Chapter XIII: Front Matter (13)

Pausing to renew the foregoing data, it is with particular satisfaction that I point out how clearly they reveal the basis and origin of the “Quadriform Constitution” and idea of central government. In China the pole star is designated as the Imperial Ruler of Heaven and a temple to the God of the North Star stands in the sacred enclosure which marks the centre of the empire. The opposite positions assumed by Ursa Major at nightfall divide the year into four quarters and this quadruplicate division caused by rotation, assuming absolute dominion over the native mind, is applied to heaven and earth and pervades every detail of civil and religious government, as in ancient America.

Forced to recognize that the primitive inhabitants of China and America derived their first principles of organization from the identical light-giving source, a fact which also indicates a community of race and of place of origin, let us now review some data which prove that the two civilizations must have been separated and isolated from each other at an extremely remote period of time.

Certain conceptions, common to all primitive people, were shared by the Chinese and Mexicans, one of these being the belief that the earth was flat and square. The name for a year in ancient Mexican was xiuitl, literally, grass, and this was represented in the picture writings by a bunch of young blades of some sort of grass, possibly maize-shoots. “The earliest written Chinese character for a year represented a stalk of wheat.... In the ancient work entitled the San Fun, part of which was probably written in the 23d century B.C., there is evidence that among some of the aboriginal tribes of China the year, as among the Egyptians and some of the people of India, was divided into three periods, known as the grass-springing, tree-reigning and tree-decaying periods. Under the higher culture of the Chinese these divisions disappeared and the twelve months became the recognized parts of the year” (Douglas, China, pp. 269 and 310). Amongst the Mexican month-names there are also some which allude to such regularly recurring and impressive natural phenomena as the sprouting of trees and the appearance of verdure or springing of the maize, etc.

An indication as to what was the most ancient and primitive method of rotation employed seems afforded by the Chinese description how, for governmental purposes, the five-year period was adopted, one year pertaining to the emperor or central ruler and the following four to the quarters of the empire. An analogous employment of a quinary period as a means of obtaining a rotation of contribution from the four quarters of the empire to its metropolis, identified with the first day, is discernible in the Mexican institution of the macuil-tianquiztli, or five-day market, by which means the entire year was divided into five-day groups.

A study of the ancient Chinese calendar furnishes, moreover, an indication of the way in which the numeral 12 came to be recognized and adopted by primitive people. It is obvious that the early astronomers, having determined the length of the year by observing Ursa Major at nightfall, recognized that, during the period required for its annual complete revolution around the pole star, there regularly appeared twelve new moons. In China, at a remote period, a division of the year into “months was adopted, the early names of which have, according to the author of the earliest Chinese dictionary, the Urhye, been lost.” “The modern Chinese year is lunar in its divisions, though regulated by the sun in so far that New Year’s day is made to fall on the first new moon after the sun enters Aquarius and varies between 21st January and 19th of February” (Douglas, _op. cit._ p. 258). It would seem as though some fresh impulse, or institution of moon-cult, had influenced Shun, Yaou’s successor, to reorganize the empire, which had been simply divided into quarters, and subdivide it into 4×3=12 districts.

Another interesting evolution of a numerical system, the origin of which can be traced to the four positions and seven stars of Ursa Major, is discernible in the Chinese zodiac. This, the earliest division of the ecliptic in China, consists of “28 lunar mansions, which are grouped together in four classes of seven each, assigned to the four quarters of heaven” (Legge, vol. III, p. 24, Introduction to Shu-King). It is to the observation of precisely the same impressive phenomena that the universal adoption of the numbers 12, 4 and 7 may safely be attributed. The further division, by Emperor Yu, of the Chinese Empire into five domains or zones, finds an interesting parallelism in Mexico and Central America.

Mr. Wickersham describes Yu’s division in the following concise manner: “The Imperial domain extended five hundred le in every direction from the capital, north, south, east and west, and was therefore one thousand le square, with its sides facing the cardinal points; the domain of the Nobles was an additional territory five hundred le broad on each of the four sides; the Peace-securing domain was then added, beyond which came the domain of Restraint, and at the greatest extremity the Wild domain. By this arrangement, the sacred center, the capital where the ‘Son of Heaven’ resided, was completely surrounded by loyal officials and subjects; the most loyal were nearest the center while at the farthest extremity were the wild and dangerous tribes and criminals undergoing the greater banishment. By this square method of disposing of the population, the quiet and orderly members of society were required to reside near the capital, while the turbulent were placed toward the outer limits, serving to free the center from turmoil and to act as a barrier to the inroads of outside barbarians.”

Among the Zuñis and Mexicans the spider’s web is met with as an image of the division of their territory into quarters, half-quarters and concentric circles.

In Peru a record exists of a system of irrigation by which means the territory surrounding the capital was divided into alternate zones of land and water. Mexico and Central America furnish records too scattered to be compiled here, showing that somewhat as in China, the territory of the state was divided into the domains of the rulers, the lords, the people, and the territory of war.

After having duly considered some salient points of fundamental agreement which are to be found underlying the widely different later growths of the Chinese and ancient American systems, let us now examine and analyze some of the most remarkable points of divergence.

The following tables, placed in juxtaposition, afford an opportunity of recognizing the striking and significant fact that, whereas the Mexicans and Zuñis classified air, water, fire and earth as “elements,” the Chinese ignored air and identified wood and metal as their fourth and fifth elements.

