The Annals of the Bamboo Books.
These are annals from which a great part of Chinese chronology is derived. Mr. Legge gives the history of their discovery, as related in the history of the Emperor Woo, the first of the sovereigns of Tsin, as follows:
“In the fifth year of his reign, under title of Hëen-ning[231] [= A.D. 279], some lawless parties, in the department of Keih, dug open the grave of King Sëang of Wei [died B.C. 295] and found a number of bamboo tablets, written over, in the small seal character, with more than one hundred thousand words, which were deposited in the imperial library.”
Mr. Legge adds, “The Emperor referred them to the principal scholars in the service of the Government, to adjust the tables in order, having first transcribed them in modern characters. Among them were a copy of the Yih King, in two books, agreeing with that generally received, and a book of annals, in twelve or thirteen chapters, beginning with the reign of Hwang-te, and coming down to the sixteenth year of the last emperor of the Chow dynasty, B.C. 298.”
“The reader will be conscious of a disposition to reject at once the account of the discovery of the Bamboo Books. He has read so much of the recovery of portions of the Shoo from the walls of houses that he must be tired of this mode of finding lost treasures, and smiles when he is now called on to believe that an old tomb opened and yielded its literary stores long after the human remains that had been laid in it had mingled with the dust. From the death of King Sëang to A.D. 279 were 574 years.”
Against this, however, which is not a very weighty objection, if we consider the length of time that Egyptian papyri have been entombed before their restoration to the light, Mr. Legge ranges preponderating evidence in favour of their authenticity, and concludes that “they had, no doubt, been lying for nearly six centuries in the tomb in which they had been first deposited when they were then brought anew to light.”
The annals consist of two portions, one forming what is undoubtedly the original text, and consisting of short notices of occurrences, such as, “In his fiftieth year, in the autumn, in the seventh month, on the day Kang shin [fifty-seventh of cycle] phœnixes, male and female, arrived,” &c. &c. It also records earthquakes, obituaries, accessions, and remarkable natural phenomena. The other portion is interspersed between these, in the form of rather diffuse, though not very numerous, notes, which by some are supposed to be a portion of the original text, by others, to have been added by the commentator Shin Yo [A.D. 502-557].
In the latter, frequent references are made to the appearance of phœnixes (the fung wang), ki-lins (unicorns), and dragons.
In the former we find only incidental references to either of these, such as, “XIV. The Emperor K‘ung-kea. In his first year (B.C. 1611), when he came to the throne, he dwelt on the west of the Ho. He displaced the chief of Ch‘e-wei,[232] and appointed Lew-luy[233] to feed the dragons.”