Page:Brinkley - China - Volume 3.djvu/69

ereigns, instructions for princes, proclamations and injunctions to the people, mandates, announcements, canons to ministers of state, and ritualistic records. Sinologues are not agreed as to whether this remarkable work was compiled contemporaneously with the events to which its contents refer, but they are agreed that it may be considered historical in part, at any rate. Confucius gave the weight of his great authority to that view, for he edited a portion of the work and wrote a preface in which he called it "the highest book." The first two parts of the Shu-king relate to the period 2357–2207 B. C., when China's model rulers, Yao and Shun, governed the Empire. From these sections it is learned that there was in that era regular worship of God by Chinese sovereigns; that sacrifices were made to the hills and rivers, to the host of spirits, and to ancestors. In short, the canon shows monotheism associated with inferior worship of subordinate spirits as God's instruments in nature, and of ancestors.

The evidence furnished by the "book of records" is supplemented by that of the "book of odes" (Shih-king), which also belongs to the "Five-classics" series. Of these odes there were originally some three thousand, but only 305 survive. They are divided into "national airs," "lesser and greater eulogiums," and "sacrificial chants," and it is believed that the period of their composition extended from 1719 to 585 B. C.