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Romanised transliteration as printed by the translator, not the original script. This is what we hold.
1So far those sacrifices were a species of nature-worship ; but the question arises whether they were not really offered to the spirits under whose guardianship those objects operated. Book XXI. Kt f. The Xi f, or ‘The Meaning of Sacrifices, ‘Sens des Sacrifices’ in Callery, embraces a wider extent of subjects than the last Book. It treats first of the sacrifices to Heaven, and to the sun and moon in connexion with it, as well as of those in the ancestral temple, though the latter are the principal subject. The writer, whoever he was, goes fully into the preparations of the sacrificer, and the spirit of reverence in which the services should be conducted. No idea of deprecation or expiation is expressed as belonging to the sacrifices. It is said, indeed, in Section i, 18, that the sacrifice in the suburb of the capital was the great expression of gratitude to Heaven. In Section ii other subjects besides sacrifice are treated of. It commences with a remarkable conversation between Confucius and his disciple 34i Wo, on the constitution of man, as comprehending both the Kwei and Sh4n, the former name denoting the animal soul, which, with the bones and flesh, ‘moulders below and becomes the dust of the fields ;’ while the latter denotes the intelligent soul or spirit, which issues forth at death, and is displayed on high in a condition of glorious brightness. The ploughing of the special fields by the king and rulers of states, and the regulations for the nourishment of silkworms and the preparation of silk by their wives, are set forth, both operations being to provide the sacrificial grain and robes. BK. XXII. INTRODUCTION. 37 After this we have the views of 3ang-3ze and one of his disciples on filial piety, which subject again passes into the submission of the younger brother to the elder, and the respect to be paid generally by juniors to their elders. Book XXII. Ki THuNG The ‘Summary Account of Sacrifices’ is the last and longest, and, it may be added, the most interesting, of the treatises, specially on that subject. We find nothing in it, any more than in the others, of the idea of propitiation ; but it gives many details of the purposes which the institution of sacrifices served in the Chinese state. The old commentators took the character Thung? in the sense of ‘Root’ or ‘Origin’, and hence some English sinologists have named the book ‘ The Origin of Sacrifices,’ and P. Zottoli gives for the title ‘Sacrificii Principium. Callery calls it, better, ‘Généralités sur les Sacrifices.’ The very able commentator K/#ain Hsiangtao compares the Treatise to ‘the large rope which controls the meshes of a net,’ saying, that it commences with sacrifice as coming from the feeling of the heart, and ends with the display of its influence in the conduct of government. .
2. The concluding paragraph shows that it was written while the state of Lf still had an existence; and if the whole Book proceeded from the same hand, it must have been composed some time after the death of Confucius and before the extinction of La, which was consummated by KA in B.c. 248. I think we may refer it to the fourth century B.C. The doctrine of Filial Piety occupies a prominent place in it. Paragraph 13 and the ten that follow, on the connexion between sacrifice and the ten relationships of men, are specially instructive. The author writes forcibly and often subtilely; and can hardly do himself justice in the 38 THE Li xf. CH, 111. expression of his ideas. What he says on the subject of Inscriptions towards the conclusion is interesting. He was a true Lf man, and his views on the sacrifices of his state are contrary to the standard of Chinese orthodoxy about them. Book XXIII. XING XAIEH. King Kieh has been translated ‘Explanations of the Classics,’ and Callery gives for the title ‘Sens Général des Livres Canoniques. A slight attention to the few paragraphs which compose the Book, however, will satisfy the reader that these translations of the name are incorrect. No explanation is attempted of passages in the different King. The true meaning of King Kieh was given by Hwang Khan in a.D. 538. ‘ieh,’ he says, ‘is to be taken in the sense of “separation” or “division ;” and the Treatise describes the difference between the subjects dealt with in the different King.’ The Book, though ingenious, is not entitled to much attention. The first two paragraphs, assigned to Confucius, could not have come from him. They assume that there were six King; but that enumeration of the ancient writings originated with the scholars of the Han dynasty. And among the six is the KZun K4itd, the work of Confucius himself, which he compiled only a year or two before his death. It was for posterity, and not for him, to raise it to the rank of a King, and place it on the same level with the Sha, the Shih, and the Yi. It may be doubted, moreover, if there were ever a Yo King, or ‘Classic of Music.’ Treatises on music, no doubt, existed under the X4u dynasty, but it does not appear that there was any collection of them made till the attempts that have been referred to in the introductory notice to Book XVII. Who the ingenious, but uncritical, compiler of the King Kieh was is unknown. BK. XXIV, INTRODUCTION. 39 Book XXIV. Ar Kunc WAN.
