HISTORY OF CHINE (TSCHIN'E), OF JAFFETH, FOUNDER OF CHINA
.1. THESE are the generations of the seven antecedents of Chine, the chosen of the Great Spirit, Ormazd, otherwise, in Fonecean, Eloih; that is to say:
2. Tse'wong begat Hi-gan, who begat Ah So, who begat T-soo Yong, who begat Ah Paing, who begat T-chook Lee, who begat Tschine Loo, who begat Ah Sho'e, who begat Tschin'e (Chine), gifted in su'is and sar'gis of six generations.
3. Of these, T-soo Yong and Ah So were prophets of Jehovih (Ormazd), and Ah Sho'e was a seer; but the six generations could hear the Voice, and they walked upright, keeping the commandments of Jehovih as revealed in the Zarathustrian laws.
4. Ah Sho'e was a basket-maker, and after the manner of the man, Zarathustra; and Chine, his son, was the fourth birth of Ah Sho'e's wife, Song Heng. Like Moses, Chine was of copper color, and very large, but his hair was red, like a fox, and he was bashful and of few words.
5. Ah Sho'e, i.e., Chine's father, said: I have had other sons; my words are wise and true; Chine was unlike any child born in the world; for boy child, or girl child, no physician could tell which, but rather to the boy kind was he. The angel of Jehovih (Ormazd) came to me before the birth and said: The child shall be called Chine, signifying no sex; as it is written among the ancients, i-e-su, having no earthly desires. For he shall restore the chosen people of Jehovih.
6. Whereof I told the physicians before the birth, but they would not believe. Nevertheless, by command of Jehovih, I sent for seven physicians to witness the birth, lest it be said afterward the surgeons have dealt wrongly with the child at its birth.
7. These physicians came to wit: Em Gha, Tse Thah, Ah Em Fae, Te Gow, T'si, Du Jon, Foh Chaing, and Ah Kaon, and they beheld the child born, whereto they made oath, and a record thereof, touching the strangeness of such a birth, and of the prophecy of its coming into the world; this record was put in the Ha Ta'e King (library) of record belonging to the Sun King *.
8. Being now in my old age, I, Ah Sho'e, put these things on record, of which hundreds have come to ask me concerning the youthhood of Chine.
9. First, that he was the laziest of all children, and dull past belief. For his brothers and sisters mocked him, concerning my prophecy, as to becoming a great man.
10. Second, he ate less than a small bird (Fa'ak), and grew so thin we were ashamed of him in his childhood; verily was he nothing but skin and bone, with a large head.
11. Third, when he walked about, the stools and tables moved out of his way; and yet no hand touched them.
12. Fourth, the angels of Jehovih oft carried him about the hut, and would lift him up to pick fruit from the trees.
13. Fifth, he never laughed, but was serious and pleasant, like an old man that had abandoned the world. But he spoke so little no man knew whether he was wise or stupid.
14. When he was three years old his mother weaned him, or rather he weaned himself. And from that time forth he never ate but fruit and nuts and grains of rice. When he was sixteen years old he began to grow suddenly large and strong, and of deep color. Whereat I procured a teacher for him; but lo, and behold, he could learn a whole book in a day. He learned by hearing once; neither forgot he anything he learnt.
15. In his twenty-second year he began to talk, and the angels of heaven spake through him also. And great was his speech.
16. From sunrise in the morning until late at night his tongue ceased not to speak. And his mouth moved as if it were the mouth-piece of heaven. For when one angel had discoursed before the audience for a while, then came another and another, and so on; and when none came, then spake Chine himself.
17. And there came before him men of great learning, and philosophers, to try him as to his knowledge; but they all went away confounded, as if they were fools. Neither was it possible to ask him a question he could not answer correctly. Whether it was to read a tablet or to reveal the size and build of a temple he never saw; or the sickness of a man who was far away; for all things were to him as an open book.
18. For four years this great wisdom remained in him, and his fame spread from the east to the west, and from the north to the south; no man knew how far. When he was asked how far he could see and hear, he said: Over all my land. And he marked with his finger, saying: On this tablet, Chine land!
19. Thus was the country named Chine (China), which it beareth to this day.
20. Ah Sho'e said: Suddenly Chine's abundant speech ceased, and he answered only yea and nay to all things. And he was silent for seven years and eighty days. And then the angels from the second heaven came to him. After that he spake not as man (save in private), but he spake as the All Light, whereof the world knoweth the rest.
524:* State records.