CHAPTER II. OF THE CONFUCIAN ANALECTS.
SECTION I. FORMATION OF THE TEXT OF THE ANALECTS BY THE SCHOLARS OF THE HAN DYNASTY.
1. When the work of collecting and editing the remains of the Classical Books was undertaken by the scholars of Han, there appeared two different copies of the Analects, one from Lu, the native State of Confucius, and the other from Ch'i, the State adjoining. Between these there were considerable differences. The former consisted of twenty Books or Chapters, the same as those into which the Classic is now divided. The latter contained two Books in addition, and in the twenty Books, which they had in common, the chapters and sentences were somewhat more numerous than in the Lu exemplar. 2. The names of several individuals are given, who devoted themselves to the study of those two copies of the Classic. Among the patrons of the Lu copy are mentioned the names of Hsia-hau Shang, grand-tutor of the heir-apparent, who died at the age of 90, and in the reign of the emperor Hsuan (B.C. 73-49) [1]; Hsiao Wang-chih [2], a general-officer, who died in the reign of the emperor Yuan (B.C. 48-33); Wei Hsien, who was a premier of the empire from B.C. 70-66; and his son Hsuan-ch'ang [3]. As patrons of the Ch'i copy, we have Wang Ch'ing, who was a censor in the year B.C. 99 [4]; Yung Shang [5]; and Wang Chi [6], a statesman who died in the beginning of the reign of the emperor Yuan. 3. But a third copy of the Analects was discovered about B.C. 150. One of the sons of the emperor Ching was appointed king of Lu [7] in the year B.C. 154, and some time after, wishing to enlarge his palace, he proceeded to pull down the house of the K'ung family, known as that where Confucius himself had lived.
1 太子大傳夏侯勝. 2 前將軍, 蕭望之. 3 丞相, 韋賢, 及子, 玄成. 4 王卿. 5 庸生. 6 中尉王吉. 7 魯王共 (or 恭).
While doing so, there were found in the wall copies of the Shu- ching, the Ch'un Ch'iu, the Hsiao-ching, and the Lun Yu or Analects, which had been deposited there, when the edict for the burning of the Books was issued. There were all written, however, in the most ancient form of the Chinese character [1], which had fallen into disuse, and the king returned them to the K'ung family, the head of which, K'ung An-kwo [2], gave himself to the study of them, and finally, in obedience to an imperial order, published a Work called "The Lun Yu, with Explanations of the Characters, and Exhibition of the Meaning [3].' 4. The recovery of this copy will be seen to be a most important circumstance in the history f the text of the Analects. It is referred to by Chinese writers, as 'The old Lun Yu.' In the historical narrative which we have of the affair, a circumstance is added which may appear to some minds to throw suspicion on the whole account. The king was finally arrested, we are told, in his purpose to destroy the house, by hearing the sounds of bells, musical stones, lutes, and citherns, as he was ascending the steps that led to the ancestral hall or temple. This incident was contrived, we may suppose, by the K'ung family, to preserve the house, or it may have been devised by the historian to glorify the sage, but we may not, on account of it, discredit the finding of the ancient copies of the Books. We have K'ung An-kwo's own account of their being committed to him, and of the ways which he took to decipher them. The work upon the Analects, mentioned above, has not indeed come down to us, but his labors on the Shu- ching still remain. 5. It has been already stated, that the Lun Yu of Ch'i contained two Books more than that of Lu. In this respect, the old Lun Yu agreed with the Lu exemplar. Those two books were wanting in it as well. The last book of the Lu Lun was divided in it, however, into two, the chapter beginning, 'Yao said,' forming a whole Book by itself, and the remaining two chapters formed another Book beginning 'Tsze-chang.' With this trifling difference, the old and the Lu copies appear to have agreed together. 6 Chang Yu, prince of An-ch'ang [4], who died B.C. 4, after having
1 科斗文子, — lit. 'tadpole characters.' They were, it is said, the original forms devised by Ts'ang-chieh, with large heads and fine tails, like the creature from which they were named. See the notes to the preface to the Shu-ching in 'The Thirteen Classics.' 2 孔安國. 3 論語訓解. See the preface to the Lun Yu in 'The Thirteen Ching.' It has been my principal authority in this section. 4 安昌侯, 張禹.
sustained several of the highest offices of the empire, instituted a comparison between the exemplars of Lu and Ch'i, with a view to determine the true text. The result of his labors appeared in twenty-one Books, which are mentioned in Liu Hsin's catalogue. They were known as the Lun of prince Chang [1], and commanded general approbation. To Chang Yu is commonly ascribed the ejecting from the Classic the two additional books which the Ch'i exemplar contained, but Ma Twan-lin prefers to rest that circumstance on the authority of the old Lun, which we have seen was without them [2]. If we had the two Books, we might find sufficient reason from their contents to discredit them. That may have been sufficient for Chang Yu to condemn them as he did, but we can hardly supposed that he did not have before him the old Lun, which had come to light about a century before he published his work. 7. In the course of the second century, a new edition of the Analects, with a commentary, was published by one of the greatest scholars which China has ever produced, Chang Hsuan, known also as Chang K'ang-ch'ang [3]. He died in the reign of the emperor Hsien (A.D. 190-220) [4] at the age of 74, and the amount of his labors on the ancient classical literature is almost incredible. While he adopted the Lu Lun as the received text of his time, he compared it minutely with those of Ch'i and the old exemplar. In the last section f this chapter will be found a list of the readings in his commentary different from those which are now acknowledged in deference to the authority of Chu Hsi, of the Sung dynasty. They are not many, and their importance is but trifling. 8. On the whole, the above statements will satisfy the reader of the care with which the text of the Lun Yu was fixed during the dynasty of Han.
SECTION II. AT WHAT TIME, AND BY WHOM, THE ANALECTS WERE WRITTEN; THEIR PLAN; AND AUTHENTICITY.
1. At the commencement of the notes upon the first Book, under the heading, 'The Title of the Work,' I have given the received account of its authorship, which precedes the catalogue
1 張侯論. 2 文獻通考, Bk. clxxxiv. p. 3. 3 鄭玄, 字康成. 4 孝獻皇帝.