Books: THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA)
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James Legge >> THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA)
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13 This etext was prepared by Rick Davis of Ashigawa, Japan, with
assistance from David Steelman, Taiwan.
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THE CHINESE CLASSICS
with a translation, critical and exegetical
notes, prolegomena, and copious indexes
by
James Legge
IN FIVE VOLUMES
CONFUCIAN ANALECTS
THE GREAT LEARNING
THE DOCTRINE OF THE MEAN
PROLEGOMENA.
CHAPTER I.
OF THE CHINESE CLASSICS GENERALLY.
SECTION I.
BOOKS INCLUDED UNDER THE NAME OF THE CHINESE CLASSICS.
1. The Books now recognised as of highest authority in China
are comprehended under the denominations of 'The five Ching [1]'
and 'The four Shu [2].' The term Ching is of textile origin, and
signifies the warp threads of a web, and their adjustment. An
easy application of it is to denote what is regular and insures
regularity. As used with reference to books, it indicates their
authority on the subjects of which they treat. 'The five Ching' are
the five canonical Works, containing the truth upon the highest
subjects from the sages of China, and which should be received as
law by all generations. The term Shu simply means Writings or
Books, = the Pencil Speaking; it may be used of a single character,
or of books containing thousands of characters.
2. 'The five Ching' are: the Yi [3], or, as it has been styled,
'The Book of Changes;' the Shu [4], or 'The Book of History;' the
Shih [5], or 'The Book of Poetry;' the Li Chi [6], or 'Record of Rites;'
and the Ch'un Ch'iu [7], or 'Spring and Autumn,' a chronicle of
events, extending from 722 to 481 B.C. The authorship, or
compilation rather, of all these Works is loosely attributed to
Confucius. But much of the Li Chi is from later hands. Of the Yi,
the Shu, and the Shih, it is only in the first that we find additions
attributed to the philosopher himself, in the shape of appendixes.
The Ch'un Ch'iu is the only one of the five Ching which can, with
an approximation to correctness, be described as of his own
'making.'
1 五經.
2 四書.
3 易經.
4 書經.
5 詩經.
6 禮記.
7 春秋.
'The Four Books' is an abbreviation for 'The Books of the
Four Philosophers [1].' The first is the Lun Yu [2], or 'Digested
Conversations,' being occupied chiefly with the sayings of
Confucius. He is the philosopher to whom it belongs. It appears in
this Work under the title of 'Confucian Analects.' The second is
the Ta Hsio [3], or 'Great Learning,' now commonly attributed to
Tsang Shan [4], a disciple of the sage. He is he philosopher of it.
The third is the Chung Yung [5], or 'Doctrine of the Mean,' as the
name has often been translated, though it would be better to
render it, as in the present edition, by 'The State of Equilibrium
and Harmony.' Its composition is ascribed to K'ung Chi [6], the
grandson of Confucius. He is the philosopher of it. The fourth
contains the works of Mencius.
3. This arrangement of the Classical Books, which is
commonly supposed to have originated with the scholars of the
Sung dynasty, is defective. The Great Learning and the Doctrine of
the Mean are both found in the Record of Rites, being the thirty-
ninth and twenty-eighth Books respectively of that compilation,
according to the best arrangement of it.
4. The oldest enumerations of the Classical Books specify
only the five Ching. The Yo Chi, or 'Record of Music [7],' the
remains of which now form one of the Books in the Li Chi, was
sometimes added to those, making with them the six Ching. A
division was also made into nine Ching, consisting of the Yi, the
Shih, the Shu, the Chau Li [8], or 'Ritual of Chau,' the I Li [9], or
certain 'Ceremonial Usages,' the Li Chi, and the annotated editions
of the Ch'un Ch'iu [10], by Tso Ch'iu-ming [11], Kung-yang Kao [12],
and Ku-liang Ch'ih [13]. In the famous compilation of the Classical
Books, undertaken by order of T'ai-tsung, the second emperor of
the T'ang dynasty (A.D. 627-649), and which appeared in the reign
of his successor, there are thirteen Ching, viz. the Yi, the Shih,
the Shu, the three editions of the Ch'un Ch'iu, the Li Chi, the Chau
Li, the I Li, the Confucian Analects, the R Ya [14], a sort of
ancient dictionary, the Hsiao Ching [15], or 'Classic of Filial
Piety,' and the works of Mencius.
5. A distinction, however, was made among the Works thus
1 四子之書.
