釋氏稽古略 1.67

1.67

姜姓。繼伏犧氏。王火德。都魯。今東平路禹貢兗州之域。時人茹草飲水。食木實肉禽獸。多疾病。炎帝求可食之物。教以火食。時天雨粟。乃教民播種五穀。作陶治斤斧耒耜鋤鎒。以墾草莽。而五穀興故曰神農氏。又甞百草。一日遇七十毒。以一人不足為養。日中為市乃通有無。以火紀官。在位一百二十年。桓譚新論曰。神農氏削桐為琴。繩絲為弦。以通神明之德。廣雅曰。神農氏琴長三尺六寸。上有五弦。曰宮商角徵羽。周文王增二弦。曰少宮少商也。

His surname was Jiang. He succeeded the Fuxi Clan. He reigned through the virtue of Fire. His capital was in Lu (now the Circuit of Dongping, the territory of Yan Province in the 'Tribute of Yu'). At that time, people chewed plants and drank water, eating the fruits of trees and the meat of birds and beasts, and suffered many diseases. The Yan Emperor sought edible things and taught them to cook food with fire. At that time, grain rained down from heaven; he thereupon taught the people to sow the five grains, made pottery and worked metal, axes, ploughs, ploughshares, hoes, and weeders, to clear the brushwood, and the five grains flourished; thus he was called the Shennong ('Divine Husbandman') Clan. Furthermore, he tasted the hundred herbs, encountering seventy poisons in a single day. Deeming that one person alone could not provide sustenance, he established markets at midday to facilitate the exchange of goods. He recorded his officers using fire. He was on the throne for one hundred and twenty years. Huan Tan's Xinlun states: 'The Shennong Clan carved paulownia wood into a zither and twisted silk into strings to communicate the virtues of the gods and luminous spirits.' The Guangya states: 'The zither of the Shennong Clan was three chi and six cun in length, with five strings upon it called gong, shang, jue, zhi, and yu. King Wen of Zhou added two strings, called minor gong and minor shang.'