Directory_and_Chronicle_1841 — Page 136

THE

CHINESE REPOSITORY.

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VOL. X.-MARCH, 1841.- No. 3.

ART. 1. Chronology of the Chinese; their era and mode of reck- oning by cycles, with a complete series of their successive dy- nasties and sovereigns.

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Chronology is so intimately connected with the record of historical events, so essential to the proper arrangement of facts, that the study of the latter cannot be pursued with pleasure, without some attention to the former. Without chronology, history will be dark and con- fused, and its study devoid of the advantages it would otherwise possess. Waving here all questions respecting the accuracy of the Chinese mode of computing time, it will suffice for our present pur- pose, if we can lay before our readers a concise account of their cycle, with complete series of their successive dynastics and sovereigns.

For the cycle of sixty years, which the Chinese call hwa keǎ tsze, they acknowledge themselves indebted to Naou, or Naou the Great, one of the ministers of Hwang te, or the Yellow emperor. By command of his sovereign, in the sixty-first year of his reign, Naou the Great, taking the sheih kan, or ten

Ta

horary characters,甲乙丙丁戊己庚辛壬癸 keă, yeih, ping, ting, mow, ke, káng, sin, jin, kwei, and together with them the+sheih urh che, twelve other horary characters, 子丑寅辰巳午未申酉戌亥tsze, choro, yin,

maou, shin, sze, woo, we, shin, yew, seah, hac, he formed this cycle. The sheih kan have been called the 'ten stems,' and the sheih urh che, the twelve branches.' Naou, commencing with

VOL. X. NO. III.

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