Page:Horæ Sinicæ, Translations from the Popular Literature of the Chinese (horsinictran00morrrich, Morrison, 1812).djvu/70

60 Tao-te says, "Sao-tsi was self existent; produced before the state of absolute nothingness; and arose to be before there was any cause. He superintends the beginning of the heavens and the earths, including more than can uttered or written."

It is further said, that the people of the world report, that Sao-tsi descended during the age of Yin. since the title Sao-tsi began, innumerable creations and annihilations have passed; it began in ages extremely distant, remote in the utmost possible degree. Before spreading abroad the heavens and the earth, he descended as the imperial teacher, and for age after age did not discontinue. Man cannot know him.

It appears in the records of Sao-tsi, that from before opening the heavens and earth, down to the time of king Tang, in the dynasty Yin, for successive generations, he was the imperial teacher; and transforming his person, he descended to the world.

During the dynasty Yin, in the year Kia-tsi of this cycle, the 17th year of the