3Who the ingenious, but uncritical, compiler of the King Kieh was is unknown. BK. XXIV, INTRODUCTION. 39 Book XXIV. Ar Kunc WAN. ‘Questions of Duke Ai’ is a translation of the three characters with which the Book commences, and which mean there ‘Duke Ai asked;’ and the title is so far descriptive of the contents of the Book,—two conversations on ceremonies and the practice of government between the marquis 3iang of LQ, posthumously called duke Ai, and Confucius. The sage died in the sixteenth year of 3iang’s marquisate. As an old minister of the state, after he had retired from public life, he had a right of entrance to the court, which, we know, he sometimes exercised. He may have conversed with the marquis on the subjects discussed in this Treatise; but whether he held the particular conversations here related can only be determined by the consideration of their style and matter. I am myself disposed to question their genuineness, There are other recensions of the Treatise. It forms the third of the Books in the current editions of ‘the Lt of the Greater T4i, purporting to be the forty-first of those which were in his larger collection; and is the same as in our Li Xi, with hardly a variation. The second conversation, again, appears as the fourth article in the collection called the ‘Narratives of the School!,’ but with considerable and important variations, under the title of Ta HwAn, ‘The Grand Marriage.’ The first conversation is found also in the same collection, as part of the sixth article, called Wn Li, or ‘Questions about Ceremonies.’ There are also variations in it; but the questioner in both articles is duke Ai. The most remarkable passages of the Book are some paragraphs of the second conversation towards its conclusion. P. Callery translates Thien T4o, ‘the Way of Heaven,’ in paragraph 16, by ‘La Vérité Céleste, and , Sh. ny 40 THE Li xi. CH. III. says in a note that Confucius speaks of this Téo in a way not unlike Lao-jze in the Tao Teh Xing, adding that ‘these two fathers of Chinese philosophy had on this mysterious Being ideas nearly similar.’ But a close examination of the passage, which is itself remarkable, shows that this resemblance between it and passages of the TAoist classic does not exist. See my concluding note on the Book. If there were a Taoist semblance in the phraseology, it would make us refer the composition of the Treatise to the time of KAin or the early days of Han, when T4oism had taken a place in the national literature which it had not had under the dynasty of K4u. Book XXV. KuNG-Ni YEN XU.
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.
1So far those sacrifices were a species of nature-worship ; but the question arises whether they were not really offered to the spirits under whose guardianship those objects operated. Book XXI. Kt f. The Xi f, or ‘The Meaning of Sacrifices, ‘Sens des Sacrifices’ in Callery, embraces a wider extent of subjects than the last Book. It treats first of the sacrifices to Heaven, and to the sun and moon in connexion with it, as well as of those in the ancestral temple, though the latter are the principal subject. The writer, whoever he was, goes fully into the preparations of the sacrificer, and the spirit of reverence in which the services should be conducted. No idea of deprecation or expiation is expressed as belonging to the sacrifices. It is said, indeed, in Section i, 18, that the sacrifice in the suburb of the capital was the great expression of gratitude to Heaven. In Section ii other subjects besides sacrifice are treated of. It commences with a remarkable conversation between Confucius and his disciple 34i Wo, on the constitution of man, as comprehending both the Kwei and Sh4n, the former name denoting the animal soul, which, with the bones and flesh, ‘moulders below and becomes the dust of the fields ;’ while the latter denotes the intelligent soul or spirit, which issues forth at death, and is displayed on high in a condition of glorious brightness. The ploughing of the special fields by the king and rulers of states, and the regulations for the nourishment of silkworms and the preparation of silk by their wives, are set forth, both operations being to provide the sacrificial grain and robes. BK. XXII. INTRODUCTION. 37 After this we have the views of 3ang-3ze and one of his disciples on filial piety, which subject again passes into the submission of the younger brother to the elder, and the respect to be paid generally by juniors to their elders. Book XXII. Ki THuNG The ‘Summary Account of Sacrifices’ is the last and longest, and, it may be added, the most interesting, of the treatises, specially on that subject. We find nothing in it, any more than in the others, of the idea of propitiation ; but it gives many details of the purposes which the institution of sacrifices served in the Chinese state. The old commentators took the character Thung? in the sense of ‘Root’ or ‘Origin’, and hence some English sinologists have named the book ‘ The Origin of Sacrifices,’ and P. Zottoli gives for the title ‘Sacrificii Principium. Callery calls it, better, ‘Généralités sur les Sacrifices.’ The very able commentator K/#ain Hsiangtao compares the Treatise to ‘the large rope which controls the meshes of a net,’ saying, that it commences with sacrifice as coming from the feeling of the heart, and ends with the display of its influence in the conduct of government. .
