times a hundred thousand creations and annihilations, there was a combination of a hundred thousand times ten thousand layers of pure air, which produced the holy prince of chaos. The records entitle him, "The most true and great emperor, the marvellous, original and venerable prince of chaos, and ten thousand transformations." He is also entitled, "The precious divinity, the aged man, the venerable prince." Thought these in successive ages were produced, yet they were not born.
It happened during the dynasty Shang, in the time of the eighteenth emperor Yang-kia, that the divine transforming air, was separated and imparted to the womb of the woman Hiuen-miao-yu, [marvellous and valuable woman,] where it remained eighty-one years, till the time of Wu-ting, the twenty-second king, in the year Keng-shin of the cycle, the second moon, and fifteenth day, when at the sixth hour in the morning, she was delivered, [of Tao,] being in the kingdom Tsu, the district Ku, the village Sai, and the street Kio-jin. Tao's surname
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