2 論語.
3 大學.
4 曾參.
5 中庸.
6 孔伋.
7 樂記.
8 周禮.
9 儀禮.
10 春秋三傳
11 左丘明.
12 公羊高.
13 穀梁赤.
14 爾雅.
15 孝經.
comprehended under the same common name; and Mencius, the Lun
Yu, the Ta Hsio, the Chung Yung, and the Hsiao Ching were spoken
of as the Hsiao Ching, or 'Smaller Classics.' It thus appears,
contrary to the ordinary opinion on the subject, that the Ta Hsio
and Chung Yung had been published as separate treatises before
the Sung dynasty, and that Four Books, as distinguished from the
greater Ching, had also previously found a place in the literature
of China [1].
SECTION II.
THE AUTHORITY OF THE CHINESE CLASSICS.
1. This subject will be discussed in connexion with each
separate Work, and it is only designed here to exhibit generally
the evidence on which the Chinese Classics claim to be received
as genuine productions of the time to which they are referred.
2. In the memoirs of the Former Han dynasty (B.C. 202-A.D.
24), we have one chapter which we may call the History of
Literature [2]. It commences thus: 'After the death of Confucius
[3], there was an end of his exquisite words; and when his seventy
disciples had passed away, violence began to be done to their
meaning. It came about that there were five different editions of
the Ch'un Ch'iu, four of the Shih, and several of the Yi. Amid the
disorder and collisions of the warring States (B.C. 481-220),
truth and falsehood were still more in a state of warfare, and a
sad confusion marked the words of the various scholars. Then
came the calamity inflicted under the Ch'in dynasty (B.C. 220-
205), when the literary monuments were destroyed by fire, in
order to keep the people in ignorance. But, by and by, there arose
the Han dynasty, which set itself to remedy the evil wrought by
the Ch'in. Great efforts were made to collect slips and tablets [4],
and the way was thrown wide open for the bringing in of Books. In
the time of the emperor Hsiao-wu [5] (B.C. 140-85), portions of
Books being wanting and tablets lost, so that ceremonies and
music were
1 For the statements in the two last paragraphs, see 西河合集, 大學
證文, 卷一.
2 前漢書, 本志, 第十卷, 藝文志.
3 仲尼.
4 篇籍, slips and tablets of bamboo, which supplied in those days
the place of paper.
5 世界孝武皇帝.
suffering great damage, he was moved to sorrow and said, "I am
very sad for this." He therefore formed the plan of Repositories,
in which the Books might be stored, and appointed officers to
transcribe Books on an extensive scale, embracing the works of
the various scholars, that they might all be placed in the
Repositories. The emperor Ch'ang (B.C. 32-5), finding that a
portion of the Books still continued dispersed or missing,
commissioned Ch'an Nang, the Superintendent of Guests [2], to
search for undiscovered Books throughout the empire, and by
special edict ordered the chief of the Banqueting House, Liu
Hsiang [3], to examine the Classical Works, along with the
commentaries on them, the writings of the scholars, and all
poetical productions; the Master-controller of Infantry, Zan
Hwang [4], to examine the Books on the art of war; the Grand
Historiographer, Yin Hsien [5], to examine the Books treating of
the art of numbers (i.e. divination); and the imperial Physician, Li
Chu-kwo [6], to examine the Books on medicine. Whenever any
book was done with, Hsiang forthwith arranged it, indexed it, and
made a digest of it, which was presented to the emperor. While
this work was in progress, Hsiang died, and the emperor Ai (B.C.
6-A.D. 1) appointed his son, Hsin [7], a Master of the imperial
carriages, to complete his father's work. On this, Hsin collected
all the Books, and presented a report of them, under seven
divisions.'
The first of these divisions seems to have been a general
catalogue [8] containing perhaps only the titles of the works
included in the other six. The second embraced the Classical
Works [9]. From the abstract of it, which is preserved in the
chapter referred to, we find that there were 294 collections of
the Yi-ching from thirteen different individuals or editors [10];
412 collections of the Shu-ching, from nine different individuals;
416 volumes of the Shih-ching, from six different individuals
[11]; of the Books of Rites, 555 collec-
1 孝成皇帝.
2 謁者陳農.
3 光祿大夫劉向.
4 步兵校慰任宏.
5 太史令尹咸.
6 侍醫李桂國.
7 侍中奉車都慰歆.
8 輯略.
9 六藝略.
