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Romanised transliteration as printed by the translator, not the original script. This is what we hold.
1We have seen, however, that the collection existed in his time and before it. Did it then, as An-kwo says, consist of a hundred books? His authority for saying so was a Preface, which was found along with the old tablets of the Sha that were discovered in his time and deciphered by him, as will be related farther on. He does not say, however, that it was the work of Confucius, though AZien does. It still exists,—a list of eighty-one documents in a hundred books. The prevailing opinion of scholars in China is now, that it was not written by the sage. I entirely 1 Analects, VII, i. 3 The Doctrine of the Mean, XXX, 1. B 2 4 THE SHO KING. agree myself with the judgment of 344i Kan, the disciple of Kd Hsi, whose Collected Comments, first published A.D, 1210, are now the standard of orthodoxy in the interpretation of the Shad. He says of the document: ‘It sheds light on nothing, and there are things in it at variance with the text of the classic. On the books that are lost it is specially servile and brief, affording us not the slightest help. That it is not the work of Confucius is exceedingly plain.’ The eighty-one documents mentioned in it, and more, may have been in the Shd of the time of Confucius. I think, however, that several of them must have been lost subsequently, before the rise of the tyrant of KAin, who doomed the whole collection to the flames. Mencius complains that in his days the feudal princes destroyed many of the records of antiquity that they might the better perpetrate their own usurpations and innovations’, Other considerations, on the exhibition of which I need not enter, confirm me in this conclusion. 4. It will be well here to devote a paragraph to the The sources Sources of the Shi. Have we sufficient proofs of the Sha. of the composition in ancient times of such documents as it contains, and of their preservation, so that they could be collected in a sort of historical canon? We have. Under the dynasty of Ku (B.C. 1122-256), at the royal court, and at the courts of the feudal princes on a smaller scale, there were officers styled Sze, which has been translated ‘ Recorders,’ ‘Annalists,’ ‘ Historiographers,’ and simply ‘ Clerks.’ There were the Grand Recorder, the Assistant Recorder, the Recorder of the Interior, the Recorder of the Exterior, and the Recorder in Attendance on the Sovereign. Among the duties of the Recorder of the Interior were the following :—‘ In case of any charge given by the king to the prince of a state, or to any other digni- tary, he writes it on tablets ;’ ‘In case of any memorials on business coming in from the different quarters of the kingdom, he reads them (to the king);’ ‘It is his business 1 Mencius, V, ii, ch. 2. INTRODUCTION. 5
22. INTRODUCTION. 5 to write all charges of the king, and to do so in duplicate.’ Of the duties of the Recorder of the Exterior it is said :— ‘ He has charge of the histories of the states in all parts of the kingdom ;’ ‘ He has charge of the most ancient books ;’ ‘It is his business to publish in all parts of the kingdom the books and the characters in them?) These entries show that under the Kau dynasty there was provision made for the recording and preservation of royal charges and ordinances, of the operations of the general government, and of the histories of the different states ; and, moreover, for the preservation and interpretation of documents come down from more ancient times. Confucius himself tells us that in his early days a recorder would leave a blank in his text, rather than enter anything . of which he had not sufficient evidence®. Mencius also mentions three works, the Shang of Kin, the Thao-wd of Kha, and the KAun K4Aid of LO, which must have come from the recorders of those states. Of the existence of a similar class of officers under the previous dynasties of Shang or Yin (B.C. 1766-1123) and Hsia (B.C. 2205-1765), we have not such abundant evidence. Chapter 2 in the roth Book of the 5th Part of our classic, however, seems to speak of them in the time of the former. Wd-ting (B.C. 1324-1264), the twentieth sovereign of it, is described as communicating, in writing, a dream which he had had, to his ministers?; and fully four hundred years earlier, { Yin, the chief minister, remonstrates, in writing, with his young and careless sovereign Thai A ia*. Going back to the dynasty of Hsid, we find the prince of Yin, during the reign of Kung Khang (B.C. 2159-2345), in addressing his troops, quotes the Statutes of Government in a manner which makes us conceive of him as referring to a well-known written compilation®, The grandsons of the great Yii, its founder (B.C. 2205-2196), likewise, make mention, in the Songs of the Five Sons, of his Lessons, in a style that suggests to us the formula that Mencius was * See for all these statements the Ritual or Official Book of Kau, XX XI, 35-42. 2 Analects, XV, xxv. 3 Part IV, viii, section 1. * Part IV, v, section 1. 5 Part III, iv. 6 THE SHO KING. wont to employ when referring to the documents acknowledged to be of authority in his day}. ;
