DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4668#0203
V.] Note 07i Kalendar of Ancient China. 185
the third Book the chiefs lament the loss of the " Standard
Stone and the Equalizing Quarter,* formerly preserved
in the treasury." A standard stone kept in the royal
treasury as a reference for weights and measures is
intelligible enough, and reminds us of the allusion in the
Egyptian Ritual to "the Stone from the building of
those who possess the Ark of Osiris." But an " Equaliz-
ing Quarter ! " A quarter of what ? And what did it
equalize ? We know indeed of one quarter—a quarter
of a day by which in the older country the rotations of
the earth were equalized or harmonized with its revolu-
tions, and which served as a standard for all manner of
periods and measures. And this very quarter suggests
at once a connection with the Standard Stone, since that
stone itself, the throne of Ra in the House of Osiris,
crowning the Chamber of the five Divine Birth-
days, and containing the measure of the thirty-six
sacred decades, represented the " Hep-Tep" or sacred
Festival of Completion-Beginning, involving the secret
of the Grand Cycle, and the equalizing quarter of a
day.
That such a quarter had been lost we have proof from
another part of the same sacred books of China. About
* Professor De Lacouperie, who favoured me with a discussion
°u this subject, pointed out that Midleton translates this expres-
sion simply by the general word " measure." To this I have no
leply to make, except that Professor Legge is a very high autho-
rity, and that ho can scarcely have been unacqaiuted with that
translation. The expression, moreover, seems to speak for itself,
f°r it is just of that peculiar character which no translator would
be likely to assign gratuitously, while a very able scholar might
»"il to render it with precision.
the third Book the chiefs lament the loss of the " Standard
Stone and the Equalizing Quarter,* formerly preserved
in the treasury." A standard stone kept in the royal
treasury as a reference for weights and measures is
intelligible enough, and reminds us of the allusion in the
Egyptian Ritual to "the Stone from the building of
those who possess the Ark of Osiris." But an " Equaliz-
ing Quarter ! " A quarter of what ? And what did it
equalize ? We know indeed of one quarter—a quarter
of a day by which in the older country the rotations of
the earth were equalized or harmonized with its revolu-
tions, and which served as a standard for all manner of
periods and measures. And this very quarter suggests
at once a connection with the Standard Stone, since that
stone itself, the throne of Ra in the House of Osiris,
crowning the Chamber of the five Divine Birth-
days, and containing the measure of the thirty-six
sacred decades, represented the " Hep-Tep" or sacred
Festival of Completion-Beginning, involving the secret
of the Grand Cycle, and the equalizing quarter of a
day.
That such a quarter had been lost we have proof from
another part of the same sacred books of China. About
* Professor De Lacouperie, who favoured me with a discussion
°u this subject, pointed out that Midleton translates this expres-
sion simply by the general word " measure." To this I have no
leply to make, except that Professor Legge is a very high autho-
rity, and that ho can scarcely have been unacqaiuted with that
translation. The expression, moreover, seems to speak for itself,
f°r it is just of that peculiar character which no translator would
be likely to assign gratuitously, while a very able scholar might
»"il to render it with precision.