p. 41:  For Confucius see H. G. Creel, Confucius, New York 1949.  I do not, however, follow his interpretation, but rather the ideas of Hu Shih, O. Franke and others.

p. 42:  For “chuen-tzu” and its counterpart “hsiao-jen” see D. Bodde and Ch’en Meng-chia.

p. 43:  I rely strongly here upon O. Franke and Ku Chieh-kang and upon my own work on eclipses.

p. 44:  I regard the Confucian traditions concerning the model emperors of early time as such a falsification.  The whole concept of “abdication” has been analysed by M. Granet.  The later ceremony of abdication was developed upon the basis of the interpretations of Confucius and has been studied by Ku Chieh-kang and Miyakawa Hisayuki.  Already Confucius’ disciple Meng Tzu, and later Chuang Tzu and Han Fei Tzu were against this theory.—­As a general introduction to the philosophy of this period, Y. L. Feng’s History of Chinese Philosophy, London 1937 has still to be recommended, although further research has made many advances.—­My analysis of the role of Confucianism in society is influenced by theories in the field of Sociology of religion.

p. 45:  The temple in Turkestan was in Khotan and is already mentioned in the Wei-shu chapter 102.  The analysis of the famous “Book on the transfiguration of Lao Tzu into a Western Barbarian” by Wang Wei-cheng is penetrating and has been used here.  The evaluation of Lao Tzu and his pupils as against Confucius by J. Needham, in his Science and Civilization in China, Cambridge 1954 et sqq. (in volume 2) is very stimulating, though necessarily limited to some aspects only.

p. 47:  The concept of wu-wei has often been discussed; some, such as Masaaki Matsumoto, interpreted the concept purely in social terms as “refusal of actions carrying wordly estimation”.

p. 49:  Further literature concerning alchemy and breathing exercises is found in J. Needham’s book.

Chapter Four

p. 51:  I have used here the general frame-work of R. L. Walker, but more upon Yang K’uan’s studies.

p. 52:  The interpretation of the change of myths in this period is based in part upon the work done by H. Maspero, G. Haloun, and Ku Chieh-kang.  The analysis of legends made by B. Karlgren from a philological point of view ("Legends and Cults in Ancient China”, The Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, Bulletin No. 18, 1946, pp. 199-365) follows another direction.

p. 53:  The discussion on riding involves the theories concerning horse-nomadic tribes and the period of this way of life.  It also involves the problem of the invention of stirrup and saddle.  The saddle seems to have been used in China already at the beginning of our period; the stirrup seems to be as late as the fifth century A.D.  The article by A. Kroeber, The Ancient Oikumene as an Historic Culture Aggregate, Huxley Memorial Lecture for 1945, is very instructive for our problems and also for its theoretical approach.—­The custom of attracting settlers from other areas in order to have more production as well as more man-power seems to have been known in India at the same time.