2. The concluding paragraph shows that it was written while the state of Lf still had an existence; and if the whole Book proceeded from the same hand, it must have been composed some time after the death of Confucius and before the extinction of La, which was consummated by KA in B.c. 248. I think we may refer it to the fourth century B.C. The doctrine of Filial Piety occupies a prominent place in it. Paragraph 13 and the ten that follow, on the connexion between sacrifice and the ten relationships of men, are specially instructive. The author writes forcibly and often subtilely; and can hardly do himself justice in the 38 THE Li xf. CH, 111. expression of his ideas. What he says on the subject of Inscriptions towards the conclusion is interesting. He was a true Lf man, and his views on the sacrifices of his state are contrary to the standard of Chinese orthodoxy about them. Book XXIII. XING XAIEH. King Kieh has been translated ‘Explanations of the Classics,’ and Callery gives for the title ‘Sens Général des Livres Canoniques. A slight attention to the few paragraphs which compose the Book, however, will satisfy the reader that these translations of the name are incorrect. No explanation is attempted of passages in the different King. The true meaning of King Kieh was given by Hwang Khan in a.D. 538. ‘ieh,’ he says, ‘is to be taken in the sense of “separation” or “division ;” and the Treatise describes the difference between the subjects dealt with in the different King.’ The Book, though ingenious, is not entitled to much attention. The first two paragraphs, assigned to Confucius, could not have come from him. They assume that there were six King; but that enumeration of the ancient writings originated with the scholars of the Han dynasty. And among the six is the KZun K4itd, the work of Confucius himself, which he compiled only a year or two before his death. It was for posterity, and not for him, to raise it to the rank of a King, and place it on the same level with the Sha, the Shih, and the Yi. It may be doubted, moreover, if there were ever a Yo King, or ‘Classic of Music.’ Treatises on music, no doubt, existed under the X4u dynasty, but it does not appear that there was any collection of them made till the attempts that have been referred to in the introductory notice to Book XVII. Who the ingenious, but uncritical, compiler of the King Kieh was is unknown. BK. XXIV, INTRODUCTION. 39 Book XXIV. Ar Kunc WAN.
3Who the ingenious, but uncritical, compiler of the King Kieh was is unknown. BK. XXIV, INTRODUCTION. 39 Book XXIV. Ar Kunc WAN. ‘Questions of Duke Ai’ is a translation of the three characters with which the Book commences, and which mean there ‘Duke Ai asked;’ and the title is so far descriptive of the contents of the Book,—two conversations on ceremonies and the practice of government between the marquis 3iang of LQ, posthumously called duke Ai, and Confucius. The sage died in the sixteenth year of 3iang’s marquisate. As an old minister of the state, after he had retired from public life, he had a right of entrance to the court, which, we know, he sometimes exercised. He may have conversed with the marquis on the subjects discussed in this Treatise; but whether he held the particular conversations here related can only be determined by the consideration of their style and matter. I am myself disposed to question their genuineness, There are other recensions of the Treatise. It forms the third of the Books in the current editions of ‘the Lt of the Greater T4i, purporting to be the forty-first of those which were in his larger collection; and is the same as in our Li Xi, with hardly a variation. The second conversation, again, appears as the fourth article in the collection called the ‘Narratives of the School!,’ but with considerable and important variations, under the title of Ta HwAn, ‘The Grand Marriage.’ The first conversation is found also in the same collection, as part of the sixth article, called Wn Li, or ‘Questions about Ceremonies.’ There are also variations in it; but the questioner in both articles is duke Ai. The most remarkable passages of the Book are some paragraphs of the second conversation towards its conclusion. P. Callery translates Thien T4o, ‘the Way of Heaven,’ in paragraph 16, by ‘La Vérité Céleste, and , Sh. ny 40 THE Li xi. CH. III. says in a note that Confucius speaks of this Téo in a way not unlike Lao-jze in the Tao Teh Xing, adding that ‘these two fathers of Chinese philosophy had on this mysterious Being ideas nearly similar.’ But a close examination of the passage, which is itself remarkable, shows that this resemblance between it and passages of the TAoist classic does not exist. See my concluding note on the Book. If there were a Taoist semblance in the phraseology, it would make us refer the composition of the Treatise to the time of KAin or the early days of Han, when T4oism had taken a place in the national literature which it had not had under the dynasty of K4u. Book XXV. KuNG-Ni YEN XU.
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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