Feb., 1912. Jade. * 147 



a creation or creator; this saying should be thus formulated, that there 

 is no creation myth preserved to us in the Chinese traditions. These 

 have been handed down by practical philosophers or scholars who 

 hardly topk an interest in the religious notions and legends of the 

 masses. We therefore have merely a one-sided and biased version 

 of their religion abridged and curtailed after an eclectic method stamp- 

 ing out everything that did not fit the Confucian system. A number 

 of passages in the Yi king will allow the inference that there has been 

 an ancient idea of Heaven and Earth having created the universe by 

 their combined action. Even the most ancient texts express them- 

 selves in an abstract style of dignified philosophic speech which does 

 not reflect the people's language. It will not be a heresy to imagine 

 that in popular thought this process was simply conceived of as a 

 parallel to the human act of generation, as so universally found 

 among many primitive peoples, and this presumption will adequately 

 account for the dropping into high literature of such comparisons of 

 Heaven and Earth with father and mother. 1 



It is difficult to see why Chavannes denies that a regular cult was 

 devoted to Earth in the same way as to Heaven. King Siian in the 

 Shi king (Legge, Vol. II, p. 529) presents his offerings to the Powers 

 above and below, and then buries them. The Li ki {Wang chih III, 

 6; ed. Couvreur, Vol. I, p. 289) says expressly that the Son of Heaven 

 sacrifices to Heaven and Earth {Vien ti). The Chou li (Biot, Vol. I, 

 p. 487 and Vol. II, p. 528) mentions the perforated circular jade piece 

 with a kuei attached at the upper and lower ends, described above, 

 which serves in the sacrifices to Earth. The archaeological finds 

 exhibiting a jade image of Earth and a jade symbol used in the sacrifices 

 in its honor point in the same direction and afford a still weightier 

 evidence. One of the crimes of the last tyrant of the Shang dynasty 

 was that he sacrificed neither to Heaven nor to Earth, nor to the 

 souls of his ancestors (Shu king, ed. Couvreur, p. 181). It was and 

 is only the emperor who possessed the privilege of sacrificing to Heaven 

 and Earth, and hence it is clear that Earth ranked with Heaven on the 

 same level, that they were correlate to each other, and that the cult 

 and the sacrifice devoted to the deity of Earth was of just as great 

 importance as that to Heaven. 



Also at the present time, the emperor stands in the same relation 

 to Earth as to Heaven. In prayer to both, he styles himself a " subject," 



1 This point of view has been rejected by Plath (Die Religion und der Cultus der 

 alten Chinesen, Part I, p. 37) on the ground of objections the validity of which I 

 fail to see. His interpretation that the term "father and mother" merely refers to 

 parental care, and that therefore the sovereign is called father and mother of the 

 people, is the mere outcome of a rational subjectivism which is not borne out by the 

 wording and thoughts of the Chinese texts. 