Mexico. Zuni. China. _North_. Red, Fire. Yellow, Air. Black, Water. _West_. Yellow, Earth. Blue, Water. White, Metal. _South_. Blue, Air. Red, Fire. Red, Fire. _East_. Green, Water. White, Earth. Blue, Wood. _Middle_. Many colors. Middle, All Yellow, Earth. colors.

A deep-seated analogy may, however, be traced between the Chinese assignment of “wood” to the Middle and the Maya-Mexican employment of the tree as a symbol of life proceeding from the centre, stretching above and below and spreading its branches to the four quarters. It remains to be seen how far the Chinese assignment of “wood” to the Middle approached the American tree-symbolism.

The marked differentiation in the assignment of colors to the cardinal points in the above comparative table leads to the conclusion that their choice had been arbitrary and was possibly influenced by local environment, the possibility of obtaining certain pigments in given directions, or by language, the names of certain colors or elements resembling in sound those of the cardinal points, etc.(83)

After studying the above comparative lists it becomes clear that, whilst the fundamental principle of the system was identical, the mode of carrying it out was different in China and America, a fact which indicates independence and isolation at the period when elements and colors, etc., were chosen and assigned to the directions in space. An analogous instance of divergence is shown in the following assignment of parts of the body to the cardinal points:

CHINESE.

North Kidneys. West Lungs. South Heart. East Liver. Middle Stomach. Zenith —— Nadir ——

Although it differs in detail, an analogous association of various parts of the body with the directions in space and the twenty calendar-signs, may be seen in a Mexican Codex. In this case, however, it is clear that the origin of this assignment was the natural association between the “complete finger-and-toe count=a complete man=20=with the 20 or complete count of the day signs.” I have already produced evidences showing that the human figure was employed in primitive times to represent “a complete count, or 20 years.” When chieftains were elected for a term of twenty years and their names were given to their period of office, the full-length portrait of the chief was sculptured on a stela and he thus represented, primarily, “a complete count,” an epoch (see p. 221). Portraiture and accompanying inscriptions were obviously later developments, but the primitive employment of the human form as a means of expressing a fixed number, is one that claims consideration and will undoubtedly lead to a wider comprehension of the significance of the human form in aboriginal archaic sculpture. The curious conventionalized representations of Mictlantecuhtli, in which the body and limbs almost simulate a swastika, have already been discussed, as well as the inference that they symbolized Polaris and the four positions of Ursa Major=the Middle and Four Quarters.

The most striking confirmation of this inference is furnished by Mr. Cushing’s account that the Zuñis associated the directions in space with the imaginary form of a quadruped as follows:

ZUNI.

North Right fore foot. West Left fore foot. South Right hind leg. East Left hind leg. Middle Heart. Zenith Head. Nadir Tail.

It is obvious from this that, to a Zuñi, the State and its subdivisions appear under the allegorical form of a quadruped and I have traced the identical mode of thought in Mexico and Central America(84) where, owing to linguistic associations, an ocelot is in some instances employed as a symbol for a State whilst in others the form of an eagle was adopted for the same purpose (see Appendix I).

To sum up: in ancient America the human form was employed to represent quadripartite division and the complete finger-and-toe count=20, and as such became emblematic of the quadriform plan of universal application. Owing to a variety of circumstances and suggestions arising from language, the figure of a quadruped=ocelot was adopted as a symbol of the State by some tribes and the form of an eagle by others, the inference being that the ocelot was identified with the cult of the earth and night and the eagle with the cult of heaven and day. While the ocelot and eagle occur in the codices as representative of two distinct classes or divisions of the State, there are some interesting and suggestive representations, to which I shall revert, of figures combining the form and claws of an ocelot with the wings and head of a bird, evidently symbolical of a union of the Above and Below, or Heaven and Earth.

Having furnished the explanation that ancient America affords of the origin of the primitive employment of the human body, the quadruped and bird in allegory and the assignment of their various parts to points in space, it is to Chinese scholars that I appeal for enlightenment as to the origin and development of the same idea in China. To me one point of difference between the Chinese and American list is very striking. In America although the navel was also regarded as a symbol, the heart, associated with the Middle, had obviously been recognized as the centre or seat of life, and the tearing out of the heart had become the salient feature in human sacrifices. In China the stomach is assigned to the Middle, and death by disembowelling was customary.

An analysis of the Chinese and Mexican numerical systems likewise proves that their ultimate development was strikingly different, although it is easy to recognize how both might have arisen from the same source. Thus whilst the Mexican and Central American calendar (and social organization) is based on the combination of 20 characters with 13 numerals, the Chinese “took two sets of 12 and 10 characters respectively and combined them.” The outcome of the combination of 20 with 13 affords a marked contrast to that of 12 with 10. In the Mexican calendar, as I have shown, there were fixed periods of 5 days (associated with the Middle and Four Quarters) and of 20 days, the latter being “one complete count” of days, based on the primitive finger-and-toe count. In the Mexican social organization there were 4 principal and 16 minor clans of people, known by 20 signs. Each of these in turn was subdivided into 13 categories associated with the directions in space. By mentioning a sign and a numeral, up to 13, the exact subdivision of a clan was clearly designated while the direction of its residence, as regards the capital, was likewise conveyed. A day was associated with each of these 20 clans and their respective 13 subdivisions, and the unit of time produced by the combination of the 20 day-signs and 13 numerals was the period of 260 days, which held 4×65 days and was approximately equivalent to nine lunations and to the period of human gestation. The 260-day period, as will be more clearly shown in my monograph on the Mexican Calendar System, constituted the religious year of the “Sons or Lords of Night” in their cult of the Moon, the Nocturnal Heaven, Earth and the Female principle.

