[Footnote 569: The sixth Æneid would seem to a Chinese quite a natural description of the next world. In it we have Elysium, Tartarus, transmigration of souls, souls who can find no resting place because their bodies are unburied, and phantoms showing still the wounds which their bodies received in life. Nor is there any attempt to harmonize these discordant ideas.] [Footnote 570: [Chinese: ] A somewhat similar pseudo-science called vatthu-vijjâ is condemned in the Pali scriptures. _E.g._ Digha N. I. 21. Astrology also has been a great force in Chinese politics. See Bland and Backhouse, _Ann. and Memoirs, passim_. The favour shown at different times to Buddhist, Manichæan and Catholic priests was often due to their supposed knowledge of astrology.] [Footnote 571: I may again remind the reader that I am not speaking of the Chinese Republic but of the Empire. The long history of its relations to Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism, though it concerns the past, is of great interest.] [Footnote 572: De Groot and Parker. For an elaboration of the first thesis see especially De Groot's _Sectarianism and Religious Persecution in China_.] [Footnote 573: But it must be remembered that the Chinese canon is not entirely analogous to the collections of the scriptures current in India, Ceylon or Europe.] [Footnote 574: The Emperor is the Lord of all spirits and has the right to sacrifice to all spirits, whereas others should sacrifice only to such spirits as concern them. For the Emperor's title "Lord of Spirits," see Shu Ching IV., VI. 2-3, and Shih Ching, III., II. 8, 3.] [Footnote 575: The title is undoubtedly very ancient and means Son of Heaven or Son of God. See Hirth, _Ancient History of China_, pp. 95-96. But the precise force of _Son_ is not clear. The Emperor was Viceregent of Heaven, high priest and responsible for natural phenomena, but he could not in historical times be regarded as sprung (like the Emperor of Japan) from a family of divine descent, because the dynasties, and with them the imperial family, were subject to frequent change.] [Footnote 576: Similarly it is a popular tenet that if a man becomes a monk all his ancestors go to Heaven. See _Paraphrase of sacred Edict_, VII.] [Footnote 577: Japanese Emperors did the same, _e.g._ Kwammū Tennō in 793.] [Footnote 578: [Chinese: ] [Footnote 579: K'ang Hsi is responsible only for the text of the Edict which merely forbids heterodoxy. But his son Yung Chêng who published the explanation and paraphrase repaired the Buddhist temples at P'uto and the Taoist temple at Lung-hu-shan.] [Footnote 580: See Johnston, p. 352. I have not seen the Chinese text of this edict. In Laufer and Francke's _Epigraphische Denkmäler aus China_ is a long inscription of Kang Hsi's giving the history both legendary and recent of the celebrated sandal-wood image of the Buddha.]