Nearly all authorities seem to agree with Szŭ Ma-chien as to the place of Lao-tzŭ’s birth in the feudal dependency Chʽu (楚). Under this word Biot has the following remarks—“Nom d’un ancien royaume de la Chine centrale, a l’époque du Tchun-thsieou. Le centre etait dans l’arrondissement de Tchi-kiang; la limite nord etait entre le Kiang et le Hoang-ho; la limite sud était au midi du Kiang, mais non bien determinée.”[8] The district city Kʽu is also said to have belonged to the principality of _Chʽên_, It stood near the present Kwei-tê-foo, the most easterly of the cities of Honan; and the present Kʽu-yang (苦陽) preserves the house of Lao-tzŭ and a temple dedicated to his memory.[9] Another account, however, represents him as having been born in the district city Po (毫) in the province of Honan.[10] The chief of Chʽu, like the chiefs of many other states, was at the time of Lao-tzŭ and Confucius only nominally a feudal dependent of the king. He was originally a Tzŭ (子) or Viscount, but the title Wang (王) or king was now usurped in the degenerate days of the Chou rulers who were unable to maintain a strong government. Of the parents of Lao-tzŭ and of his early years I have not found any record in Chinese books; but Pauthier says that according to historic data his father was a poor peasant who had remained a bachelor up to his seventieth year, when he married a peasant woman of the unromantic age of forty years.[11] Whatever were his circumstances, however, I think we may conclude that Lao-tzŭ was in early life a diligent student of the past history and the institutions of the country, and his obtaining office at the court of Chou was probably a consequence of his learning and abilities. As to the nature of this office I cannot agree with Pauthier and Julien in calling it that of historiographer, or keeper of the State Archives. The word _tsang_ (藏) means a granary or storehouse, and in a note to a passage in the Li-chi, or Record of Ceremonies, it is explained as the Imperial or National Museum.[12] The _Shou-tsang-shĭ_ (守藏史) would accordingly be the officer in charge of the Museum, and we must remember that when Confucius went to the Capital of Chou to Lao-tzŭ, he saw in the palace the portraits of the early kings, along with many other relics of antiquity, which possessed him strongly with an idea of the magnificence of the first princes of the dynasty.[13] Dr. Legge also, I find, translates the expression by “Treasury-keeper.”[14] The legend in the Records of Spirits and Fairies states that Lao-tzŭ was in the time of king Wên a _Shou-tsang-shi_ and under king Wu a _Chu-hsia-shi_ (柱下史),[15] this latter term meaning assistant historiographer; and it is not improbable that he may have actually held both these offices in succession under king Ting (定) or king Chien (簡), who reigned in the 6th century B.C.