Lao Tze, who will be dealt with more fully in the next chapter, exclaims: “I would make people return to the use of knotted cords”. His disciple, Kwang Tze, lamented that the paradisaical state of the early ages had been disturbed by law-makers. Decadence set in with the “Prometheus” and the “Adam”, and continued until the people became “perplexed and disordered, and had no way by which they might return to their true nature, and bring back their original condition”.[3]
“It is remarkable”, says Legge, “that at the commencement of Chinese history, Chinese tradition placed a period of innocence, a season when order and virtue ruled in men’s affairs.” This comment is made in connection with the following passage in the Shu King (Book XXVII, “The Marquis of Lu on Punishments”): “The King said, ‘According to the teachings of ancient times, Khih Yu was the first to produce disorder, which spread among the quiet, orderly people, till all became robbers and murderers, owl-like and yet self-complacent in their conduct, traitors and villains, snatching and filching, dissemblers and oppressors’”.[4] [[277]]
In some accounts of the early period, Fu Hi is succeeded by his sister, the Empress Nu Kwa, the heroine of the Deluge.
Fu Hi’s usual successor, however, is Shen-nung (2838–2698 B.C.), the Chinese Osiris, who introduced the agricultural mode of life and instructed the people how to make use of curative herbs. He was worshipped as the god of agriculture. Thus an Ode sets forth:
That my fields are in such good condition,
Is matter of joy to my husbandmen.
With lutes, and with drums beating,
We will invoke the Father of Husbandry,
And pray for sweet rain,
To increase the produce of our millet fields,