10 凡易, 十三家, 二百九十四篇. How much of the whole work was
contained in each 篇, it is impossible to determine. P. Regis says:
'Pien, quemadmodum Gallice dicimus "des pieces d'eloquence, de
poesie."'
11 詩, 六家, 四百一十六卷. The collections of the Shih-ching are
mentioned under the name of chuan, 'sections,' 'portions.' Had p'ien
been used, it might have been understood of individual odes. This
change of terms shows that by p'ien in the other summaries, we
are not to understand single blocks or chapters.
tions, from thirteen different individuals; of the Books on Music,
165 collections, from six different editors; 948 collections of
History, under the heading of the Ch'un Ch'iu, from twenty-three
different individuals; 229 collections of the Lun Yu, including the
Analects and kindred fragments, from twelve different
individuals; of the Hsiao-ching, embracing also the R Ya, and some
other portions of the ancient literature, 59 collections, from
eleven different individuals; and finally of the lesser Learning,
being works on the form of the characters, 45 collections, from
eleven different individuals. The works of Mencius were included
in the second division [1], among the writings of what were
deemed orthodox scholars [2], of which there were 836
collections, from fifty-three different individuals.
3. The above important document is sufficient to show how
the emperors of the Han dynasty, as soon as they had made good
their possession of the empire, turned their attention to recover
the ancient literature of the nation, the Classical Books engaging
their first care, and how earnestly and effectively the scholars of
the time responded to the wishes of their rulers. In addition to
the facts specified in the preface to it, I may relate that the
ordinance of the Ch'in dynasty against possessing the Classical
Books (with the exception, as it will appear in its proper place, of
the Yi-ching) was repealed by the second sovereign of the Han, the
emperor Hsiao Hui [3], in the fourth year of his reign, B.C. 191, and
that a large portion of the Shu-ching was recovered in the time of
the third emperor, B.C. 179-157, while in the year B.C. 136 a
special Board was constituted, consisting of literati, who were
put in charge of the five Ching [4].
4. The collections reported on by Liu Hsin suffered damage
in the troubles which began A.D. 8, and continued till the rise of
the second or eastern Han dynasty in the year 25. The founder of
it (A.D. 25-57) zealously promoted the undertaking of his
predecessors, and additional repositories were required for the
Books which were collected. His successors, the emperors Hsiao-
ming [5] (58-75), Hsiao-chang [6] (76-88), and Hsiao-hwo [7] (89-
105), took a part themselves in the studies and discussions of the
literary tribunal, and
1 諸子略.
2 儒家者流.
3 孝惠皇帝.
4 武帝建元五年, 初置五經博士.
5 顯宗孝明皇帝.
6 肅宗孝章皇帝.
7 孝和皇帝.
the emperor Hsiao-ling [1], between the years 172-178, had the
text of the five Ching, as it had been fixed, cut in slabs of stone,
and set up in the capital outside the gate of the Grand College.
Some old accounts say that the characters were in three different
forms, but they were only in one form; -- see the 287th book of
Chu I-tsun's great Work.
5. Since the Han, the successive dynasties have considered
the literary monuments of the country to be an object of their
special care. Many of them have issued editions of the Classics,
embodying the commentaries of preceding generations. No dynasty
has distinguished itself more in this line than the present
Manchau possessors of the empire. In fine, the evidence is
complete that the Classical Books of China have come down from
at least a century before our Christian era, substantially the
same as we have them at present.
6. But it still remains to inquire in what condition we may
suppose the Books were, when the scholars of the Han dynasty
commenced their labors upon them. They acknowledge that the
tablets -- we cannot here speak of manuscripts -- were
mutilated and in disorder. Was the injury which they had received
of such an extent that all the care and study put forth on the
small remains would be of little use? This question can be
answered satisfactorily, only by an examination of the evidence
which is adduced for the text of each particular Classic; but it
can be made apparent that there is nothing, in the nature of the
case, to interfere with our believing that the materials were
sufficient to enable the scholars to execute the work intrusted to
them.
7 The burning of the ancient Books by order of the founder
of the Ch'in dynasty is always referred to as the greatest
disaster which they sustained, and with this is coupled the
slaughter of many of the Literati by the same monarch.
The account which we have of these transactions in the
Historical Records is the following [2]:
'In his 34th year [the 34th year, that is, after he had
ascended the throne of Ch'in. It was only the 9th year after he had
been acknowledged Sovereign of the empire, coinciding with B.C.
