skins for clothing* and to weave 
their fur into webs and caps. He 
was venerated for these benefits, 
and began a SHI or dynasty that 
lasted 350 years, or perhaps reign- 
ed 350 moons, fequal to £7 years. 
The two words KI and SHI, 
translated Period, and Dynasty or 
family, are of some importance; they 
may have other collateral meanings, 
and require a philological examina- 
tion. As they now stand translated , 
they would make the world very old; 
since no less than 10 KI or periods 
are enumerated (we are in the 10th) 
wherein £32 SHI or dynasties of 
Emperors are said to have ruled in 
China, during a course of £76,480 
years before Christ, at the lowest 
computation, or 9 6,9 6£, £20 years 
before Christ, at the highest, with 
many intermediary calculations by 
various authors. But if Cl may al- 
so mean a dynasty or division or peo- 
ple, as it appears to do in some in- 
stances, and SHI an age, or a tribe, 
or a reign ; the whole preposterous 
computations will fall, or be easily 
reducible, so as to agree with those 
of the Hindus, Persians and Egyp- 
tians. 
There are now three principal reli- 
gions in China, each having pecu- 
liar notions on the Creation, and 
early history, &c. as every religion 
elsewhere. 1. The Ju-kiu, religion 
of the learned and worship of an- 
cestors. % Tao-kiu , or worship of 
spirits, a kind of Shamanism. 3. Fo- 
kiu , or the worship of FO, a kind of 
Budhism. All the diversity of 
opinions on those subjects found in 
various Chinese books, are owing to 
this. The various opinions and their 
concordance has never been proper- 
ly attempted ; yet it must be re- 
membered that these three religions 
are in fact mere branches of the pri- 
mitive religion of China, the TAN 
religion or worship of Heaven upon 
hills as altars, of which the empe- 
rors were pontiff’s $ somewhat like 
Judaism, Christianity and Maho- 
metanism are in the western regions, 
the three branches of the primitive 
religion of Adam, Noah, and the 
Patriarchs. 
Chao-kang-tse , of the JU reli- 
gion, has established that the world 
is to last 129,600 years, or a period 
called Yuen, composed of 12 equal 
parts of 10,800 years called Hoei or 
conjunctions, of which the half or 
64,800 years were elapsed at Yao 
towards £357 years before Christ. 
In the first Hoei, the Tai-ki or 
Supreme Being formed the Heavens 
by degrees, and by giving a motion 
to chaotic matter. In the second 
Hoei, the earth was produced in the 
same manner. Men and animals 
in the third, &c. The 10 last Hoei 
answering to the 10 KI, but in a dif- 
ferent chronology. 
Lopi and the most learned histo- 
rians place at the beginningof things 
Hoen-cun, or the chaos, and Puan- 
cu, meaning remote antiquity. Af- 
ter which begin the three first KI, 
which are collectively called San- 
hoang , and commonly put down as 
successive periods or dynasties;* but 
there are in my opinion many intrin- 
sic proofs that they were contempo- 
rary. The principal is that they 
are sometimes called SHI as well 
as KL 
1. Tien-hoang , meaning Celesti- 
al Emperors, the very title yet of the 
emperors of China. They must have 
been the real primitive rulers of 
mankind in Thibet and Western 
China on the mountains: where the 
early history of the Hindus places a 
race of Heavenly kings, and the land 
itself was called Heavenly or Ce- 
lestial. The rulers had many other 
titles, Tien-ling or Celestial In- 
telligence, Chong-iien- hoang -kun 
meaning Middle-Heaven-Emperor- 
Supreme, &c. To them is ascribed 
the discovery of pictured letters and 
books, with the rudiments of Astro- 
nomy. The 1 8000 years of their as- 
cribed duration, may safely be re- 
duced to 1384 years, by reckoning 
each year for a moon, as moons 
were the only primitive years, ev- 
ery where. 
£* Ti-hoang meaning Earthly 
