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Romanised transliteration as printed by the translator, not the original script. This is what we hold.
1The text of the Sha, that is, of all of it that had been recovered by Ankwo, was still further secured, being engraved with that of all the other classics on the Thang tablets of stone which were completed in the year 837, and are still preserved at Khang-an, in Shen-hsi. It is not necessary to trace the history of the Sh further on. The titles of more than 500 works, on the whole of it or on portions, from the dynasty of Thang to the present day, could easily be adduced. Under the Sung dynasty, indeed, there began the sceptical criticism, which, setting comparatively little store on external evidence, decides on the genuineness of documents principally from their style. The results of such criticism always vary according to the knowledge and the subjective character of the mind of its author. Many maintain that the commentary said to be that of An-kwo was not really from him, but was made by Mei 3eh, and palmed on the world under the name of the great Han scholar. Even if it were so, the work would remain, produced nearly 1600 years ago. And to the annotations of the Thang scholars upon it we are indebted for most of what we know of the earlier views of M4 Yung, Kang Khang-&Aang, and other writers of the Han period. Whether its author were the true Khung or a false Khung, its value cannot be over-estimated. But I do not believe that it was aforgery. That An-kwodid write a commentary on his ‘Sha in the ancient characters’ is admitted by all. When did it perish? There is no evidence that it ever did so. On the contrary, its existence rises as a fact, here and there, at no great intervals of time, on the surface of the literary history of the empire, till we arrive at Mei 3eh, who received it, as Khung Ying-ta proves, from a scholar named 3ang Zhao. Then as to the text of the Sha, there is no controversy about the documents which were recovered in the first INTRODUCTION. II
2Then as to the text of the Sha, there is no controversy about the documents which were recovered in the first INTRODUCTION. II place by Fd; but the additional ones found by Khung Ankwo are so much more easily understood, that I do not wonder that the charge of not being genuine has been raised against them. But even they are not easy. They only appear to be so, when we come to one of them, after toiling through some of the more contorted portions common to both texts. And, moreover, the style of the different books differs according to their subjects. The ‘Announcements’ are the hardest to understand of all. The ‘Charges,’ ‘Speeches, and ‘Instructions’ are much simpler in their construction; and the portions which we owe to An-kwo consist principally of these. In making out his obsolete characters he had, in the first place, to make use of the Books of FQ. That he did not servilely follow his text we conclude from the readings of Fi’s followers, different from his in many passages which the industry of critics has gathered up. When he came, however, to new books, which were not in Fd’s copy, he had to make out his tablets as he best could. Tis most valuable aid had ceased. We can conceive that, when he had managed to read the greater portion of a paragraph, and yet there were some stubborn characters that defied him, he completed it according to his understanding of the sense with characters of his own. That he was faithful and successful in the main we find by the many passages of his peculiar books that are found quoted in writings of the Kau dynasty. This is a fact worthy of the most attentive consideration. I do not think there is an important statement in his chapters that is not thus vouched for. The characteristics of his books which. have exposed them to suspicion are not sufficient to overthrow their claims to be regarded as genuine transcripts of the tablets discovered in the wall of the house of the Khung family. The conclusion to which I come, at the close of this chapter, is, that there is nothing seriously to shake our confidence in the portions of the Sha that we now possess, as being substantially the same as those which were in the collection of the Kau dynasty both before and after Confucius. 12 THE SHO KING. CHAPTER II. THE CREDIBILITY OF THE RECORDS IN THE SHO. 1, Accepting the conclusion which I have stated imme- diately above, I now go on to enquire whether the docu- Whether the Ments in the Shd can be relied on as genuine records in narratives of the transactions which they prothe Sha . : are reliable fess to relate. And it may be said at once,
31, Accepting the conclusion which I have stated imme- diately above, I now go on to enquire whether the docu- Whether the Ments in the Shd can be relied on as genuine records in narratives of the transactions which they prothe Sha . : are reliable fess to relate. And it may be said at once, or not. —_in reference to the greater number of them, that there is no reasonable ground to call their credibility in question. Allowance must be made, indeed, for the colouring with which the founders of one dynasty set forth the misdeeds of the closing reigns of that which they were superseding, and for the way in which the failures of a favourite hero may be glossed over. But the documents of the Sha are quite as much entitled to credit as the memorials and edicts which are published at the present day in the Peking Gazette. The more recent the documents are, the more, of course, are they to be relied on. And provision was made, we have seen, by the statutes of Ku, for the preservation of the records of previous dynasties. But it was not to be expected that many of those should not perish in the lapse of time, and others suffer mutilations and corruptions. And this, we find, was the case. Of the eighty-one documents that the Sha at one time contained, only one belonged to the period of Y4o; seven to the period of Shun ; four to the dynasty of Hsia, much the larger one of which narrates what was done in the time of Yao; thirty-one to the dynasty of Shang; and thirty-eight to the first 500 years of that of Kau. All this seems to bear on the surface of it the stamp of verisimilitude. 2. The Books of K4u were contemporaneous with the The Books events which they describe, and became public of Kau. property not long after their composition. They are to be received without hesitation. INTRODUCTION. 13
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
Romanised transliteration as printed by the translator, not the original script. This is what we hold.