213], the emperor, returning from a visit to the south, which had
extended
1 孝靈皇帝.
2 I have thought it well to endeavour to translate the whole of
the passages. Father de Mailla merely constructs from them a
narrative of his own; see L'Histoire Generale de La China, tome ii.
pp. 399-402. The 通鑑網目 avoids the difficulties of the original by
giving an abridgment of it.
as far as Yueh, gave a feast in his palace at Hsien-yang, when the
Great Scholars, amounting to seventy men, appeared and wished
him a long life [1]. One of the principal ministers, Chau Ch'ing-
ch'an [2], came forward and said, "Formerly, the State of Ch'in
was only 1000 li in extent, but Your Majesty, by your spirit-like
efficacy and intelligent wisdom, has tranquillized and settled the
whole empire, and driven away all barbarous tribes, so that,
wherever the sun and moon shine, all rulers appear before you as
guests acknowledging subjection. You have formed the states of
the various princes into provinces and districts, where the people
enjoy a happy tranquillity, suffering no more from the calamities
of war and contention. This condition of things will be
transmitted for 10,000 generations. From the highest antiquity
there has been no one in awful virtue like Your Majesty."
'The emperor was pleased with this flattery, when Shun-yu
Yueh [3], one of the Great Scholars, a native of Ch'i, advanced and
said, "The sovereigns of Yin and Chau, for more than a thousand
years, invested their sons and younger brothers, and meritorious
ministers, with domains and rule, and could thus depend upon
them for support and aid;-- that I have heard. But now Your
Majesty is in possession of all within the seas, and your sons and
younger brothers are nothing but private individuals. The issue
will be that some one will arise to play the part of T'ien Ch'ang
[4], or of the six nobles of Tsin. Without the support of your own
family, where will you find the aid which you may require? That a
state of things not modelled from the lessons of antiquity can
long continue;-- that is what I have not heard. Ch'ing is now
showing himself to be a flatterer, who increases the errors of
Your Majesty, and not a loyal minister."
'The emperor requested the opinions of others on this
representation, and the premier, Li Sze [5], said, "The five
emperors were not one the double of the other, nor did the three
dynasties accept one another's ways. Each had a peculiar system
of government, not for the sake of the contrariety, but as being
required by the changed times. Now, Your Majesty has laid the
foundations of
1 博士七十人前為壽. The 博士 were not only 'great scholars,' but had
an official rank. There was what we may call a college of them,
consisting of seventy members.
2 僕射, 周青臣.
3 淳于越.
4 田常. -- 常 should probably be 恆, as it is given in the T'ung
Chien. See Analects XIV. xxii. T'ien Hang was the same as Ch'an
Ch'ang of that chapter.
5 丞相李斯
imperial sway, so that it will last for 10,000 generations. This is
indeed beyond what a stupid scholar can understand. And,
moreover, Yueh only talks of things belonging to the Three
Dynasties, which are not fit to be models to you. At other times,
when the princes were all striving together, they endeavoured to
gather the wandering scholars about them; but now, the empire is
in a stable condition, and laws and ordinances issue from one
supreme authority. Let those of the people who abide in their
homes give their strength to the toils of husbandry, while those
who become scholars should study the various laws and
prohibitions. Instead of doing this, however, the scholars do not
learn what belongs to the present day, but study antiquity. They
go on to condemn the present time, leading the masses of the
people astray, and to disorder.
'"At the risk of my life, I, the prime minister, say: Formerly,
when the nation was disunited and disturbed, there was no one
who could give unity to it. The princes therefore stood up
together; constant references were made to antiquity to the
injury of the present state; baseless statements were dressed up
to confound what was real, and men made a boast of their own
peculiar learning to condemn what their rulers appointed. And
now, when Your Majesty has consolidated the empire, and,
distinguishing black from white, has constituted it a stable unity,
they still honour their peculiar learning, and combine together;
they teach men what is contrary to your laws. When they hear
that an ordinance has been issued, every one sets to discussing it
with his learning. In the court, they are dissatisfied in heart; out
of it, they keep talking in the streets. While they make a pretense
of vaunting their Master, they consider it fine to have
extraordinary views of their own. And so they lead on the people
to be guilty of murmuring and evil speaking. If these things are
not prohibited, Your Majesty's authority will decline, and parties
will be formed. The best way is to prohibit them, I pray that all
the Records in charge of the Historiographers be burned,
excepting those of Ch'in; that, with the exception of those
officers belonging to the Board of Great Scholars, all throughout
the empire who presume to keep copies of the Shih-ching, or of
the Shu-ching, or of the books of the Hundred Schools, be required
to go with them to the officers in charge of the several districts,
and burn them [1]; that all who may dare to speak
1 悉詣守尉雜燒之.
