[Mr. Wylie Sent A Most Valuable Paper On The Mongol Astronomical
Instruments At Peking To The Congress Of Orientalists Held At St.
Petersburg, Which Was Reprinted At Shanghai In 1897 In Chinese
Researches.
Some of the astronomical instruments have been removed to
Potsdam by the Germans since the siege of the foreign Legations at Peking
in 1900.
- H. C.]
On these auguries, and on diviners and fortune-tellers, see Semedo, p.
118 seqq.; Kidd, p. 313 (also for preceding references, Mid. Kingdom,
II. 152; Gaubil, 136).
NOTE 2. - + The real cycle of the Mongols, which was also that of the
Chinese, runs: 1. Rat; 2. Ox; 3. Tiger; 4. Hare; 5. Dragon; 6. Serpent; 7.
Horse; 8. Sheep; 9. Ape; 10. Cock; 11. Dog; 12. Swine. But as such a cycle
[12 earthly branches, Ti-chih] is too short to avoid confusion, it is
combined with a co-efficient cycle of ten epithets [celestial Stems,
T'ien-kan] in such wise as to produce a 60-year cycle of compound names
before the same shall recur. These co-efficient epithets are found in four
different forms: (1) From the Elements: Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, Water,
attaching to each a masculine and feminine attribute so as to make ten
epithets. (2) From the Colours: Blue, Red, Yellow, White, Black, similarly
treated. (3) By terms without meaning in Mongol, directly adopted or
imitated from the Chinese, Ga, Yi, Bing, Ting, etc. (4) By the five
Cardinal Points: East, South, Middle, West, North. Thus 1864 was the first
year of a 60-year cycle:
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