24 THE SILK GODDESS 



the first ruler necessarily busy with the silkworms, like so many other 



housewives in the silk-producing provinces, and the queens of former kings, 



as shewn and regulated by the traditional rites. 



42. But I do not find the fact given as historical before Liu Shu, the 



collaborator of Szema Kwang, author of the Tung Jcien, published in 



1080. This writer compiled a history, much esteemed and entitled Wei 



hi, from the most remote times, in which his purpose was to record all 



that is not stated in the classics. 102 and where we find the following 



statement: 103 



" Siling she, the Empress of Hwang-ti, began to rear silkworms: 

 "At this period Hwang-ti invented the art of making cloth." 



And thus has grown the legend which since has been looked upon as 



genuine history. 



(43. None of the classics and historical works which we have referred 

 toin these pages, has any meution of Siling '-she, alias Lui-tsu or grand- 

 mother of thread, alias Sien ts'an or ancient silkworm, alias Yuen 

 fei or firs t wife, as the goddess of sericulture. The Si' en Ts'an which 

 are referred to in a spurious passage of the Li hi which we have quoted 

 in a previous paragraph (31), were not understood then as applied 

 to the silkworms reared by the first wife of Hwang-ti, neither by 

 a trope of speech to this fabled personage. The oldest reference to 

 worship of such a goddess is that of the Tsin dynasty, probably in 

 / 344 a.d., but then no name is given, and we have found reason to believe 

 that Si-ling she was not the deity worshipped by the Tsin Empress. Her le- 

 gend was still in a state of formation. It had not yet reached a sufficient 

 degree of authority, and as a fact was not to reach for nearly eight cen- 

 turies the official standing from which the personality of the Grand- 

 mother of thread imposed itself on the Imperialat tention, with deifica- 

 tion and worship as a natural consequence, and the annual state sacrifice 

 ( of the present time. 



44. The claims of Hwang ti and his Queen to the honour of being the 

 first silk culturists are looked upon as little established even by Chinese 

 writers: Hwan Tan, for instance, went so far as to suggest that an earlier 

 ruler Shen-nung, the Mythical husbandman Emperor, was really the first 

 who had ever made a K', n lute in thing wood, and twisted silk for the 

 strings. 104 The suggestion, of course, is valueless in itself, but it shews 

 the little confidence of some Chinese in the story of Siling-she. 



45. Lui-tsu is said by the traditional history to have been a daughter 

 from the clan of Si-ling; the name being at the same time that of her 



