The Chinese Classics: with a translation, critical and exegetical notes, prolegomena and copious indexes: (Shih ching. English) — Volume 1Legge, James
Religion
The Chinese Classics: with a translation, critical and exegetical notes, prolegomena and copious indexes: (Shih ching. English) — Volume 1
Legge, James
China -- History; Chinese literature; Chinese literature -- Translations into English
He followed Hao in the adoption of the reading 'to renovate,' instead of 'to love.' But he transposed the text differently, more akin to the arrangement afterwards made by Chu Hsi, suggesting also that there were some superfluous sentences in the old text which might conveniently be erased. The Work, as proposed to be read by him, will be found in the volume of Mao just referred to.
We come to the name of Chu Hsi who entered into the labors of the brothers Ch'ang, the young of whom he styles his Master, in his introductory note to the Great Learning. His arrangement of the text is that now current in all the editions of the Four Books, and it had nearly displaced the ancient text
1 程子顥,字伯淳,河南,洛陽人.
2 明道.
3 新.
4 親.
5 大學證.
6 程子頤,字正叔,明道之弟.
7 伊川.
altogether. The sanction of Imperial approval was given to it during the Yuan and Ming dynasties. In the editions of the Five Ching published by them, only the names of the Doctrine of the Mean and the Great Learning were preserved. No text of these Books was given, and Hsi-ho tells us that in the reign of Chia-ching [1], the most flourishing period of the Ming dynasty (A.D. 1522-1566), when Wang Wan-ch'ang [2] published a copy of the Great Learning, taken from the T'ang edition of the Thirteen Ching, all the officers and scholars looked at one another in astonishment, and were inclined to supposed that the Work was a forgery. Besides adopting the reading of sin for ch'in from the Ch'ang, and modifying their arrangements of the text, Chu Hsi made other innovations. He first divided the whole into one chapter of Classical text, which he assigned to Confucius, and then chapters of Commentary, which he assigned to the disciple Tsang. Previous to him, the whole had been published, indeed, without any specification of chapters and paragraphs. He undertook, moreover, to supply one whole chapter, which he supposed, after his master Ch'ang, to be missing.
Since the time of Chu Hsi, many scholars have exercised their wit on the Great Learning. The work of Mao Hsi-ho contains four arrangements of the text, proposed respectively by the scholars Wang Lu-chai [3], Chi P'ang- shan [4], Kao Ching-yi [5], and Ko Ch'i-chan [6]. The curious student may examine them here.
Under the present dynasty, the tendency has been to depreciate the labors of Chu Hsi. The integrity of the text of Chang Hsuan is zealously maintained, and the simpler method of interpretation employed by him is advocated in preference to the more refined and ingenious schemes of the Sung scholars. I have referred several times in the notes to a Work published a few years ago, under the title of 'The Old Text of the sacred Ching, with Commentary and Discussions, by Lo Chung-fan of Nan-hai [7].' I knew the man many years ago. He was a fine scholar, and had taken the second degree, or that of Chu-zan. He applied to me in 1843 for Christian baptism, and, offended by my hesitancy, went and enrolled himself among the disciples of another missionary.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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