BOOK VI. WAN WANG SHIH-DZE.
No hint is given, nothing has been suggested, as to who was the compiler of this Book, which the Khien-lung editors publish in two Sections. Its name is taken from the first
[1. ### and ###.]
clause of the first paragraph, which treats of king Win, the founder of the Kau dynasty, as he demeaned himself in his youth, when he was Shih-dze, or son and heir of his father. This is followed by a similar account of his son, who became king W?; and in paragraph 3 the writer goes on to the duke of Kau's training of king Khing, the young son of W?. In the last paragraph of the second Section, the subject of king Wan as prince is resumed.
But the real subject-matter of the Book lies between those portions, and treats of three things.
First; Section i, paragraph 5 to the end, treats of the education and training of the eldest sons of the king and feudal princes, and of the young men of brightest promise throughout the kingdom, chosen to study with these. We learn much from it as to the educational institutions and methods of ancient times.
Second; in Section ii, paragraphs 1 to 15, we have the duties of the Sh?-dze, the head of an official Section, belonging to the department of the premier, whose special business was with the direction of the young noblemen of the royal and feudal courts in all matters belonging to their instruction.
Third; from paragraph 17 to 23 of Section ii, we have an account of the various ceremonies or observances in the king's feasting and cherishing of the aged, and of his care that a similar course should be pursued by all the princes in their states.
BOOK VII. Li YUN.
Li Yun means, literally, 'The Conveyance of Rites.' P. Callery translates the name, not unsuccessfully, by 'Phases du Cerémonial;' but I prefer my own longer rendering of it, because it gives the reader a better idea of the contents of the Book. Kang Hsüan said it was called the Conveyance of Rites, because it records how the five TAs and three Kings made their several changes in them, and how the Yin and the Yang, or the twofold movement and operation of nature, produced them by their revolutions. The whole is difficult and deep; and no other portion of the collection has tasked the ablest commentators more. The Khien-lung editors say that we have in the Book a grand expression of the importance of ceremonial usages, and that, if we are on our guard against a small Taoistic element in it, it is pure and without a flaw. That depraving element, they think, was introduced by the smaller Tai, who ignorantly thought he could make the Treatise appear to have a higher character by surreptitiously mixing it up with the fancies of Lao, and Kwang. But the Taoistic admixture is larger than they are willing to allow.
Some have attributed the Book to Dze-Yu, who appears, in the first of its Sections, three times by his surname and name of Yen Yen, as the questioner of Confucius, and thereby giving occasion to the exposition of the sage's views; others attribute it to his disciples. The second Section commences with an utterance of Confucius without the prompting of any interlocutor; and perhaps the compiler meant that all the rest of the Treatise should be received as giving not only the Master's ideas, but also his words. Whoever made the Book as we now have it, it is one of the most valuable in the whole work. Hwang Kan (in the end of the Sung dynasty) says of it, that notwithstanding the appearance, here and there, of Taoistic elements, it contains many admirable passages, and he instances what is said about creation or the processes of nature, in iii, 2; about government, in ii, 18; about man, in iii, 1, 7; and about ceremonial usages, in iv, 6.
But the Taoistic element runs through the whole Book, as it does through Book IV. There is an attempt to sew the fancies about numbers, colours, elements, and other things on to the common-sense and morality of Confucianism. But nevertheless, the Treatise bears important testimony to the sense of religion as the first and chief element of ceremonies, and to its existence in the very earliest times.
BOOK VIII. Li KH?
Book VII, it was said, has been attributed to Dze-Yu. I have not seen this ascribed to any one; but it is certainly a sequel to the other, and may be considered as having proceeded from the same author. The more the two are studied together, the more likely will this appear.
Callery has not attempted to translate the title, and says that the two characters composing it give the sense of 'Utensils of Rites,' and have no plausible relation with the scope of the Book in which there is no question in any way of the material employed either in sacrifices or in other ceremonies; and he contends, therefore, that they should not be translated, but simply be considered as sounds[1].
But the rendering which I have given is in accordance with an acknowledged usage of the second character, Kh?. We read in the Confucian Analects, V, 3:--'Dze-kung asked, "What do you say of me?" The Master answered, "You are a vessel." "What vesseLi" "A sacrificial vessel of jade."' The object of the Book is to show how ceremonial usages or rites go to form 'the vessel of honour,' 'the superior man,' who is equal to the most difficult and important services. Kang Hsüan saw this clearly, and said, 'The Book was named Li Khi, because it records how ceremonies cause men to become perfect vessels.' 'The former Book shows the evolution of Rites; this shows the use of them:'--such was the dictum in A.D. 1113 of Fang Küeh, a commentator often quoted by Khan Hao and by the Khien-lung editors.
Throughout the Book it is mostly religious rites that are spoken of; especially as culminating in the worship of God. And nothing is more fully brought out than that all rites are valueless without truth and reverence.
