[39] A writer who flourished in the early part of the fourth century, and composed a work in thirty books, entitled “Supernatural Researches.”
[40] The birth of a boy was formerly signalled by hanging a bow at the door; that of a girl, by displaying a small towel—indicative of the parts that each would hereafter play in the drama of life.
[41] Alluding to the priest Dharma-nandi, who came from India to China, and tried to convert the Emperor Wu Ting of the Liang dynasty; but failing in his attempt, he retired full of mortification to a temple at Sung-shan, where he sat for nine years before a rock, until his own image was imprinted thereon.
[42] The six gâti or conditions of existence, viz., angels, men, demons, hungry devils, brute beasts, and tortured sinners.
[43] The work of a well-known writer, named Lin I-ch‘ing, who flourished during the Sung dynasty.
[44] The great poet Tu Fu dreamt that his greater predecessor, Li T‘ai-po, appeared to him, “coming when the maple-grove was in darkness, and returning while the frontier pass was still obscured,”—that is, at night, when no one could see him; the meaning being that he never came at all, and that those “who know me (P‘u Sung-ling)” are equally non-existent.
[45] These two lines are short in the original.
[46] A Solomonic judge under the Sung dynasty.
[47] “In hearing litigations, I am like any other body. What is necessary is to cause the people to have no litigations” (Legge).