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THE LÎ ki.
BK. IV.
3. Its divine ruler is Thai Hâo, and the (attending) spirit is Kâu-mang'.
4. Its creatures are the scalya.
5. Its musical note is Kio, and its pitch-tube is the Thai Nhâu.
6. Its number is eight* ; its taste is sour; its smell is rank.
1 Thái Hào, the Grandly Bright, is what is called the dynastic designation' of Fa-hsî and his line. By the time that the observances described in this Book had come into use, Fü-hsî and other early personages had been deified (G), and were supposed to preside over the seasons of the year. To him as the earliest of them was assigned the presidency of the spring, and the element of wood, the phenomena of vegetation being then most striking. He was the divine ruler of the spring, and sacrificed to in its months; and at the sacrifices there was associated with him, as assessor, an inferior personage called Kâumang (literally, 'curling fronds and spikelets '), said to have been a son of Shâo Hâo, another mythical sovereign, founder of the line of Kin Thien ( F ). But Shảo Hâo was separated from Thái Hào by more than 1000 years. The association at these sacrifices in the spring months of two personages so distant in time from each other as FQ-hsî and Kâu-mang, shows how slowly and irregularly the process of deification and these sacrifices had grown up.
? The character for which I have given 'creatures' is often translated by 'insects;' but fishes, having scales, must form a large portion of what are here intended. The seven (zodiacal) constellations of the east,' says wa Khăng, make up the Azure Dragon, and hence all moving creatures that have scales belong to the element of) wood.'
: Kio is the name of the third of the five musical notes of the Chinese scale, corresponding to our B (?); and Thai 3hâu is the name of one of the twelve tubes by which, from a very early date, music was regulated. The Thai Zhâu, or Great Pipe,' was the second of the tubes that give the six upper musical accords.'
The number' of wood is three, which added to five, the
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