Simultaneously with this lunar calendar, in which each moon had a different name, a civil or solar calendar was employed consisting of 365 days, divided into 17 periods of 20 and 1 period of 25 days. These years bore the names of four different signs in rotation combined with 13 numerals.(85) The cycles, thus produced, consisted of 4×13=52 years, 20, or a “complete count” of which, produced the great cycle of 1040 years.

Totally different from this numerical system is that of the Chinese, who “divided the year into 12 months of 29 and 30 days each and as these periods represent with sufficient exactness the lunar month, it follows that the new moon falls on the 1st of every month and that on the 15th the moon is at its full. The month is thus associated with the moon and is called by the same name and written with the same hieroglyphic.... The Chinese also divide the year by seasons and recognize 8 main divisions and 16 subsidiary ones, which correspond to the days on which the sun enters the 1st and 15th degrees of a zodiacal sign ...” (Douglas, China, p. 269). Whilst it is customary in China for years to be designated at times by the Neen-haou or title of an emperor and an event to be alluded to as having occurred in such or such a year of a certain ruler’s reign, the mode of computing years is by reckoning by sexagenary cycles. According to native historians this system was introduced by the emperor Hwang-te in the year 2637 B.C. which was the first year of the first cycle, and it has continued in use until the present day. In this system a group of ten characters, termed the “celestial stems” and associated with the male principle, is combined with a group of twelve characters, named the “terrestrial branches” and associated with the female principle. An unbroken series of sixty-year cycles have thus been formed, in the seventy-sixth of which the Chinese are now living. According to Biot, the calendar instituted by Hwang-te was a day-count only, and year-cycles were not in use until after the Christian era, having been introduced from India.

There are indications which will be more fully discussed further on, showing that the primitive day-count consisted of the seven-day period, each day being consecrated to one of the seven bright stars of Ursa Major, called the “Seven Regulators.”

It is well known that Taouism was founded by Laou-tsze, who was a contemporary of Confucius and thus “lived in the sixth century before Christ, a hundred years later than Buddha and a hundred years earlier than Socrates. A mystery hangs over Laou-tsze’s history ... and there is the possibility that he was a foreigner, or perhaps a member of an aboriginal frontier tribe” (Legge).

The Shoo-king, the national book of history edited by Confucius, enables us to follow the development of the state religion and government, the basis of which was Heaven and its imperial ruler, the pole-star. The almost mythical emperor Yaou, whose reign began in B.C. 2357, “imitated Heaven, harmonized the various states of the empire and divided it into four quarters.” His successor, Shun, extended its organization, but it was Yü, the third ruler, in the thirteenth year of his reign (B.C. 1121), who, acknowledging his ignorance of them “went to inquire of Kê-tsze” about “the great plan of the 9 classifications and the arrangement of the invariable principles.” It is also stated in the Shoo-King, that it was “Heaven [who] gave to Yü the great plan and the 9 classifications, so that the invariable principles were arranged, consisting of the 5 elements, the 8 regulations, and the 5 arrangers.”

In China the day is divided into periods equivalent to 120 minutes=2 hours. “In speaking of these periods, however, the practice which was originally introduced into China by the Mongols, of substituting for the twelve stems, the names of the twelve animals which are supposed to be symbolical of them, is commonly adopted. Thus the 1st period, that between 11 P. M. and 1 A. M., is known as the Rat, period 2 as the Ox, 3 Tiger, 4 Hare, 5 Dragon, 6 Serpent, 7 Horse, 8 Sheep, 9 Monkey, 10 Cock, 11 Dog, 12 Boar. The night is divided into five watches, each of two hours duration....” (Douglas, China, p. 296).

The ancient Mexican priest-astronomers marked three divisions of the night by burning incense in honor of certain stars, after dusk, at midnight and at break of day.

The mention of the introduction into China of the Mongolian hour-computation leads to a consideration of the origin of what is known as the Chinese civilization. It is, of course, impossible to do more here than touch upon the various and opposite views held on this important question by leading European and Chinese scholars. On the one hand, “the existence of the Chinese civilization in the east of Asia, separated from early centres by the whole width of Asia and intervening trackless deserts, has seemed a problem to many students and led to the conclusion of its sporadic growth, an idea which is fostered by Chinese historians.” (See Douglas on Chinese Culture and Civilization, 1890.) On the other hand, it is maintained that the Chinese entered China from Tartary and were emigrants from Babylonia who abandoned their country when Nakhunte, king of Susiana, conquered Babylon in 2295 B.C.

According to Legge, the Chinese came through central Asia about 2200 B.C. and founded colonies on the banks of the Yellow river and its tributaries. These colonists founded a Middle Kingdom in China, a federation of states with a chief supreme ruler, on the pattern of Babylonia. They introduced the art of writing and established a calendar with a year of 360 days and an intercalary month.