together about the Shih and the Shu be put to death, and their
bodies exposed in the market-place; that those who make mention
of the past, so as to blame the present, be put to death along with
their relatives; that officers who shall know of the violation of
those rules and not inform against the offenders, be held equally
guilty with them; and that whoever shall not have burned their
Books within thirty days after the issuing of the ordinance, be
branded and sent to labor on the wall for four years. The only
Books which should be spared are those on medicine, divination,
and husbandry. Whoever wants to learn the laws may go to the
magistrates and learn of them."
'The imperial decision was -- "Approved."'
The destruction of the scholars is related more briefly. In
the year after the burning of the Books, the resentment of the
emperor was excited by the remarks and the flight of two
scholars who had been favourites with him, and he determined to
institute a strict inquiry about all of their class in Hsien-yang, to
find out whether they had been making ominous speeches about
him, and disturbing the minds of the people. The investigation
was committed to the Censors [1], and it being discovered that
upwards of 460 scholars had violated the prohibitions, they were
all buried alive in pits [2], for a warning to the empire, while
degradation and banishment were employed more strictly than
before against all who fell under suspicion. The emperor's eldest
son, Fu-su, remonstrated with him, saying that such measures
against those who repeated the words of Confucius and sought to
imitate him, would alienate all the people from their infant
dynasty, but his interference offended him father so much that he
was sent off from court, to be with the general who was
superintending the building of the great wall.
8. No attempts have been made by Chinese critics and
historians to discredit the record of these events, though some
have questioned the extent of the injury inflicted by them on the
monuments of their ancient literature [3]. It is important to
observe that the edict against the Books did not extend to the Yi-
ching, which was
1 御史悉案問諸生, 諸生傳相告引.
2 自除犯禁者, 四百六餘人, 皆阬之咸陽. The meaning of this passage as
a whole is sufficiently plain, but I am unable to make out the
force of the phrase 自除.
3 See the remarks of Chamg Chia-tsi (夾際鄭氏), of the Sung
dynasty, on the subject, in the 文獻通考, Bk. clxxiv. p. 5.
exempted as being a work on divination, nor did it extend to the
other classics which were in charge of the Board of Great
Scholars. There ought to have been no difficulty in finding copies
when the Han dynasty superseded that of the Ch'in, and probably
there would have been none but for the sack of the capital in B.C.
206 by Hsiang Yu, the formidable opponent of the founder of the
House of Han. Then, we are told, the fires blazed for three months
among the palaces and public buildings, and must have proved as
destructive to the copies of the Great Scholars as the edict of the
tyrant had been to the copies among the people.
It is to be noted also that the life of Shih Hwang Ti lasted
only three years after the promulgation of his edict. He died in
B.C. 210, and the reign of his second son who succeeded him
lasted only other three years. A brief period of disorder and
struggling for the supreme authority between different chiefs
ensured; but the reign of the founder of the Han dynasty dates
from B.C. 202. Thus, eleven years were all which intervened
between the order for the burning of the Books and rise of that
family, which signaled itself by the care which it bestowed for
their recovery; and from the edict of the tyrant of Ch'in against
private individuals having copies in their keeping, to its express
abrogation by the emperor Hsiao Hui, there were only twenty-two
years. We may believe, indeed, that vigorous efforts to carry the
edict into effect would not be continued longer than the life of
its author,-- that is, not for more than about three years. The
calamity inflicted upon the ancient Books of China by the House of
Ch'in could not have approached to anything like a complete
destruction of them. There would be no occasion for the scholars
of the Han dynasty, in regard to the bulk of their ancient
literature, to undertake more than the work of recension and
editing.
9. The idea of forgery by them on a large scale is out of the
question. The catalogues of Liang Hsin enumerated more than
13,000 volumes of a larger or smaller size, the productions of
nearly 600 different writers, and arranged in thirty-eight
subdivisions of subjects [1]. In the third catalogue, the first
subdivision contained the orthodox writers [2], to the number of
fifty-three, with 836 Works or portions of their Works. Between
Mencius and
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