2. What I have said in the above paragraph goes strongly to support the genuineness of Tso's narratives. There are some other dates, however, in his commentary to which my attention has been called by Mr. Chalmers, and which would seem to show that they were introduced at a later period; some of them perhaps in the Han dynasty. Tso gives the day of the winter solstice in two years;-the 5th of duke He, and the 20th of duke Ch'aou. In the former case, B.C. 654, he says that the day Sin-hae (the 48th cyclical number) was the day of the winter solstice, and the first day of the first month; but this is an error of one day in regard to the new moon, and of three days in regard to the solstice, which fell that year on Këah-yin (the 51st cyclical number). In the latter case, B.C. 521, he says that the solstice fell on the day Ke-ch'ow (the 26th cyclical number), whereas it fell on Sin-maou, two days later, and the day of new moon was also one day later. 'Here,' says Mr. Chalmers, the farther back the greater the error, so that the date and the method could not have been handed down from any previous time. If a year had been sought in duke He's time, when the new moon and solstice coincided, 646 would have been right; and 665 (646+19) or 627 (646-19) would also have been the proper commencement of a cycle of 19 years, which might have been repeated down to the end of the Ch'un Ts'ëw period without much error. The error accumulates in reckoning onwards of course as well as in reckoning back, so that by the time of the Han dynasty the cycle would have to be shifted on to another set of years. But the text of the Chuen, and the commentary which you give under the 20th year of duke Ch'aou, were evidently written from a Han point of view. Twentytwo cycles of 19 years are reckoned back from the time of the emperor Woo,-say B.C. 103 (103+19×22=521), and it is affirmed that in 521 the solstice coincided with the new moon because it did so in 103. But it did not do so, nor did the new moon then fall on the day assigned to it. That a writer near the time of Confucius should give wrong dates is very likely; but that they should be systematically wrong, so as to agree with an imperfect method of calculation adopted some centuries later, and founded on observations then made about B.C. 103—of the actual position of the sun and moon, is so improbable that I cannot believe it. The Metonic cycle cannot be repeated twenty-two times without incurring an error of two or three days.' Again, on IX. xxviii. 1, and in some other passages, Tso mentions the place of the year-star or Jupiter, and Mr. Chalmers contends On the that they were all interpolated at a subsequent date. case in IX. xxviii. 1, he observes:-'The position of the planet Jupiter was observed in the year B.C. 103, and recorded correctly by Sze-ma Ts'ëen, in Sing-ke (Sagittarius-Capricorn); and he thought, as the writer of the notices in the Tso Chuen evidently did likewise, that Jupiter's period was exactly 12 years. But if this had been the case, Jupiter should not have been in Sing-ke in the 28th year of duke Seang, B.C. 544, because the intervening time of 441 years is not divisible by 12. Moreover, Jupiter was not really in Sing-ke in B.C. 544, but he would be there in 542, two years later. How then did the writer of the Chuen say that Jupiter was in Sing-ke, or ought to have been there, but "had licentiously advanced into Heuen-hëaou (Capricorn-Aquarius)?" Probably because such was the course of the planet, and such the Chinese manner of viewing it 240 (12×20) years later,—say in B.C. 304. It might be 12 years before or after. And the writer, knowing this, ventured to count back two centuries and a half in cycles of 12, and then to affirm that the same phænomenon had been observed B.C. 544, and to found a story thereon. He could not have lived earlier than the time of Mencius. He might have been later. Jupiter in fact gains a sign every 86 years, or he completes seven circuits of the starry heavens in about 83 years instead of 84, and hence the discrepancy of 3 years, or 3 signs, between the observations of Sze-ma Ts'ëen and those on which Tso based his calculations. If he, or any authorities he had to quote from, had observed the planet in B.C. 544, they would have said it was in Ta-ho (Libra-Scorpio), not in Sing-ke, and much less in Heuen-heaou. There would then have been a discrepancy of 5 signs between him and Sze-ma instead of 3. In the matter of the "yearstar," as in that of the winter solstice, Tso-she is systematically wrong. I am not prepared