32 Analects, XV, xxv. 3 Part IV, viii, section 1. * Part IV, v, section 1. 5 Part III, iv. 6 THE SHO KING. wont to employ when referring to the documents acknowledged to be of authority in his day}. ; MA Twan-lin, the encyclopedist, in his General Examination of Records and Scholars, first published A.D. 1321, says that ‘the pencil of the recorders was busy from the time of Hwang Ti (B.C. 2697). The compilers of the records of the Sui dynasty (A.D. 589-617) say that ‘historical documents began immediately with the invention of written characters. That invention I must place myself at an earlier date than the time assigned to Hwang Ti. When once the characters were invented, they would come in time to be employed in the writing of history. The early dates alleged for many of the documents in the Sha are no valid reason for rejecting them without further examination. We may rather be surprised that, when the compilation was made, it did not contain many more than a hundred documents. 5. The dynasty of K4u came to an end in B.C. 256, and after an anarchic interval of thirty-five years, the king of Khin succeeded in uniting all the feudal states under his Destruction of OWN Sway, and proclaimed himself emperor. the classical Up to this time the Sh had sustained no literature by the emperor Other damage than all human works are of Kkin. —jiable to in the course of time ; but now it narrowly escaped an entire destruction. An edict went forth from the tyrant in B.C. 213, commanding that all the old classical books should be consigned to the flames. excepting those belonging to the great scholars in the service of the court, and the Yi. His rage was hottest against the Sha and the Shih (the Book of Poetry). Death was the doom of scholars who should be known to meet together and speak of these works, and all who should be discovered having copies of them in their possession, when thirty days had elapsed after the publication of the edict, were to be branded, and sent to labour for four years on the Great Wall, which was then building. This is not the place to explain the reasons that led to ' Part IIL, iii. INTRODUCTION. 7 this insane attempt to extinguish, with the exception of one work, the ancient literary monuments of China. The edict was ruthlessly enforced, and hundreds of scholars who refused obedience to the imperial command were buried alive. The Sh@ had nearly perished from off the earth. 6. The tyrant, however, died in B.C. 210, within four years from the issuing of his edict. The dynasty which he had sought to establish passed away in B.C. 206. That of Han dates from the year B.C. 202, and in 191 the edict against the ancient books was formally repealed. They had been Recovery of Under the ban for less than a quarter of a
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.
1We have seen, however, that the collection existed in his time and before it. Did it then, as An-kwo says, consist of a hundred books? His authority for saying so was a Preface, which was found along with the old tablets of the Sha that were discovered in his time and deciphered by him, as will be related farther on. He does not say, however, that it was the work of Confucius, though AZien does. It still exists,—a list of eighty-one documents in a hundred books. The prevailing opinion of scholars in China is now, that it was not written by the sage. I entirely 1 Analects, VII, i. 3 The Doctrine of the Mean, XXX, 1. B 2 4 THE SHO KING. agree myself with the judgment of 344i Kan, the disciple of Kd Hsi, whose Collected Comments, first published A.D, 1210, are now the standard of orthodoxy in the interpretation of the Shad. He says of the document: ‘It sheds light on nothing, and there are things in it at variance with the text of the classic. On the books that are lost it is specially servile and brief, affording us not the slightest help. That it is not the work of Confucius is exceedingly plain.’ The eighty-one documents mentioned in it, and more, may have been in the Shd of the time of Confucius. I think, however, that several of them must have been lost subsequently, before the rise of the tyrant of KAin, who doomed the whole collection to the flames. Mencius complains that in his days the feudal princes destroyed many of the records of antiquity that they might the better perpetrate their own usurpations and innovations’, Other considerations, on the exhibition of which I need not enter, confirm me in this conclusion. 4. It will be well here to devote a paragraph to the The sources Sources of the Shi. Have we sufficient proofs of the Sha. of the composition in ancient times of such documents as it contains, and of their preservation, so that they could be collected in a sort of historical canon? We have. Under the dynasty of Ku (B.C. 1122-256), at the royal court, and at the courts of the feudal princes on a smaller scale, there were officers styled Sze, which has been translated ‘ Recorders,’ ‘Annalists,’ ‘ Historiographers,’ and simply ‘ Clerks.’ There were the Grand Recorder, the Assistant Recorder, the Recorder of the Interior, the Recorder of the Exterior, and the Recorder in Attendance on the Sovereign. Among the duties of the Recorder of the Interior were the following :—‘ In case of any charge given by the king to the prince of a state, or to any other digni- tary, he writes it on tablets ;’ ‘In case of any memorials on business coming in from the different quarters of the kingdom, he reads them (to the king);’ ‘It is his business 1 Mencius, V, ii, ch. 2. INTRODUCTION. 5
