The ancient Mexican priest-astronomers marked three divisions of the night by burning incense in honor of certain stars, after dusk, at midnight and at break of day.
The mention of the introduction into China of the Mongolian hour-computation leads to a consideration of the origin of what is known as the Chinese civilization. It is, of course, impossible to do more here than touch upon the various and opposite views held on this important question by leading European and Chinese scholars. On the one hand, “the existence of the Chinese civilization in the east of Asia, separated from early centres by the whole width of Asia and intervening trackless deserts, has seemed a problem to many students and led to the conclusion of its sporadic growth, an idea which is fostered by Chinese historians.” (See Douglas on Chinese Culture and Civilization, 1890.) On the other hand, it is maintained that the Chinese entered China from Tartary and were emigrants from Babylonia who abandoned their country when Nakhunte, king of Susiana, conquered Babylon in 2295 B.C.
According to Legge, the Chinese came through central Asia about 2200 B.C. and founded colonies on the banks of the Yellow river and its tributaries. These colonists founded a Middle Kingdom in China, a federation of states with a chief supreme ruler, on the [pg 300] pattern of Babylonia. They introduced the art of writing and established a calendar with a year of 360 days and an intercalary month.
It is stated that the names of the five planets of the Chinese, besides the Sun and Moon, were called by the same names as in Babylon. (See Edkins op. cit., also The old Babylonian characters and their derivatives, Terrien de Lacouperie, Babylonian and Oriental Record, March, 1888.) Some authorities are inclined to consider Chinese astronomy as derived from the Chaldean; whilst others have instituted comparisons between it and the Hindoo system. The results of the latter line of investigation are set forth by J. F. Davis in the following passage of his work on the Chinese (London, 1836, vol. ii., p. 304): “A comparison between the ancient system of the Chinese and of Hindoo astronomy is rendered somewhat perplexing by the fact that, while there are some points of resemblance there are others in which they essentially differ. Both of them have twenty-eight lunar mansions and a cycle of sixty years, but a careful observation detects some important distinctions: the Hindoo cycle is a cycle of Jupiter while that of the Chinese is a solar cycle, and the twenty-eight constellations of the Hindoos are nearly all of them equal divisions of the great circle, consisting of about 13° each, while the Chinese constellations are extremely unequal, varying from 30° to less than 1°. The author's father, in conjunction with Sir William Jones and Messrs. Colebrook and Bentley, proved that the Hindoo astronomy did not go farther than the calculation of eclipses and some other changes with the rules and tables for performing the same. Besides their lunar zodiac of twenty-eight mansions, the Hindoos (unlike the Chinese) have the solar, including twelve signs perfectly identical with ours, and demonstrating, in that respect, a common origin.”
As we know from Herodotus, the Egyptians had a week of seven days and it is remarkable that the Hindoos had anciently the same, the planetary names being given to the days in exactly the same order as among ourselves, except that Friday was the first. The Chinese reckon five planets to the exclusion of the sun and moon, but they give the name of one of their twenty-eight lunar mansions successively to each day of the year in a perpetual rotation, without regard to the moon's changes; so that the same four out of the twenty-eight invariably fall on our Sundays and [pg 301] constitute, as it were, perpetual Sunday letters. A native Chinese first remarked this odd fact to the author, and on examination it proved perfectly correct.
To the above it may be well to add the following comparison between the Chinese, Tibetan and Indian systems: “The Tibetans received astronomical science from India and China ... the Chinese taught them the science of divination. Both systems are based upon a unit of sixty years, differing, however, in modes of denominating years. In these cycles of sixty years, when numbered according to the Indian principle, each year has a particular name; but in the Chinese method the names used in the Chinese duodecimal cycle are used five times, coupled with the five elements or their respective colors, each of the latter introduced in the series twice in immediate succession” (Schlagintweit, Buddhism in Thibet, p. 27). According to Humboldt, “the Tzihichen, or public calculators of Lhassa take pride in the fact that years of the same name only return about every two centuries. They combine 15 signs: five masculine, five feminine and five neuter, with twelve signs of the zodiac” (Monuments des peuples de l'Amérique i, p. 386).
With regard to the ancient connection between China and India it is well to recall the well-known fact that Buddhism did not enter China from India until the first century of the Christian era and had a prolonged struggle for existence and influence in the country during several centuries.
The Buddhist missionaries introduced the mode of calculating cycles of years into China, according to Biot, who states that the primitive calendar of the Chinese, instituted by Hwang-te, the first king of the “Flowery land,” was a day-count only.
Let us briefly enumerate some bare facts bearing upon the age and development of the state, religion and government of ancient China. In 2697 B.C. Hwang-te (the Babylonian?) erected a temple to the honor of Shang-te, the deity associated with the earliest traditions of the Chinese race. Upon the authority of a Chinaman of the present day it is stated that “the word Shang-te means supreme ruler; but, as it is not lawful to use this name lightly, Chinamen usually name the supreme ruler by his residence, which is Tien=heaven” (Edkins, op. cit. p. 71).
An extremely instructive light is thrown upon the Taouist conception of a supreme being or ruler, by the following episode [pg 302] related by Mr. Edkins in his “Religion in China” (p. 109). “I met [in 1872] on one occasion a schoolmaster from the neighborhood of Chapoo.... The inquiry was put to him, Who is the Lord of heaven and earth? He replied that he knew none but the pole-star, called in the Chinese language Teen-hwang-ta-te, the great imperial ruler of heaven. It was stated to him that it was a matter very much to be regretted that he should hold such views as this of the Supreme Being.”