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 CHAPTER III HISTORY LEXICOGRAPHY

SO far as China is concerned, the art of writing history may be said to have been created during the period under review. SsO-MA CH'IEN, the so-called Father of History, was born about B.C. 145. At the age of ten he was already a good scholar, and at twenty set forth upon a round of travel which carried him to all parts of the empire. In B.C. no his father died, and he stepped into the hereditary post of grand astrologer. After devoting some time and energy to the reformation of the calendar, he now took up the historical work which had been begun by his father, and which was ultimately given to the world as the Historical Record. It is a history of China from the earliest ages down to about one hundred years before the Christian era, in one hundred and thirty chapters, arranged under five head- ings, as follows: (i) Annals of the Emperors; (2) Chronological Tables; (3) Eight chapters on Rites, Music, the Pitch-pipes, the Calendar, Astrology, Imperial Sacri- fices, Watercourses, and Political Economy ; (4) Annals of the Feudal Nobles ; and (5) Biographies of many of the eminent men of the period, which covers nearly three thousand years. In such estimation is this work justly held that its very words have been counted, and found to number 526,500 in all. It must be borne in mind

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