106 Field Museum of Natural History — Anth., Vol. X. 



division, it will be seen, consists of altogether seven lines which could 

 be interpreted as symbolical of the Seven Governors, i. e. the sun, the 

 moon, and the five planets, to which the instrument employed by Shun, 

 according to the passage in the Shu king, was devoted. In this case, 

 I should like to regard the longest line as the symbol of the sun and the 

 line opposite this one, on the other side of the section, being half the 

 length of the sun-line, as emblematic of the moon, while the five inden- 

 tations between might denote the five planets. The question would 

 now be, — what is the triple repetition of this design to mean? But 

 not being an astronomer, I do not feel like embarking on this problem 

 and must leave its solution to specialists in this field; perhaps M. L. 

 de Saussure will find here a welcome task for the exercise of his acumen. 



Wu Ta-ch'6ng has illustrated also the lower side of this instrument 

 (Fig. 37) which is altogether identical with its upper side, except that 

 there is a fourfold division of the circle by lines into four parts of differ- 

 ent size. The author has made no statement regarding this feature; 

 it can hardly be otherwise than that these lines are not accidental or 

 natural veins in the stone, but saw-marks originating from cutting 

 the disk out of the living stone into its present shape. 



From Chavannes' translation of Se-ma Ts'ien's Annals (Vol. I, 

 p. 58) it will be seen that Se-ma Ts'ien has developed a fundamentally 

 different view of the above passage of the Shu king. He thinks that 

 the seven stars of the Great Bear are here involved, and is no doubt 

 prompted to this view by the fact that the expression yu-heng denotes 

 also the star Alioth e or the three stars piao in the Great Bear; he 

 would mean to say that Shun observed the seven stars to determine 

 the seven domains on which they exert their influence, i.e. the four 

 seasons, the movements of the astral bodies, the configuration of the 

 earth, and the conduct of man. This explanation is far-fetched and 

 artificial, and besides, contradicts Se-ma Ts'ien's own view of the 

 TsH chtng or Seven Governors which are, as expounded in his Chapter 

 XXVII (Chavannes, Vol. Ill, p. 339) the sun, the moon, and the five 

 planets. 



I should add that the symbolic interpretation of the instrument 

 as given above is my own, and not that of Wu Ta-ch'eng, and certainly 

 remains hypothetical; it pretends to be nothing more than a suggestion. 

 The Chinese scholar goes only so far as to assert that, owing to its 

 peculiar numerical divisions, this jade disk could have been utilized 

 for celestial observations, and that he supposes it was an astronomical 

 instrument (hun Vien i), of whose proper significance, however, we 

 are ignorant, as the tradition concerning it has been lost. Neither Wu 

 Ta-ch'£ng is, nor am I, of course, naive enough to believe that the speci- 