22. INTRODUCTION. 5 to write all charges of the king, and to do so in duplicate.’ Of the duties of the Recorder of the Exterior it is said :— ‘ He has charge of the histories of the states in all parts of the kingdom ;’ ‘ He has charge of the most ancient books ;’ ‘It is his business to publish in all parts of the kingdom the books and the characters in them?) These entries show that under the Kau dynasty there was provision made for the recording and preservation of royal charges and ordinances, of the operations of the general government, and of the histories of the different states ; and, moreover, for the preservation and interpretation of documents come down from more ancient times. Confucius himself tells us that in his early days a recorder would leave a blank in his text, rather than enter anything . of which he had not sufficient evidence®. Mencius also mentions three works, the Shang of Kin, the Thao-wd of Kha, and the KAun K4Aid of LO, which must have come from the recorders of those states. Of the existence of a similar class of officers under the previous dynasties of Shang or Yin (B.C. 1766-1123) and Hsia (B.C. 2205-1765), we have not such abundant evidence. Chapter 2 in the roth Book of the 5th Part of our classic, however, seems to speak of them in the time of the former. Wd-ting (B.C. 1324-1264), the twentieth sovereign of it, is described as communicating, in writing, a dream which he had had, to his ministers?; and fully four hundred years earlier, { Yin, the chief minister, remonstrates, in writing, with his young and careless sovereign Thai A ia*. Going back to the dynasty of Hsid, we find the prince of Yin, during the reign of Kung Khang (B.C. 2159-2345), in addressing his troops, quotes the Statutes of Government in a manner which makes us conceive of him as referring to a well-known written compilation®, The grandsons of the great Yii, its founder (B.C. 2205-2196), likewise, make mention, in the Songs of the Five Sons, of his Lessons, in a style that suggests to us the formula that Mencius was * See for all these statements the Ritual or Official Book of Kau, XX XI, 35-42. 2 Analects, XV, xxv. 3 Part IV, viii, section 1. * Part IV, v, section 1. 5 Part III, iv. 6 THE SHO KING. wont to employ when referring to the documents acknowledged to be of authority in his day}. ;
32 Analects, XV, xxv. 3 Part IV, viii, section 1. * Part IV, v, section 1. 5 Part III, iv. 6 THE SHO KING. wont to employ when referring to the documents acknowledged to be of authority in his day}. ; MA Twan-lin, the encyclopedist, in his General Examination of Records and Scholars, first published A.D. 1321, says that ‘the pencil of the recorders was busy from the time of Hwang Ti (B.C. 2697). The compilers of the records of the Sui dynasty (A.D. 589-617) say that ‘historical documents began immediately with the invention of written characters. That invention I must place myself at an earlier date than the time assigned to Hwang Ti. When once the characters were invented, they would come in time to be employed in the writing of history. The early dates alleged for many of the documents in the Sha are no valid reason for rejecting them without further examination. We may rather be surprised that, when the compilation was made, it did not contain many more than a hundred documents. 5. The dynasty of K4u came to an end in B.C. 256, and after an anarchic interval of thirty-five years, the king of Khin succeeded in uniting all the feudal states under his Destruction of OWN Sway, and proclaimed himself emperor. the classical Up to this time the Sh had sustained no literature by the emperor Other damage than all human works are of Kkin. —jiable to in the course of time ; but now it narrowly escaped an entire destruction. An edict went forth from the tyrant in B.C. 213, commanding that all the old classical books should be consigned to the flames. excepting those belonging to the great scholars in the service of the court, and the Yi. His rage was hottest against the Sha and the Shih (the Book of Poetry). Death was the doom of scholars who should be known to meet together and speak of these works, and all who should be discovered having copies of them in their possession, when thirty days had elapsed after the publication of the edict, were to be branded, and sent to labour for four years on the Great Wall, which was then building. This is not the place to explain the reasons that led to ' Part IIL, iii. INTRODUCTION. 7 this insane attempt to extinguish, with the exception of one work, the ancient literary monuments of China. The edict was ruthlessly enforced, and hundreds of scholars who refused obedience to the imperial command were buried alive. The Sh@ had nearly perished from off the earth. 6. The tyrant, however, died in B.C. 210, within four years from the issuing of his edict. The dynasty which he had sought to establish passed away in B.C. 206. That of Han dates from the year B.C. 202, and in 191 the edict against the ancient books was formally repealed. They had been Recovery of Under the ban for less than a quarter of a
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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