It is stated that the names of the five planets of the Chinese, besides the Sun and Moon, were called by the same names as in Babylon. (See Edkins _op. cit._, also The old Babylonian characters and their derivatives, Terrien de Lacouperie, Babylonian and Oriental Record, March, 1888.) Some authorities are inclined to consider Chinese astronomy as derived from the Chaldean; whilst others have instituted comparisons between it and the Hindoo system. The results of the latter line of investigation are set forth by J. F. Davis in the following passage of his work on the Chinese (London, 1836, vol. II., p. 304): “A comparison between the ancient system of the Chinese and of Hindoo astronomy is rendered somewhat perplexing by the fact that, while there are some points of resemblance there are others in which they essentially differ. Both of them have twenty-eight lunar mansions and a cycle of sixty years, but a careful observation detects some important distinctions: the Hindoo cycle is a cycle of Jupiter while that of the Chinese is a solar cycle, and the twenty-eight constellations of the Hindoos are nearly all of them equal divisions of the great circle, consisting of about 13° each, while the Chinese constellations are extremely unequal, varying from 30° to less than 1°. The author’s father, in conjunction with Sir William Jones and Messrs. Colebrook and Bentley, proved that the Hindoo astronomy did not go farther than the calculation of eclipses and some other changes with the rules and tables for performing the same. Besides their lunar zodiac of twenty-eight mansions, the Hindoos (unlike the Chinese) have the solar, including twelve signs perfectly identical with ours, and demonstrating, in that respect, a common origin.”

As we know from Herodotus, the Egyptians had a week of seven days and it is remarkable that the Hindoos had anciently the same, the planetary names being given to the days in exactly the same order as among ourselves, except that Friday was the first. The Chinese reckon five planets to the exclusion of the sun and moon, but they give the name of one of their twenty-eight lunar mansions successively to each day of the year in a perpetual rotation, without regard to the moon’s changes; so that the same four out of the twenty-eight invariably fall on our Sundays and constitute, as it were, perpetual _Sunday letters_. A native Chinese first remarked this odd fact to the author, and on examination it proved perfectly correct.

To the above it may be well to add the following comparison between the Chinese, Tibetan and Indian systems: “The Tibetans received astronomical science from India and China ... the Chinese taught them the science of divination. Both systems are based upon a unit of sixty years, differing, however, in modes of denominating years. In these cycles of sixty years, when numbered according to the Indian principle, each year has a particular name; but in the Chinese method the names used in the Chinese duodecimal cycle are used five times, coupled with the five elements or their respective colors, each of the latter introduced in the series twice in immediate succession” (Schlagintweit, Buddhism in Thibet, p. 27). According to Humboldt, “the Tzihichen, or public calculators of Lhassa take pride in the fact that years of the same name only return about every two centuries. They combine 15 signs: five masculine, five feminine and five neuter, with twelve signs of the zodiac” (Monuments des peuples de l’Amérique I, p. 386).

With regard to the ancient connection between China and India it is well to recall the well-known fact that Buddhism did not enter China from India until the first century of the Christian era and had a prolonged struggle for existence and influence in the country during several centuries.

The Buddhist missionaries introduced the mode of calculating cycles of years into China, according to Biot, who states that the primitive calendar of the Chinese, instituted by Hwang-te, the first king of the “Flowery land,” was a day-count only.

Let us briefly enumerate some bare facts bearing upon the age and development of the state, religion and government of ancient China. In 2697 B.C. Hwang-te (the Babylonian?) erected a temple to the honor of Shang-te, the deity associated with the earliest traditions of the Chinese race. Upon the authority of a Chinaman of the present day it is stated that “the word Shang-te means supreme ruler; but, as it is not lawful to use this name lightly, Chinamen usually name the supreme ruler by his residence, which is Tien=heaven” (Edkins, _op. cit._ p. 71).

An extremely instructive light is thrown upon the Taouist conception of a supreme being or ruler, by the following episode related by Mr. Edkins in his “Religion in China” (p. 109). “I met [in 1872] on one occasion a schoolmaster from the neighborhood of Chapoo.... The inquiry was put to him, Who is the Lord of heaven and earth? He replied that he knew none but the pole-star, called in the Chinese language Teen-hwang-ta-te, the great imperial ruler of heaven. It was stated to him that it was a matter very much to be regretted that he should hold such views as this of the Supreme Being.”

In this connection and with special reference to the title Tien=heaven, employed by the Chinese in addressing the supreme ruler, I must quote T. de Lacouperie’s opinion that the Akkadian name=Din-gira and symbol for God, the eight-pointed star, was the origin of Ti, a Chinese character with the same meaning and sound. Mr. C. J. Ball (The New Akkadian Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology) explains the Akkadian Din-gira as composed of di=to shine and gira=heaven and that thus the Accadian name for God is “the shining one of heaven,” which explains why the ideogram is a star. According to Mr. K. Douglas (p. 171) “Mr. Ball has practically demonstrated that the Chinese and Akkadian are the same tongue and that everywhere in China we are reminded of that great centre of civilization in Babylonia.”

An investigation of the Taouist religion reveals that it consists chiefly of star-worship, stars being deemed “divine.” “Among the liturgical works used by the priests of Taou, one of the commonest consists of prayers to Tow-moo, a female divinity supposed to reside in the Great Bear. A part of the same constellation is worshipped as a male spirit under the name of Kwei-sing” (Edkins).

A name closely resembling the latter in sound, Tseih-ching, and meaning the “Seven Regulators” is now applied to the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. In ancient times, however, according to native authorities, “this term was used to designate the seven bright stars of Ursa Major which subsequently, by an astrological device, were associated with the seven planets; so, that, by metonymy, the latter became the established meaning.”(86)

The association of the term “Regulators” with Septentriones is particularly interesting because the seven-day period has been employed in China from time immemorial, the seventh day being invariably marked by the ancient character mih, which means “quiet, secret or silent.” In the modern Chinese almanacs and astrological works “the mih days are marked by the four constellations which correspond among the seven planets to the principal one among them, the Sun” (_cf._ Wylie, On the Knowledge of a weekly Sabbath in China, _op. cit._ p. 86). I am strongly tempted to refer the origin of the Chinese mih or quiet day, on which rest was generally observed, to that remote period of time when, to primitive observers, one of the stars in Ursa Major would have appeared more closely associated with immovability and nearer the polar axis than its companions (see pp. 20 and 21).

