[See Deveria, Notes D'Epigraphie, Pp.

39-43, and Prince R. Bonaparte's Recueil, Pl.

Xii. No. 3. - H. C.]

Seeing then that the very term used by Polo is that applied by both Mongol and Persian authorities of the period to the Taosse, we can have no doubt that the latter are indicated, whether the facts stated about them be correct or not.

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. ch. vii. note 2), "wherein he was styled Shin Sien or Divine Anchorite." Sian-jin again is the word used by Hiuen Tsang as the equivalent to the name of the Indian Rishis, who attain to supernatural powers.

["Sensin is a sufficiently faithful transcription of Sien-seng (Sien-shing in Pekingese); the name given by the Mongols in conversation as well as in official documents, to the Tao-sze, in the sense of preceptors, just as Lamas were called by them Bacshi, which corresponds to the Chinese Sien-seng. M. Polo calls them fasters and ascetics. It was one of the sects of Taouism. There was another one which practised cabalistic and other mysteries. The Tao-sze had two monasteries in Shangtu, one in the eastern, the other in the western part of the town." (Palladius, 30.) - H.C.]

One class of the Tao priests or devotees does marry, but another class never does. Many of them lead a wandering life, and derive a precarious subsistence from the sale of charms and medical nostrums. They shave the sides of the head, and coil the remaining hair in a tuft on the crown, in the ancient Chinese manner; moreover, says Williams, they "are recognised by their slate-coloured robes." On the feast of one of their divinities whose title Williams translates as "High Emperor of the Sombre Heavens," they assemble before his temple, "and having made a great fire, about 15 or 20 feet in diameter, go over it barefoot, preceded by the priests and bearing the gods in their arms.

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