59 



in A.J). 741 and was considered to be a good omen for the 

 Emperor. It was spotted blue and red, and covered with scales. 

 Its mane resembled that of a dragon, and its neighing was like 

 the tone of a flute. It could cover three hundred . miles. Its 

 mother was a common horse which had becorhe pregnant by 

 drinking water from a river in which it was bathed. This agrees 

 with the statement of the Shut ying fu quoted above about the 

 dragon horse being the vital spirit of river water. The same 

 horse is described as follows in another work of much later 

 date ' : "A horse with dragon scales, the tail of a huge serpent, 

 frizzy hair, round eyes and a fleshy crest". When the Emperor 

 fled from the capital to the West, this horse entered a river, 

 changed into a' dragon and swam away. 



Another dragon horse, which appeared in A. D. 622, had a 

 scaly dragon's body, spotted with five colours, and a horse's head 

 with two white horns. In its mouth it carried an object about 

 three or four ch'ih long. This horse was seen on a river, marching 

 about a hundred steps on the surface of the water, looking about 

 and then disappearing ^. 



Finally, we may refer to a passage of the Shili i hi ', where 

 we read that the Emperor Muh of the Cheu dynasty in the 

 thirty second year of his reign drove around, the world in a 

 carriage, drawn by eight winged dragon horses *. 



§ 4. Geomaney. 



The so-called fung-shui (JH,;3|C, "wind and water") is a 

 geomantical system, prevalent throughout China from olden 

 times down to the present age. The tiger and the dragon, the 

 gods of wind and water, are the keystones of this doctrine. I 

 deem it superfluous to treat of it in extenso, because Professor 



Introd. p. X, this cyclopedia contains only what the Emperor (T^ai Tsung) reserved for 

 direct publication, whereas the T'^ai-pHng kwang ki, Hj^ 2pl E sfl ^ "Ample Writings 

 of the T'ai-p'ing period", republished about 1566, consists merely of such parts of it 

 as were ejected by the Emperor. Ch. 435, quoting the Suen shih chi, *g* ^5 ^^ ^ 

 written in the ninth century by Chang Tuh, Hg ge. 



1 The Yuen Men lei han, 7^^^^! written in 1710 by Chang Ying, 

 llg ^, and others; Ch. 433. 



2 T'^ai-pSng yu-lan, Ch. 435. 



3 :^ ^ IE' written in A. D. 357 by Wang Kia, ^ ^ I Ch. Ill, p. la. 



4 ^mAMzm. ^^^m. 



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