According, to some writers Lao-tzŭ was a spiritual being, eternal and self-existing, manifesting himself as a human being on the earth at various times and under various names. One author, indeed, puts words like these into the mouth of the sage himself.[29] The most celebrated of his incarnations was that which occurred during the early part of the Chou dynasty. On this memorable occasion his mother, who had conceived by the influence of a shooting star, brought him forth under a Li (李) or plum tree, a circumstance from which he derived his surname. For seventy-two long years (or, according to a more cruel author, for eighty-one years) had he remained in the wretched woman’s womb, and at last he delivered himself by bursting a passage under his mother’s left arm. From his having at his birth gray hairs and the general appearance of an old man, he was called the _Old Boy_ (Lao-tzŭ 老子)[30]; though some have conjectured that this was the nature of his mother’s family, which was given to the child because his mother obtained him in an improper manner. One writer says that Lao-tzŭ could speak immediately on being born, and that he himself intimated at the time that the plum tree under which he emerged into the world would furnish his name. Another says that so soon as he was born he mounted nine paces in the air—his step producing a lotus flower—and while poised there, he pointed with his left hand to heaven and with his right hand to earth, saying: “In Heaven above and on earth beneath it is only Tao which is worthy of honour.” The same author remarks that Shâkyamuni on his birth rose seven paces in the air, and pointing in a similar manner to heaven and earth pronounced himself alone worthy of honour. He observes very properly that there ought not to be such a coincidence. When his mother got an opportunity of examining her wonderful child, she found him a veritable prodigy. Not only had he gray hairs, but he had also very large ears. Hence came his name Êrh (耳), that is, Ears, or as others give it Chung-êrh (重耳), Heavy ears.[31] Each ear terminated in a point and had three passages. Besides these peculiarities the infant had handsome eyebrows—large eyes—a double-ridged nose—square mouth with thick lips. His hands had ornamental inscriptions on them, and the soles of his feet presented the mysterious numbers, two and five, of which the former represents heaven and the latter earth. He had also many other larger and smaller bodily virtues and beauties.[32]