OF CHINA, 19 



No reference is made in these quotations of ancient times to any 

 special god or goddess of silkworms. They only show how great was the 

 importance attached by the government to sericulture. "We see by the 

 Tchou-li and the LI hi that there was in the capital a state Magnanerie 

 in olden times. The inference is not deprived of evidence. A descrip- 

 tion 85 of the public buildings in Tchang-ngan, the ancient metropolis dur- 

 ing the Han dynasty mentions a Hen kwan or cocoonery within the 1/ 

 grounds of the Shang-lin park, and a Tsan sheh or silkworms' house which 

 gave its name to a street of the capital. 



83. We cannot positively say that the state inauguration by the Queen 

 and Empress of the silkworm season, which is regulated by the two 

 rituals, we have quoted, was solemnized regularly and without intercep- 

 since Antiquity. But there are occasionally statements about it. 



Iu the Dynastic Annals of the Tsin dynasty (265-419 p,c.) Section 

 of Rites, we find stared that the Empress drove to the silkworm mansion 

 in the Park of the eastern suburb and sacrificed to the (God or God 

 dess of silkworms (9628-705), Tsan shen 86 . "We know that the Empress 

 of Kang-ti (343-344) renewed the observation of ancient rules 87 , the 

 silk-worm ceremony was probably one of them. Who was then desig- 

 nated as the goddess of silkworms does not appear. It may have been 

 one of those whose names appear in later statements. (Cf. §§ 37, 38). 



34. Under the Sung dynasty of the Vth century, in the reign of Hiao 

 Wu ti, year 460, there is a special entry in the Dynastic Annals stating 

 that the Empress, in the third month ordered that the ceremony of feed- 

 ing the silkworms should be solemnized, and was herself present 88 . 



"Whatever may have been the temporary breaks in the celebration, we 

 have seen that the ceremony is still solemnized now a days. 



35. The Tung Hen Jcang muh or Synapsis of history, states that 

 several Empresses, after the time of Si-ling she gave their patronage to 

 sericulture, but it does not substantiate the statement. The probabilities 

 are that the silk industry was indeed taken care of by the soverign and 

 his queen, but no personal names are quoted with or without prominence 

 with refex*ence to it 89 . 



35. Sericnlture was then and has remained since a national industry 

 of paramount importance. But no reference occurs in any of these quo- 

 tations from the classics as to whom was the creator or at least the 

 teacher of the industry for the Chinese. Doubts seem to have been en- 

 tertained, by the people, about the departed personage, who in her life 

 time had taken, more than any other, interest in the matter and whose 