If we pause here to review the preceding data we are particularly struck at the unanimity of evidence establishing that even the most ancient form of civilization and religion was not indigenous to China, but was carried there by colonists from distant parts, presumably from Babylonia. The latter conclusion finds a strong support in the undeniable fact that during subsequent centuries a steady stream of emigration has carried colonists of different nationalities into the heart of China.

Buddhism entered China from India in the first century of the Christian era. Alexander Wylie tells us that “according to the testimony of one of the stone tablets in the synagogue at Kai-fung foo, the Israelites first entered China during the Han dynasty” and we are further told in the letters of the Jesuits that “they came during the reign of Ming-ti (A.D. 58-75) from Si-yih, _i. e._ the western regions. It appears by all that can be gathered from them that this western country is Persia and that they came by Khorasan and Samarcand. They have many Persian words in their language and they long preserved a great intercourse with that country” (The Israelites in China, Wylie’s Chinese Researches, Shanghai, 1897).

Some other interesting facts related by Wylie deserve mention here. In translating the name of Jehovah into Chinese, the Israelites in China, to the present day, say Teen, “just as the scholars of China do when they explain their term Shang-te.” We thus observe a growing practice in western Asia, among the Hebrews, of designating Jehovah as the God of Heaven and sometimes as Heaven. In Chinese history distinct mention is made of a foreign sect distinguished as the “worshippers of Heaven,” spoken of as existing in China at the beginning of the sixth century. Wylie has surmised that the Hebrews were thus designated and remarks “that this name, as the designation of a foreign sect, is the more remarkable inasmuch as the state ritual of China has designated the Supreme by the name of Heaven, from the earliest times down to the present day.”

It is a curious reflection that it may possibly have been due to a gross misconception of the Hebrew religion on the part of the Chinese and a supposed identity of worship that caused the Israelites to be treated with such tolerance and hospitality in China that their colony situated in the heart of the country still exists to the present day. It is, in fact, related of the Dowager Empress Ling, in the first half of the sixth century, that she “abolished the various corrupt systems of religious worship, excepting that of the foreign tien-spirit.” A strange insight into the Chinese view of the Christian religion is likewise afforded by the following native documents cited by Wylie: “Now Jesus, the Lord of Heaven, is worshipped by the Europeans. They say that this is the ancient religion of Ta-tsin (Syria).”

The following remarkable passages occur on the famous Nestorian tablet, dated A.D. 781, which eulogizes the propagation of the “Illustrious [Christian] Religion” in China. This tablet was discovered by the Jesuit fathers in 1625 and, after its authenticity had been violently assailed, Wylie’s painstaking researches have now vindicated its genuineness.(87) The following extracts are from the preface engraved upon it and composed by King-tsing, a priest of the Syrian Church: “... Our eternal, true lord God.... He appointed the cross as the means of determining the four cardinal points, he moved the original spirit and produced the two principles of nature; the sombre void was changed and heaven and earth were opened out; the sun and moon revolved and day and night commenced; having perfected all inferior objects, he then made the first man ... the illustrious and honorable Messiah, veiling his true dignity, appeared in the world as a man ... a bright star announced the felicitous event [of his birth] ... he fixed the extent of the eight boundaries.... As a seal [his disciples] hold the cross, whose influence is reflected in every direction uniting all without distinction. As they strike the wood the fame of their benevolence is diffused abroad; worshipping towards the east they hasten on the way to life and glory ... they do not keep slaves, but put noble and mean all on an equality; they do not amass wealth but cast all their property into the common stock.”

Referring the matter to oriental scholars for further discussion I merely note here the astonishing fact that in China, in the seventh century of our era, the supreme God of the Hebrews and Christians was spoken of as the God of Heaven, or Heaven, that He is credited with having created the two principles of nature besides heaven and earth and instituted the cross as “a means of determining the cardinal points.”

It is likewise strange to find the “Heen or Toen foreigners” credited in a sixteenth-century native cyclopædia, with having introduced into China a system of astronomy denominated the “Four Heavens,” and obviously based on a quadruplicate division of the Heaven similar to the division of the empire instituted by Yaou (Wylie, Israelites in China, _op. cit._ p. 19).

The current Chinese name for Christians has been “Cross-worshippers,” and it is odd to note that the ancient Chinese seem to have regarded the symbolism of the Christian cross as closely identical with that of their swastika, and to have concluded that the foreign “Heaven” religion rested on the same basis as theirs.

