shun as Tis, the title Ti precedes the name or designation, instead of following it, as it ought to do, according to Chinese usage, if Ti is to be taken in the sense of emperor. YAo Ti would be ‘the emperor Y4o,’ but we have Ti? Y4o, where Ti performs the part of an adjective. King Wn, the founder of the Kau dynasty, is XXVIii PREFACE.
3YAo Ti would be ‘the emperor Y4o,’ but we have Ti? Y4o, where Ti performs the part of an adjective. King Wn, the founder of the Kau dynasty, is XXVIii PREFACE. invariably mentioned as Wan Wang, ‘ Wan the king.’ To say Wang W4n would be felt at once by every Chinese scholar to be inadmissible; and not less so is Ti 'Y4o for ‘the emperor YA4o.’ It was the perception of this violation of usage in Chinese composition, five years ago, that first showed me the error of translating Ti Y4o and Ti Shun by ‘the emperor Y4o’ and ‘the emperor Shun.’ It is true that in the early books of the Sha, we have Ti used alone, without the adjunct of Y4o or Shun, and referring to those personages. In those cases it does perform the part of a substantive, but its meaning depends on that which belonged to it as an adjective in the phrases Ti Yao and Ti Shun. If it be ascertained that in these it means ‘the Deified,’ then when used singly as a noun, it will: mean Divus, or the Divine One. Third, the sovereigns of the Hsia, the Shang, and the Ku dynasties, it has been seen, were styled Wang and not Ti. Confucius speaks repeatedly in the Analects of Y4o and Shun, but he never calls either of them by the title of Ti. Mencius, however, uses it both of the one and the other, when he is quoting in substance from the accounts of them in the ShQ. This confirms the view that the early books of the Sha were current after the middle of the Kau dynasty, very much in the form in which we now have them ; and the question arises whether we can show how the application of the title Ti as given in them to Y4o and Shun arose. We can. The fourth Book of the Li A? is called Yiieh Ling, ‘the Monthly Record of the Proceedings of Government.’ ‘In it certain sacrificial observances paid to the five Tis are distributed through the four seasons. The Tis are Fi-hsi, Shin-nang, YQ-hsiung or Hsien-yiian, Kin-thien, and K4oyang, who are styled Thai H4o (the Greatly Resplendent), Yen Ti (the Blazing Ti), Hwang Ti (the Yellow Ti), Shao HAo (the Less Resplendent), and Awan Hsii (the Solely Correct) ; with each Ti there is associated in the ceremony a personage of inferior rank, who is styled Shain (iH =a Spirit). The language descriptive of the ceremony is the same in all the cases, with the exception of the names and PREFACE. xxix months. Thus the first entry is:—‘In the first month of spring, on such and such days, the Ti is Thai H4o, and the Shan is Kau-mang.’ Now this K4u-mang was a son of Shao Hao, several hundreds of years later than Thai Ho, so that the associating them together in this ceremony could only have arisen in later times.
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
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