The term which Polo writes as Sensin appears to have been that popularly applied to the Taosse sect at the Mongol Court.  Thus we are told by Rashiduddin in his History of Cathay:  “In the reign of Din-Wang, the 20th king of this (the 11th) Dynasty, TAI SHANG LAI KUN, was born.  This person is stated to have been accounted a prophet by the people of Khita; his father’s name was Han; like Shak-muni he is said to have been conceived by light, and it is related that his mother bore him in her womb no less a period than 80 years.  The people who embraced his doctrine were called [Arabic] (Shan-shan or Shinshin).”  This is a correct epitome of the Chinese story of Laokiun or Lao-tse, born in the reign of Ting Wang of the Cheu Dynasty.  The whole title used by Rashiduddin, Tai Shang Lao Kiun, “The Great Supreme Venerable Ruler,” is that formerly applied by the Chinese to this philosopher.

Further, in a Mongol [and Chinese] inscription of the year 1314 from the department of Si-ngan fu, which has been interpreted and published by Mr. Wylie, the Taosse priests are termed Senshing. [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.