Referring the reader to Wylie’s valuable researches and Edkins’ Religion in China for information concerning the establishment of colonies of Manicheans, Mohammedans and of successive Christian missions, etc., in China, I shall but quote the following passage from Marco Polo’s travels (pp. 167 and 168) because it shows how the doctrine of the quadruplicate division of all things, celestial and terrestrial, led to a broad tolerance of opinion in the famous Tartar prince, Kubla Khan, who, in 1260, at Kanbalu=Peking, honored the Christian festivals. “And he observed the same at the festivals of the Saracens, Jews and idolaters. Upon being asked his motive for this conduct, he said: ‘There are four great Prophets who are reverenced and worshipped by the different classes of mankind. The Christians regard Jesus Christ as their divinity; the Saracens, Mahomet; the Jews, Moses; and the idolaters Sagomombarkan (Buddha) the most eminent amongst their idols. I do honor and show respect to all of the four, and invoke to my aid whichever of them is in truth supreme in heaven.’ ” This attitude of mind and that of the Chinese towards the Christian Cross can only be fully understood and appreciated when it is realized that their “imperial ruler of Heaven” was the pole-star and that the Ursa Major described each year the sign of a cross in the heaven which ever impressed upon them quadruplicate division and differentiation and the union of four in one. It is doubtlessly owing to the same reason that the Chinaman of today finds it possible to believe in, at once, the three great national religions which exist in China. Edkins has explained that, whereas “Confucianism speaks to the moral nature, Taouism is materialistic and Buddhism is metaphysical; thus, they are supplemental to each other and are able to co-exist without being mutually destructive” (_op. cit._ p. 60). Somewhat apart from these three state religions and embodying the most ancient ideas and traditions of the race, exists the elaborate and solemn “Imperial worship,” the study of which Edkins designates as “specially interesting because it takes us back to the early history of the Chinese people and introduces us to many striking points of comparison with the patriarchal religion of the Old Testament and with the worship of the kings of Nineveh, Babylon and Egypt.” The same authority states that “the account given by Herodotus of the religion of the ancient Persians shows that it consisted in much the same usages as those now found in Chinese Imperial worship” (_op. cit._ pp. 6, 22, 18 and 30). In the preceding pages it has been shown that the fundamental principles of the primitive religions of China and America were identical, but that their subsequent stages of development or evolution were strikingly divergent. The following study of certain details connected with the “Imperial worship” brings out a marked differentiation in the Chinese and Mexican cult of heaven and earth.

The altar of Heaven at Peking consists of three circular marble terraces, the uppermost of which is paved with eighty-one stones arranged in circles. It is on a round stone in the centre of these circles that the Emperor kneels and is considered to occupy the centre of the earth. In the worship of Heaven, offerings are made to the heavenly bodies, the Sun, Moon, the Pole-star, Great Bear, five planets and twenty-eight constellations. The worship at the altar of Earth consists of offerings to the mountains, rivers and seas.

This arrangement is strikingly unlike that of the ancient Mexicans, who associated the sun only with the Above, the male principle and the blue heaven, and worshipped the nocturnal heaven, the moon and stars, with the earth, darkness and the female principle.

It is interesting to note the marked effect, produced by the two different modes of classification, upon the subsequent development of the state religions of China and Mexico. In the latter country where the contrast of light and darkness and of the duality of nature seems to have been most powerfully felt, the gradual institution, on a footing of equality of a diurnal masculine and nocturnal feminine cult or of a separate sun and moon worship, led to the formation of two equally powerful castes of priest-astronomers who devised their respective calendars and cults and ultimately stood in open rivalry and antagonism towards each other, as children of heaven and light: sun worshippers; and children of earth and darkness: moon worshippers. In China, as the cult of earth was subordinate from the first and all heavenly bodies were included in the worship of Heaven, there was no opportunity for any rivalry to develop in the superior caste of astronomers who jointly ruled, instituted their calendar and altered it under influences emanating from India.

Heaven and Earth were jointly worshipped at the same altar until A.D. 1531, when it was decreed that there should be separate altars and that the worship of Earth should be separately conducted (Edkins). At the same time, while the Emperor acts as the high-priest of Heaven, we find associated with him, from remote antiquity, the Empress, the representative of the Earth-mother.

The fact that the roll of Chinese emperors records heavenly and earthly, light and sombre, emperors, and that empresses have repeatedly occupied the throne, seems to indicate that, in remote antiquity, a male and a female line of rulers, personifying the dual principles of nature, alternately assumed prominence in power. This natural outgrowth of the cult of heaven and earth, which has its parallel in Mexico, seems to afford an explanation of the usurpation and retention of power exercised by the present Empress of China, who is probably ruling in her own right, as the representative of the earth or dark principle. As such she is the exact equivalent to the ancient Mexican Cihua-coatl, or “Woman-serpent;” and modern China supplies us with an episode in the development of the fundamental set of ideas it holds in common with ancient America, closely resembling the historical dissension which led in ancient Mexico to a separation of the two cults and the establishment of two separate governments, under their respective male and female rulers.

Although the difference in primitive Chinese and Mexican definitions of heaven and earth worship is evidently accountable for this fact, it is nevertheless interesting to note that it was in A.D. 1531 only that the Chinese cult of heaven and earth separated and the process of disintegration began to be set into activity. From an evolutionary point of view, the imperial religion of China stands to-day at a far less advanced stage of development than the prehistoric Mexican state religion. This circumstance might be passed over without comment did it not strikingly coincide with the undeniable fact that the essentially inorganic and monosyllabic Chinese language stands far lower in the scale of linguistic development than the incorporative and polysynthetic American languages, the most perfected types of which are the Maya and the beautiful and refined Nahuatl which abounds in delicate metaphors and formulas of exquisite politeness, indicative of the high degree of culture and antiquity of the native race.