1The text of the Sha, that is, of all of it that had been recovered by Ankwo, was still further secured, being engraved with that of all the other classics on the Thang tablets of stone which were completed in the year 837, and are still preserved at Khang-an, in Shen-hsi. It is not necessary to trace the history of the Sh further on. The titles of more than 500 works, on the whole of it or on portions, from the dynasty of Thang to the present day, could easily be adduced. Under the Sung dynasty, indeed, there began the sceptical criticism, which, setting comparatively little store on external evidence, decides on the genuineness of documents principally from their style. The results of such criticism always vary according to the knowledge and the subjective character of the mind of its author. Many maintain that the commentary said to be that of An-kwo was not really from him, but was made by Mei 3eh, and palmed on the world under the name of the great Han scholar. Even if it were so, the work would remain, produced nearly 1600 years ago. And to the annotations of the Thang scholars upon it we are indebted for most of what we know of the earlier views of M4 Yung, Kang Khang-&Aang, and other writers of the Han period. Whether its author were the true Khung or a false Khung, its value cannot be over-estimated. But I do not believe that it was aforgery. That An-kwodid write a commentary on his ‘Sha in the ancient characters’ is admitted by all. When did it perish? There is no evidence that it ever did so. On the contrary, its existence rises as a fact, here and there, at no great intervals of time, on the surface of the literary history of the empire, till we arrive at Mei 3eh, who received it, as Khung Ying-ta proves, from a scholar named 3ang Zhao. Then as to the text of the Sha, there is no controversy about the documents which were recovered in the first INTRODUCTION. II
2Then as to the text of the Sha, there is no controversy about the documents which were recovered in the first INTRODUCTION. II place by Fd; but the additional ones found by Khung Ankwo are so much more easily understood, that I do not wonder that the charge of not being genuine has been raised against them. But even they are not easy. They only appear to be so, when we come to one of them, after toiling through some of the more contorted portions common to both texts. And, moreover, the style of the different books differs according to their subjects. The ‘Announcements’ are the hardest to understand of all. The ‘Charges,’ ‘Speeches, and ‘Instructions’ are much simpler in their construction; and the portions which we owe to An-kwo consist principally of these. In making out his obsolete characters he had, in the first place, to make use of the Books of FQ. That he did not servilely follow his text we conclude from the readings of Fi’s followers, different from his in many passages which the industry of critics has gathered up. When he came, however, to new books, which were not in Fd’s copy, he had to make out his tablets as he best could. Tis most valuable aid had ceased. We can conceive that, when he had managed to read the greater portion of a paragraph, and yet there were some stubborn characters that defied him, he completed it according to his understanding of the sense with characters of his own. That he was faithful and successful in the main we find by the many passages of his peculiar books that are found quoted in writings of the Kau dynasty. This is a fact worthy of the most attentive consideration. I do not think there is an important statement in his chapters that is not thus vouched for. The characteristics of his books which. have exposed them to suspicion are not sufficient to overthrow their claims to be regarded as genuine transcripts of the tablets discovered in the wall of the house of the Khung family. The conclusion to which I come, at the close of this chapter, is, that there is nothing seriously to shake our confidence in the portions of the Sha that we now possess, as being substantially the same as those which were in the collection of the Kau dynasty both before and after Confucius. 12 THE SHO KING. CHAPTER II. THE CREDIBILITY OF THE RECORDS IN THE SHO. 1, Accepting the conclusion which I have stated imme- diately above, I now go on to enquire whether the docu- Whether the Ments in the Shd can be relied on as genuine records in narratives of the transactions which they prothe Sha . : are reliable fess to relate. And it may be said at once,
31, Accepting the conclusion which I have stated imme- diately above, I now go on to enquire whether the docu- Whether the Ments in the Shd can be relied on as genuine records in narratives of the transactions which they prothe Sha . : are reliable fess to relate. And it may be said at once, or not. —_in reference to the greater number of them, that there is no reasonable ground to call their credibility in question. Allowance must be made, indeed, for the colouring with which the founders of one dynasty set forth the misdeeds of the closing reigns of that which they were superseding, and for the way in which the failures of a favourite hero may be glossed over. But the documents of the Sha are quite as much entitled to credit as the memorials and edicts which are published at the present day in the Peking Gazette. The more recent the documents are, the more, of course, are they to be relied on. And provision was made, we have seen, by the statutes of Ku, for the preservation of the records of previous dynasties. But it was not to be expected that many of those should not perish in the lapse of time, and others suffer mutilations and corruptions. And this, we find, was the case. Of the eighty-one documents that the Sha at one time contained, only one belonged to the period of Y4o; seven to the period of Shun ; four to the dynasty of Hsia, much the larger one of which narrates what was done in the time of Yao; thirty-one to the dynasty of Shang; and thirty-eight to the first 500 years of that of Kau. All this seems to bear on the surface of it the stamp of verisimilitude. 2. The Books of K4u were contemporaneous with the The Books events which they describe, and became public of Kau. property not long after their composition. They are to be received without hesitation. INTRODUCTION. 13
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
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