Feb., 1912. Jade. 119 



the Manchu text which is on the left-hand side of the book appears 

 below on our plate. On each of the two extreme slabs, a pair of dragons 

 is engraved. The original, apparently taken from the imperial palace 

 in 1900, was reported to me in 1905 to be in some private collection in 

 Japan; I do not know what has become of it since. 



The Manchu text of this unique document runs romanized as follows : 



Ijishon Dasan-i sunja-ci aniya suwayan singgeri, omson biya-i ice-de 

 Sahon coko. yiie, jakon-de suwayan muduri inenggi. 



soorin-be siraha hiyookulara omolo Fu-lin, mafa fulin werihe wang-de 

 hengkileme wesimbure, gisun. abka-i fejergi ba uhei toktobufi, amba 

 doro-be mutebuhengge, mafai hoturi werihe 1 turgun. tondo oft, doro 

 kooli-be alhodame, hiyooSulara, gonin-be akombume, ts'a boo-bai-be 

 gingguleme, jafafi amcame tukiyeme, Yendebuhe Mafa Tondo Howangdi 

 fungnefi gung, erdemu-be lumen jalan-de tutabuha. 



Translation. "In the fifth year of the period Ijishon Dasan (Shun- 

 chih, 1648), a year of the Yellow Rat, from the first day of the eleventh 

 month, a day of the White Rooster, till the eighth day, a day of the 

 Yellow Dragon. 



I, Fulin (Shun-chih), heir to the throne, thy grandson animated by 

 piety, prostrating myself before the ancestor, the king who left me his 

 blessing, announce as follows: The reason I brought under my sway 

 the total empire and accomplished great deeds is due to the blessings 

 bequeathed to me by the ancestor. Sincere, in accordance with law and 

 usage, animated by piety, with all my heart, I confer upon thee, on 

 this precious tablet, the posthumous honorary title 'the Sublime 

 Ancestor, the Just Emperor' (Yendebuhe Mafa Tondo Howangdi, in 

 Chinese: Hing Tsu Chih Huang-ti), whereby thy merits and virtues 

 may be handed down to the ten thousand generations." 



Also the autographs of famous calligraphists were formerly some- 

 times reproduced on jade slabs. A specimen of the writing of the famous 

 Wang Hien-chih or Wang Ta-ling (344-388 a. d.) of the Tsin peiiod 

 was thus preserved. The jade tablet itself is lost, but a rubbing from it 

 preserved in the collection of Mr. Shen in Wu-kiang (Su-chou fu, Kiang- 

 su) is reproduced in the Chinese Journals Shen chou kuo kuang tsi, 

 No. 2, Plate V, and Kuo suei hio pao, Vol. 4, No. 1. 



1 Written in the text erroneously derihe. 



