Yellow silk received at court as the "Heavenly Text"
The Song shi basic annals record that in the first lunar month of Dazhong Xiangfu 1 (AD 1008) a yellow silk found hanging from the roof ornament of the Left Chengtian Gate (左承天門) was reported by the gate guard Tu Rong (塗榮), and the emperor had the officials receive it in the Chaoyuan Hall (朝元殿), where it was opened and called the "Heavenly Text" (天書).
What this does and does not establish
The Song shi is a Yuan-compiled (1343-45) official history drawing on Song court records; the English is an AI working translation. This records the court's own account of the object; the annals do not say who placed it.
- Read through an AI working translation.
- Region
- East Asia
- Theme
- Culture and knowledge
- Kind of record
- Placed in a year. A source places this in one year. It is listed under that year; no day precision is invented.
How it is dated
- Date reference
- 大中祥符 1 (大中祥符元年 as numbered by the annals), lunar month 1
- How we use it
- Year assigned from the lunar month under which the annals enter the item; the sexagenary day was not converted to a Julian day.
The date reference is this project’s reading of the source’s date. It may give an era name, a reign or a calendar in a normalised form rather than in the source’s own words; the dating notes say what the source prints.
Dating notes from the research record
Lunar month 1 of 大中祥符 1 = Julian 1008-02-10 to 1008-03-09, per Academia Sinica 兩千年中西曆轉換 year table(s) 大中祥符1.html (sha256 cb8df36be91e…); the whole month lies in AD 1008.
File names and line numbers in these notes, and in the limits above, refer to the project’s retained copies of the cited sources. Names such as calendar_headers are the project’s calendar look-ups, and “the investigator” is the research step that prepared the record.
Sources and quoted text
Line and character numbers under “Location” refer to the project’s retained copy of the source. For database rows, “Edition” names the batch of rows that was fetched together.
Source 1 · Supports the statement
Song shi (History of Song), basic annals
Toghto (脫脫) et al., Yuan court historiographers
The credit or link shown here was corrected after an audit of the retained source.
Quoted text (Classical Chinese)
有黃帛曳左承天門南鴟尾上，守門卒塗榮告，有司以聞。上召群臣拜迎於朝元殿啟封，號稱天書。AI working translation into English; not official or authoritative
A piece of yellow silk was found trailing from the southern owl-tail roof ornament of the Left Chengtian Gate. The gate guard Tu Rong reported it, and the authorities informed the throne. The emperor summoned the officials to bow and receive it in the Chaoyuan Hall, where it was unsealed and called the Heavenly Text.
Source credit and reuse conditions recorded for this source: Source: Song shi, juan 7, zh.wikisource transcription (revision 7908329). English renderings are AI working translations, not published translations.
Exact source version
50794dcb0b9fb6667a0023d53c6306bc2eadf8fdefa6cbdc79ceea11e1c225b1Checks and changes
Source checked 2026-11-04. An independent AI evidence review supports this bounded, attributed wording. That review does not guarantee historical truth. How records are checked
No correction has been made to this record’s statement or limits.
Revision s1p_1008_song_1
Exact revision fingerprint
09f9a4cef8d24bcbae23270ba1429206237fce4316d2ecc5a094152a3fce0948