to question the conclusions to which Mr. Chalmers thus comes regarding the dates of the winter solstice, and the positions of the planet Jupiter, given in Tso's commentary. But instead of saying, as he does, that Tso could not have lived earlier than the time of Mencius, and may have lived later, I would say that the narratives in which the Year-star is mentioned were made about that time, and interpolated into his Work during the Ts'in dynasty or in the first Han. They will come under the second class of passages for the interpolation of which I have made provision on p. 35 of the first Chapter. But after all that Mr. Chalmers has said, my faith remains firm in the genuineness of the mass of Tso's narratives as composed by him from veritable documents contemporaneous with the events to which they relate. years of the kings of Chow. 3. Before passing on from the chronology of the text and of the Tso Chuen, it deserves to be pointed out that neither in the Classic Events not dated with reference to the nor the Commentary have we any Sindication of the dating of events with reference to the age of the dynasty of Chow or to the reigns of its kings. In each State they spoke of events with reference to the years of their own rulers. The Classic, divided into twelve Books according to the years of the twelve marquises of Loo, is one example of this. Another is found in the Chuen on VI. xvii. 4, where a minister of Ch'ing, defending his ruler against the suspicions of Tsin, runs over various events, giving them all according to the years of the earl of Ch'ing, without reference to those of the king of Chow or of the marquis of Tsin. We have a third in the Chuen at the end of II. ii., where Tso gives a resumé of certain affairs of Tsin, prior to the Ch'un Ts'ëw period, specifying them by the years of duke Hwuy of Loo. Frequently, in order to make definite the date of an event, some other well known event, contemporaneous with it, is referred to. Thus, in the Chuen after IX. ix. 5, when the marquis of Tsin asks the age of the young marquis of Loo, Ke Woo-tsze replies that he was born in 'the year of the meeting at Sha-suy.' Again, in X. vii., in the 4th narrative appended to par. 4, a panic in Ch'ing is referred to 'the year when the descriptions of punishments were cast;' and on par. 8 it is said that one of the sons of the marquis of Wei was born in 'the year when Han Seuen-tsze became chief minister of Tsin, and went among the other States, paying complimentary visits.' I need not adduce more examples. In these two ways are the dates of events determined :-by referring them to the years of some ruler of a State, or to some event of general notoriety, contemporaneous with them. They are not in any single instance determined by reference to the era of the dynasty or to the reigns of the kings of Chow. This peculiarity seems again to indicate that the sway which Chow exercised over the States was feeble and imperfect. Chaou Yih calls attention to the fact that the princes or nobles in the early part of the Han dynasty continued to exercise the prerogative of dating events from the year of their appointment or succession, and that the practice was stopped when the emperors of Han began to feel secure in their possession of the empire. It was in truth but a nominal supremacy which was yielded to the kings of Chow. SECTION III. LISTS OF THE KINGS OF CHOW, AND OF THE PRINCES OF THE I. Kings of Chow. Surname Ke (). Given, as are the princes of the States, with their sacrificial titles. II. Princes of Loo. Surname Ke. Marquises. I have not given the date of the accession of the preceding nine marquises, it being difficult to make it out in several cases. 1,051. 13. Heaou (孝) 14. Hwuy (惠) period. 15. Yin 16. Hwan Hwuy brings us to the Ch'un Ts'ëw 29 Muh (), 408. Under Muh Loo entirely lost its independence. After him we have:-30, Kung (#), 375; 31, Kang (); 32, King (), 342, 33, Ping (T); 34, Wăn (X); 35, King (L), who was reduced to the condition of a private man by king K'aou-lëeh of Ts'oo in B.C. 248. III. Princes of Wei (). Surname Ke. Marquises; but for some time they had the title of Pih (1), as presiding over several other States. 35. Shin (), 413. Under Shin Wei lost its independence, and became attached to Wei (). We have after him:-36, Shing (), 371; 37, Ching (; he was reduced in rank); 38, Ping (F), 331; 39, Tsze Keun (#; still farther reduced); 40, Hwae Keun (), 281; 41, Yuen Keun (), 250; 42, Keun Këoh (), who was reduced to the condition of a private man by the second emperor of Ts'in. |