佛祖歷代通載 2.28

2.28

(14. Sexagenary Cycle 4) Emperor Ku, the Gaoxin clan (surname: Ji; personal name: Qi; great-grandson of the Yellow Emperor; grandson of Xuanxiao; son of Jiaoxuan. He died at the age of one hundred and five and was buried in Yiyang). He came to the throne in the jiyou year. He reigned for seventy-nine years. He ruled by the virtue of Wood. His capital was at Bo (present-day Yanshi County). He took Chisongzi as his master. He established the officials of the Five Elements: making Goumang the Wood Officer (son of Shaohao), Zhurong the Fire Officer (son of Zhuanxu), Rushou the Metal Officer (son of Shaohao), Xuanming the Water Officer (also son of Shaohao), and Houtu the Earth Officer (son of Gaoyang). He fathered eight talented sons, known as the Eight Primal Ones. He made cauldrons, pots, pelican-skin drums, bells, musical stones, xun flutes, and chi flutes (drums are made of leather joined with wood, which sound when struck; bells are cast in bronze mixed with clay, resembling handbells but not round, two feet two and a half inches high and eight-tenths of an inch thick, called suspended bells; the front chime-stone is three pitch-pipes long, two feet seven inches, and the rear chime-stone is two pitch-pipes long, one foot eight inches, called the huangzhong stone; the xun is made of fired clay, as large as a wild goose egg, pointed at the top and flat at the bottom, with five holes; the Baihu tong says it is shaped like a steelyard weight with six holes, slightly different from the Zhouli; the chi is made of bamboo, one foot four inches long and three inches in circumference, while a smaller one is one foot two inches, with six holes on top). In all there were nine generations, lasting three hundred and fifty years. (The Zuo zhuan says: Cangshu, Tui'ai, Taoyan, Dalin, Pangjiang, Tingjian, Zhongrong, and Shuda were called the Eight Harmonious Ones. Bofen, Zhongkan, Shuxian, Shubao, Jizhong, Bohu, Zhongxiong, and Jili were called the Eight Primal Ones).