Directory_and_Chronicle_1842 — Page 128

IDO

Portraits of the Three Sovereigns.

FEB

8. Sinshing, or the New-city, is of a circular form, having two gates on the west, and one at each of the other cardinal points. It is situated directly south from Lin'án and west from Fúyáng, a few miles distant northward from the Tsientáng river, between two little rivulets, one on the east and one on the west, uniting on the south of the town, and then flowing on together to the Tsientáng.

9. Chánghwá stands about midway between Yiitsien and the west- ern frontier of the province, and makes the fifth stage from the pro- vincial city, Hángchau,-Yüháng, Linʼan, Yiitsien, and Chánghwá, all standing nearly in a right line with regard to each other and at equal distances on that line.

(To be continued).

ART. V. Portraits of the Three Sovereigns, the immediate succes- sors of Pwánkú, among the Chinese the reputed progenitor of the human fumily.

THE portraits of these three sovereigns are the best commentaries upon their characters-evincing clearly enough that they are of a fabulous origin. Admitting that such is their origin, as all Chinese historians do, it becomes as easy as it is useless, to descant upon their genealogies and deeds and physiognomies. They form a trio, and are the representatives of the three great powers, so often spoken of by the Chinese.

三才者天地人

Three powers the heaven, earth, man.

On this a commentator remarks: "That which was light and pure, in the exhalations of chaos, floated upward, and formed heaven; that which was heavy and impure settled downward and formed earth. In the midst of heaven and earth, all things multifariously sprung forth; but man was the most excellent, man being the divine part thereof. Breath he received from the combined influences in nature; renovation and nourishment by his conduct; and the produc- gave tions (thence resulting) were unceasing,-he being associated with heaven and earth; and therefore they were called the three powers.' From these ideas regarding the three powers, the phrase becomes an equivalent for encyclopedia--bringing into one system whatever is found and understood in heaven, on the earth, and among mankind.

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