If the preceding comparative study of the Chinese and ancient Mexican civilizations be briefly summarized, the result is as follows: Both civilizations alike rest on a foundation of pole-star worship and the set of ideas which naturally proceed from this _i. e._, central impartial power extending in constant rotation to the four quarters, figured by the swastika, and the recognition of the all-pervading duality of nature. These primitive concepts and their inevitable outgrowths, which might naturally occur to human beings of the same grade of intellect in similar conditions and circumstances and be most powerfully impressed upon the mind of man in circumpolar latitudes beside a few resemblances in names, which I shall proceed to point out, are nearly all that the Chinese and ancient Mexicans may be safely said to have had in common. At a date obviously anterior to 2356 B.C., when they were formulated, the Chinese had made definitions of heaven and earth and of the five elements which radically differ from those of the ancient Mexicans and Mayas.

The Chinese numerical system or calendar, though equally based on rotation, and known to have been modified by contact with India, is essentially different from the American. When carefully compared it must be acknowledged that the Mexican is by far the more complex and highly developed, and the same may be said of the social organization, which was controlled by the calendar. A comparison between the Chinese and American languages in general proves, moreover, that they differ not only in sound, but in form and in grade of development, the Chinese being the lower in the scale. To the above divergences we must add the fact that each people evolved distinct national customs and costumes, foods and drinks, industries, arts and forms of architecture, so markedly characteristic as to be clearly distinguishable.

In conclusion a few words about the swastika in China (ouan). Its Chinese name is wan, which signifies “ten thousand,” or “all,” also “many,” a great number. At the time of the Empress Wu (A.D. 684-704) the swastika in a circle signified “the sun;” half a swastika in the circle “the moon,” and the plain circle “the star.” Deferring comment I emphasize here the fact that the word wan resembles kwan=equal earth or land, and that it signifies an entity composed of ten thousand parts. A proof that the wan was also associated with the idea of time is given by the modern use of the Chinese swastika to signify “long life,” “many years,” _i. e._, a complete life, a complete cycle of years.

A prolonged study of the most ancient civilization of America, which centred in Mexico and Central America and thence spread northward and southward, has so deeply convinced me of its great antiquity, isolation and prolonged period of independent evolution that, when Asiatic origin and influence are discussed, I am tempted to take the national food-plant of America, the maize, and, placing it beside the rice-plant of China, invite comparisons to be made between them.

JAPAN.

It is a curious fact that, although it is recognized that the junks which have been repeatedly driven by storms upon the Pacific coast have generally been Japanese, no searching comparison between the culture of ancient America and that of Japan has as yet been published; although it is believed by many that it may have been to the occupants of the wrecked junks that the American race owed its civilization. The curious idea seems to prevail among some writers, that purely Chinese influence was conveyed by Japanese fishermen and sailors to the dwellers on American soil. It does not seem to be sufficiently recognized that the differences between Japanese and Chinese civilizations are as great as that between their different languages and writings, and that direct influence derived from Japan, for many centuries back would have left traces so characteristic as to be easily distinguished from the effects of direct influence from China.

In the third century of the Christian era the Japanese empire was founded on a plan derived from Corea and soon became known to the Chinese and dwellers on the main land as Dschi-Poennkwo, or Zipanco, the “land of the east, or of the rising sun.” The Japanese themselves, however, regarded their empire as the “great centre of the world,” _i. e._ a “Middle Kingdom.” The mythical birthplace of the Japanese race and the cradle of its civilization is said to have been the island of the Congealed Drop, which was formerly at the North Pole, but subsequently removed to its present position. How this happened is not told.(88)

The most superficial examination shows that the fundamental scheme of the Japanese empire was the same as that of China and other Asiatic countries. Its centre was the island Hon-shiu, Hondo or Nippon, on which was situated the ancient Fu or capital, named Yedo; the modern Tokio in the vicinity of Fusiyama, the sacred mountain and reputed centre of the world. The entire land or Han was originally divided into five provinces collectively named the Go-kinai (the word go like the Maya ho, signifying five), the territorial divisions and presumably consisting of four quarters and the capital. Light is thrown upon the extent of this quinary organization by the fact that, in ancient Japan, time was divided into five-day periods, by official days of rest, which fell on the 1st, 6th, 11th, 16th, 21st, and 26th days of each month. The computation of time by cycles, which will be treated further in a separate monograph, also prevailed in Japan, as might be expected, since this method was a main feature of the definite scheme on which the entire empire was founded.

In accord with this plan the population was divided into four classes, consisting of the Haimin=the people; the warriors or Samurai, the Kazoku, literally the flower of families, the nobility. All members of the imperial family formed a fourth caste and above all stood the Emperor, the central ruler, the divine descendant of the sun-goddess Amaterasu. Evidences that an extension and fresh territorial division of the empire took place at one time seem preserved in the ancient Japanese name for Japan: Oya-shima=the eight islands. It is likewise related that the Japanese creators, Izanajo and Izanami, built, in the centre of the world, an octagonal palace around a central pillar, the octagonal form having reference to the eight holy corners or points, the “Hak-kaku,” or the cardinal points and half cardinal points. It is impossible to overlook the fact that by a similar method, but by means of four larger and four smaller rays, the field of the Mexican calendar star is divided into eight equal portions. It is a well-known fact that, in 1854, Japan was practically governed by two rulers: the Mikado or Tenno, of divine or “heavenly” descent, who led so secluded an existence that he was becoming a shadowy and invisible ruler, and the Shogun, the civil governor, who had become the terrestrial ruler _par excellence_, and whose power was in the ascendant. This state of affairs affords a most interesting object lesson, teaching how ancient empires gradually become divided and disintegrated under dual government and under the influence of rival cults. The ancient state religion or “Imperial worship” of Japan, the Shinto, was becoming as obsolete as the worldly power of its high-priest the Mikado, next to the growing ascendancy of Buddhism, supported by the Shogunate. The original meaning of the Shinto sacred symbols appears to be lost. The mirror, placed on the altar, usually constituted the only visible sacred emblem. Another was the sword. It is claimed that the swastika came into Japan with Buddhism, but this is a point which demands a serious investigation of competent specialists. The above data, which are absurdly inadequate to the interest and importance of Japan, the seat of the most intellectual and progressive culture of Asia, are sufficient to show that in Japan, where the swastika is found, the quadruplicate state organization and fundamental plan were also carried out. My full purpose will only be fulfilled when the present deficient notes shall have stimulated the enquiry and research of students and Japanese scholars and led to the publication of all traces extant of the most ancient scheme of organization, government and calendar, as compared with those of ancient America.

