with its transverse tube of jade, and reduced to a harmonious system (the movements of) the Seven Directors[1].
Thereafter, he sacrificed specially, but with the ordinary forms, to God; sacrificed with reverent purity to the Six Honoured Ones; offered their appropriate sacrifices to the hills and rivers; and extended his worship to the host of spirits[2].*
He called in (all) the five jade-symbols of rank; and when the month was over, he gave daily audience to (the President of) the Four Mountains, and all the Pastors[3], (finally) returning their symbols to the various princes.
In the second month of the year he made a tour of inspection eastwards, as far as Thâi-zung[4], where he presented a burnt-offering to Heaven, and sacrificed in order to the hills and rivers.* Thereafter he gave audience to the princes of the east. He set in accord their seasons and months, and regulated the days; he made uniform the standard-tubes, with the measures of length and of capacity, and the steel-yards; he regulated the five (classes of) ceremonies, with (the various) articles of introduction,—the five
- ↑ Probably the seven stars of the Great Bear.
- ↑ Who the Six Honoured Ones were cannot be determined with certainty. An-kwo thought they were, 'the seasons, cold and heat, the sun, the moon, the stars, and drought,' that is, certain spirits, supposed to rule over these phenomena and things, and residing probably in different stars. The whole paragraph describes Shun's exercise of the prerogative of the sovereign, so far as religious worship was concerned.
- ↑ The princes of the various states, whose official chief was the President of the Four Mountains, all 'shepherds of men.'
- ↑ Thâi-zung is mount Thâi, in Shan-tung. See note on the President of the Four Mountains, p. 35.
