Page:The Mythology of All Races Vol 8 (Chinese and Japanese).djvu/45

Rh to have ruled at the dawn of history. Huang Ti, usually known as the Yellow Emperor, formed a much more convenient starting point for the kind of religion that Taoism gave promise of becoming, than the ethical philosopher, Lao Tzǔ, for Huang Ti had not only had a miraculous birth, but his reign had been filled with marvellous events. He gathered around him six great Ministers with whose help he arranged the cyclical period of sixty years and composed a calendar. Mathematical calculations were inaugurated. The people were taught to make utensils of wood, metal and earth, to build boats and carriages, to use money, to make musical instruments out of bamboo which he first brought to China, and to do many other wonderful things. He sacrificed to Shang Ti, the Supreme Ruler, in the first temple erected for this purpose, and is thus the reputed founder of the sacrificial cult. He is also given credit for having built the first palace so as to distinguish his residence from those of the common people. He studied the operations of the opposing principles of nature, and the properties of various herbs which he made into medicines, by the use of which human life couJd be greatly prolonged. Before his death, at the age of one hundred and eleven, the phoenix (fêng-huang), and the unicorn (ch'i-lin), had appeared as evidences of the benignity of his rule. These traditions concerning the Yellow Emperor had become well established in China long before the decision of T'ai Tsung to make Taoism a religion, and what more natural than that the Yellow Emperor, who had become the starting point of all miraculous and wonderful national events, should become the actual fountain from which it could be claimed that Taoism flowed. If it had not been for the influence of the Conservative School which emphasized ethical teaching, there is not much likelihood that any large emphasis would ever have been placed in Taoism upon its connection with Lao Tzǔ, for as a matter of fact, Taoism as a religion has very slight connection with any kind of ethical teaching. Its real emphasis is upon