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APP. VII. THE STONE TABLET TO LAO-3ZE.
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rules were everywhere diffused. The 300 rules1 of ceremony could not control men's natures; the 3000 rules1 of punishment were not sufficient to put a stop to their treacherous villanies. But he who knows how to cleanse the current of a stream begins by clearing out its source, and he who would straighten the end of a process must commence with making its beginning correct. Is not the Great Tâo the Grand Source and the Grand Origin of all things?
4. The Master Lâo was conceived under the influence of a star. Whence he received the breath (of life) we cannot fathom, but he pointed to the (plum-) tree (under which he was born), and adopted it as his surname2; we do not understand 2 whence came the musical sounds (that were heard), but he kept his marvellous powers concealed in the womb for more than seventy years. When he was born, the hair on his head was already white, and he took the designation of The Old Boy' (or Lâo-jze). In his person, three gateways and two (bony) pillars formed the distinctive marks of his ears and eyes; two of the symbols for five, and ten brilliant marks were left by the wonderful tread of his feet and the grasp of his hands. From the time of Fû-hsî down to that of the Kâu dynasty, in uninterrupted succession, dynasty after dynasty, his person appeared, but with changed names. In the times of kings Wăn and Wû he discharged the duties, (first), of Curator of the Royal Library 3, and (next), of the Recorder under the Pillar 3. Later on in that dynasty he filled different offices, but did
1 Compare vol. xxviii, p. 323, par. 38.
2 Li (), a plum-tree. For this and many of the other prodigies men
tioned by Hsieh, see what Julien calls 'The Fabulous Legend of Lâo-zze,' and has translated in the Introduction to his version of the Tâo Teh King. Others of them are found in the Historical, or rather Legendary, Introduction in the 'Collection of Tâoist Treatises,' edited by Lû Yü in 1877.
The meaning of the former of these offices may be considered as settled ;see the note in Wang Kăn-kâi's edition of the 'Historical Records (1870),' under the Biography of Lâo-zze. The nature of the second office is not so clearly ascertained. It was, I apprehend, more of a literary character than the curatorship.
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