Ch’Ing Siang

Morrison, Dict., Pt. II, Vol. I., p. 70, says: “Chin-seang, a Minister of State, was so called under the Ming Dynasty.” According to Mr. E. H. Parker (China Review, XXIV., p. 101), Ching Siang were abolished in 1395.

In the quotation from the Masálak al Absár instead of Landjun (Lang Chang), read Landjun (Lang Chung).

XXXIII., pp. 447–8. “You must know, too, that the Tartars reckon their years by twelves; the sign of the first year being the Lion, of the second the Ox, of the third the Dragon, of the fourth the Dog, and so forth up to the twelfth; so that when one is asked the year of his birth he answers that it was in the year of the Lion (let us say), on such a day or night, at such an hour, and such a moment. And the father of a child always takes care to write these particulars down in a book. When the twelve yearly symbols have been gone through, then they come back to the first, and go through with them again in the same succession.”

“Ce témoignage, writes Chavannes (T’oung Pao, 1906, p. 59), n’est pas d’une exactitude rigoureuse, puisque les animaux n’y sont pas nommés à leur rang; en outre, le lion y est substitué au tigre de l’énumération chinoise; mais cette dernière différence provient sans doute de ce que Marco Polo connaissait le cycle avec les noms mongols des animaux; c’est le léopard dont il a fait le lion. Quoiqu’il en soit, l’observation de Marco Polo est juste dans son ensemble et d’innombrables exemples prouvent que le cycle des douze animaux était habituel dans les pièces officielles émanant des chancelleries impériales à l’époque mongole.”

XXXIII., p. 448.