Directory_and_Chronicle_1842 — Page 129

1842

Portraits of the Three Sovereigns

110

氏皇

1. F

Tien hwáng shí, the Celestial Sovereign, or the Au- gust one of Heaven, stands first in the trio, the immediate successor of Pwánkú, noticed in our last number, page 47. This being was born on one of the mountains of Kwanlun, "in a region beyond which there is nothing." His deeds, like the place of his birth, are more easily conceived than described. Most historians allow him, or his family, to have existed through thirteen generations, during a period of 18,000 years. Some Chinese historians have attempted to correct the above, and have proposed to read 1800 years instead of eighteen thousand.

By some writers, also, the invention of the horary characters, now in common use is attributed to the celestial sovereign.