As it is maintained that the Chinese and other eastern Asiatic people did not originate, but received their civilization from Babylonia, or another ancient centre, situated in western Asia, it obviously becomes an imperative necessity to carry the present investigation across the Asiatic continent into the heart of the Euphratean valley.

INDIA.

Being one of the ancient centres of civilization from which the Chinese are said to have derived theirs, India, the country where the swastika abounds, first arrests our attention. In support of the assertion I have already advanced, that the primitive symbol is always found accompanied by a set of ideas almost as ancient as itself, I have pleasure in transcribing the following detached but instructive and suggestive extracts from my note-book.

The fair Arya or Aryans, after about 2,000 B.C., penetrated India from the northwest. Arya means “those who command” or “the venerable.” The name Hindu or Sindu was given to the Indian Aryans. Our knowledge of Hindu art begins in the third century B.C. and none of the present popular forms of Hindu religion are presumed to be earlier than the ninth century A.D. “It is well known that the Brahman system and faith were not developed by the Hindus till they had conquered the Ganges, Western and Southern India and there is no trace of this tradition or even of Brahma as a deity in the Vedas.”...

“The supreme god of antiquity was Indra ... next to and above whom was the mysterious god Varuna, the creator, who gave eternal laws which god and men were obliged to follow. He showed the stars their paths and gave each creature his qualities.... He is the sun by day and the stars at night”.... From these statements the duality of the creator and his power over both light and darkness alike, stand out clearly.

Another form of the supreme being was the sun god Surya, who was also named Savitri, the generator, Pushan=the feeder and Mithra=the light-god, who is called the watcher and ruler of the world and was associated with the wheel, which is termed “the most ancient symbol of divine power and dominion.”(89)

“In India the wheel was, moreover, connected with the title of a chakrayartin (from chakra=a wheel), the title meaning a supreme ruler or universal monarch, who ruled the four quarters of the world and on his coronation he had to drive his chariot or wheel to the four cardinal points to signify his conquest of them” (Wm. Simpson, Quarterly statement of Palestine Expl. Fund, 1895, p. 84). It is significant that “Mithra,” the god of the wheel, who was, as I shall show later on, likewise associated with the serpent, is represented with a chariot pulled by seven horses and thus to find the idea of centrifugal power, combined with the numeral seven and the conception of central rulership extending to the four quarters.

While the above passages afford an interesting insight into the ancient significance and symbolism of the chariot, the use of which, with that of the throne was, originally, exclusively confined to the central supreme ruler, they also furnish a curious parallelism to the Chinese tours of inspection performed, by the emperor, to the four provinces in rotation.

The general application of the quadruplicate system is moreover shown by the fact that, from time immemorial, the population of India has been divided into four great castes, and these are associated with distinctive colors, the Sanscrit word for color, _varna_, signifying also caste. According to the native myth, Brahma created the Brahmin or ruling caste from his mouth, the warrior caste from his arms and hands, the merchant and agricultural caste from his hips and the artisan or lowest caste from the soles of his feet. The warrior caste was named Kschatria; the people the yellow, or Vaicya; the original, conquered inhabitants of India were named the black, or Sudra. The Brahman caste was above all these.

Concerning the origin of the Brahmans, it is related that “Manu was created ... he, in turn created ten great sages, the ancestors of the Brahmans. These created _seven_ other Manus or spiritual princes, the preservers of moral orders in the world” (Goodyear). Pointing out that the seven Manus evidently constituted a septarchy, let us now study the Brahmanistic conception of a supreme divinity. From various authorities we learn that, in later times “the Brahmans invented a new god, the impersonal Brahma, who only appears in the youngest portion of the Vedas.” He is described as “the supreme One who alone exists really and absolutely,” and is represented with four heads and four arms, the idea of four-fold power and rule being thus expressed. The proof that, at the same time, the idea of duality existed, is furnished by the invention of a female counterpart of Brahma, namely, his consort Sarawati and the later development of the rival religions which now exist side by side and divide the population of India into halves. The cult of Vishnu, associated with the male principle, though curiously blended with the principle of preservation, is obviously a parallel form of the American and Chinese cult of the Above or Heaven; while that of Siva, or the female principle, strongly mingled with the idea of destruction, forms a parallel to the cult of the Earth-mother and of darkness and the nocturnal heaven. Brahma was born of an egg and is also figured as springing from a lotus which, in turn rises from the navel of Vishnu or Narayana, “the Spirit moving on the waters.”...(90)