The Word Senshing-Ud (The Mongol Plural) Is Represented In The Chinese
Version Of Mr. Wylie's Inscription By Sin-Sang, A Conventional Title
Applied To Literary Men, And This Perhaps Is Sufficient To Determine The
Chinese Word Which Sensin Represents.
I should otherwise have supposed
it to be the Shin-sian alluded to by Baldelli, and mentioned in the
quotations which follow; and indeed it seems highly probable that two
terms so much alike should have been confounded by foreigners.
Semedo says
of the Taosse: "They pretend that by means of certain exercises and
meditations one shall regain his youth, and others shall attain to be
Shien-sien, i.e. 'Terrestrial Beati,' in whose state every desire is
gratified, whilst they have the power to transport themselves from one
place to another, however distant, with speed and facility." Schott, on
the same subject, says: "By Sian or Shin-sian are understood in the
old Chinese conception, and particularly in that of the Tao-Kiao [or
Taosse] sect, persons who withdraw to the hills to lead the life of
anchorites, and who have attained, either through their ascetic
observances or by the power of charms and elixirs, to the possession of
miraculous gifts and of terrestrial immortality." And M. Pauthier himself,
in his translation of the Journey of Khieu, an eminent doctor of this
sect, to the camp of the Great Chinghiz in Turkestan, has related how
Chinghiz bestowed upon this personage "a seal with a tiger's head and a
diploma" (surely a lion's head, P'aizah and Yarligh; see infra, Bk.
II.
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