as Sinae and Seres.  Then follows the body of the inscription, of great length and beautiful execution, consisting of 1780 characters.  Its chief contents are as follows:—­ 1st.  An abstract of Christian doctrine, of a vague and figurative kind; 2nd.  An account of the arrival of the missionary OLOPAN (probably a Chinese form of Rabban = Monk),[B] from Ta T’sin in the year equivalent to A.D. 635 bringing sacred books and images, of the translation of the said books, of the Imperial approval of the doctrine and permission to teach it publicly.  There follows a decree of the Emperor (T’ai Tsung, a very famous prince) issued in 638 in favour of the new doctrine and ordering a church to be built in the Square of Peace and Justice (I ning Fang) at the capital.  The Emperor’s portrait was to be placed in the church.  After this comes a description of Ta T’sin (here apparently implying Syria), and then some account of the fortunes of the Church in China.  Kao Tsung (650-683 the devout patron also of the Buddhist traveller and Dr. Hiuen Tsang) continued to favour it.  In the end of the century, Buddhism gets the upper hand, but under HIUAN TSUNG (713-755) the Church recovers its prestige, and KIHO, a new missionary, arrives.  Under TE TSUNG (780-783) the monument was erected, and this part ends with the eulogy of ISSE, a statesman and benefactor of the Church. 3rd.  There follows a recapitulation of the purport in octosyllabic verse.

The Chinese inscription concludes with the date of erection, viz. the second year Kienchung of the Great T’ang Dynasty, the seventh day of the month Tait su, the feast of the great Yaosan.  This corresponds, according to Gaubil, to 4th February, 781, and Yaosan is supposed to stand for Hosanna (i.e.  Palm Sunday, but this apparently does not fit, see infra).  There are added the name chief of the law, NINGCHU (presumed to be the Chinese name of the Metropolitan), the name of the writer, and the official sanction.

The Great Hosanna was, though ingenious, a misinterpretation of Gaubil’s.  Mr. Wylie has sent me a paper of his own (in Chin.  Recorder and Miss.  Journal, July, 1871, p. 45), which makes things perfectly clear.  The expression transcribed by Pauthier, Yao san wen, and rendered “Hosanna,” appears in a Chinese work, without reference to this inscription, as Yao san wah, and is in reality only a Chinese transcript of the Persian word for Sunday, “Yak shambah.”  Mr. Wylie verified this from the mouth of a Peking Mahomedan.  The 4th of February, 781 was Sunday, why Great Sunday?  Mr. Wylie suggests, possibly because the first Sunday of the (Chinese) year.

The monument exhibits, in addition to the Chinese text, a series of short inscriptions in the Syriac language, and Estranghelo character, containing the date of erection, viz. 1092