202 



Shinzo Shinjo 



five of them: Ta-lmo :^i}i, Antares ; Ts'cm^, Orion; Fei-tou ^IS]-, 

 the Dipper, or the seven stars of Ursa Major ; lunisolar conjunction 

 points ^-^1(5, ; ancl the sun itself (meridian altitudes being observed 

 with gnomon i;^). Of these, the first three seem to have been in 

 use anterior to the beginning of the Chou dynasty in the 12th century 

 B.C. ; the fourth was then introduced probably as a successor to the 

 Fei-tou ;jt,4'j ^lie Dipper, which in turn gave place to the fifth about 

 600 B.C., the gnomon being then used for observing the solar 

 altitude. 



We see, in the Ch'un-cJi'm Kung-yang-clman ^^^^^, whicli 

 is a commentary on the Ch'un-ch'iu ^^ by Xung-yang, written 

 presumably about the third century B.C., the passage: 



" Ta-lmo (Antares) is a large asterism, fa {=Ts'an, Orion) is a 



large asterism, and the northerrmopfc asterism { = Fei-tou, the 



Dipper) is also a large asterism.'' 



Ta-huo ;}^^, i.e., a Scorpii, had been long observed from tlie 

 earliest times, as the asterism indicating midsummer (i.e., the fifth 

 month of the year according to Chinese counting) by its meridian 

 transit in the evening just after sunset. Since it had been in use as 

 the standard asterism for several hundred years throughout the whole 

 of the Yin dynasty ^ (1766-1122 B.C., according to the common 

 chronology), it came at last to be worshipped as the patron-god of the 

 people of Yin ; and further, in later days to be worshipped as the 

 holy celestial dragon (Scorpion) by the whole nation. Thus it gTadu- 

 ally monopolized the name c/i'en 0:, and on the occasion of preparing 

 12 symbols for the designation of the 12 months, presumably towards 

 the end of the Yin dynasty, the character ^ was made the symbol 

 denoting the fifth. 



Ts'an ^, the three stars in the belt of Orion, seeui to have been 

 observed as the asterism fixing mid- winter (i.e., the eleventh month 

 according to Chinese counting) by their appearance in the eastern sky 

 just after sunset. The eleventh sign hsu J^, in the row of 12 symbols 

 (-]-Zl^) designating the 12 months, seems to be nothing but a figure 

 standing for an ax, whicli the configuration around the astci-ism ^ 

 seems to have been thought to resemble. The Chinese character ^ sui, 

 a year, is composed of two characters, J^ lisil and ^ pu (to step), 

 obviously denoting the interval between the month of J^ (ie., the 

 eleventh) in one year and the same month in the next year. 