[1. ###.]
BOOK IX. KI?O THEH SANG.
The name of the Book is made up of the three characters with which it commences, just as the Hebrew name for the Book of Genesis in our Sacred Scriptures is Beraishith ({BeRAShiTh}). From the meaning, however, of Kiao Theh Sang the reader is led to suppose that he will find the Treatise occupied principally with an account of the great Border Sacrifice. But it is not so.
The main subject of the Book is sacrifice generally; and how that which is most valuable in it is the reverence and sincerity of the worshipper, finding its exhibition in the simplicity of his observances. In the preceding Book different conditions have been mentioned which are of special value in sacrifice and other ceremonies. Among them is the paucity of things (Section i, paragraph 8); and this consideration is most forcibly illustrated by 'the Single Victim' employed in the Border Sacrifice, the greatest of all ceremonies. At the same time various abuses of the ancient sincerity and simplicity are exposed and deplored.
The ceremonies of capping and marriage are dealt with in the third Section; and we are thankful for the information about them which it supplies. In the end the writer returns to the subject of sacrifices; and differences in the different dynasties, from the time of Shun downwards, in the celebration of them are pointed out.
The Khien-lung editors say that this Book was originally one with the last, and 'was separated from it by some later hand.' I had come to the same conclusion before I noticed their judgment. Books VII, VIII, and IX must have formed, I think, at first one Treatise.
BOOK X. NêI ZEH.
The title of this book, meaning 'The Pattern of the Family,' rendered by Callery, 'Réglements Intérieurs,' approximates to a description of its contents more than most of the titles in the Li King. It is not taken, moreover, from any part of the text near the commencement or elsewhere. It is difficult to understand why so little of it is retained in the expurgated editions, hardly more than a page of P. Callery's work being sufficient for it.
Kang Hsüan says:--'The Book takes its name of Nêi Zeh, because it records the rules for sons and daughters in serving their parents, and for sons and their wives in serving her parents-in-law in the family-home. Among the other Treatises of the Li King, it may be considered as giving the Rules for Children. And because the observances of the harem are worthy of imitation, it is called Nêi Zeh, "the Pattern of the Interior."' King Hs? says, that 'it is a Book which was taught to the people in the ancient schools, an ancient Classic or Sacred Text.'
Because the name of Zang-dze and a sentence from him occur, the Khien-lung editors are inclined to ascribe the authorship to his disciples; but the premiss is too narrow to support such a conclusion.
The position of the wife, as described in Section i, will appear to western readers very deplorable. Much in this part of the Treatise partakes of the exaggeration that is characteristic of Chinese views of the virtue of filial piety.
The account in Section ii of the attention paid to the aged, and the nourishing of them, is interesting, but goes, as the thing itself did, too much into details. What is it to us at the present time how they made the fry, the bake, the delicacy, and the other dishes to tempt the palate and maintain the strength? The observances in the relation of husband and wife, on the birth of a child, and the education and duties of the young of both sexes, which the Section goes on to detail, however, are not wanting in attraction.
BOOK XI. Yü ZAO.
The name of the Book, Yü Zao, is taken from the first clause of the first paragraph. The two characters denote the pendants of the royal cap worn on great occasions, and on which beads of jade were strung. There were twelve of those pendants hanging down, before and behind, from the ends of the square or rectangular top of the cap, as in the cardinal cap which is the crest of Christ Church, Oxford. But we read nothing more of this cap or its pendants after the first paragraph; and the contents of all the three Sections of the Book are so various, that it is impossible to give an account of them in small compass.
King Hsüan said that the Book was named Yü Zao, because it recorded the dresses and caps warn by the son of Heaven; but it is not confined to the king, but introduces rulers also and officers generally. It treats also of other matters besides dress, which it would be difficult to speak of in so many categories. Much, moreover, of the second Section seems to consist of disjecta membra, and the paragraphs are differently arranged by different editors. Here and there the careful reader will meet with sentiments and sentences that will remain in his memory, as in reading Book I; but he will only carry away a vague impression of the Book as a whole.
BOOK XII. MING THANG WEI.
Readers will turn to this Book, as I did many years ago, expecting to find in it a full description of the Ming Thang, generally called by sinologists, 'The Brilliant Hall,' and 'The Hall of Light;' but they will find that the subject-matter is very different. I have here translated the name by 'the Hall of Distinction,' according to the meaning of it given in paragraph 5, taking 'distinction' in the sense of separation or discrimination.
The Treatise commences with, but does not fairly describe, the great scene in the life of the duke of Kau, when a regent of the kingdom, he received all the feudal lords and the chiefs of the barbarous tribes at the capital, on occasion of a grand audience or durbar. The duke was the ancestor of the lords or marquises of the state of Li,--part of the present province of Shan-tung. He was himself, indeed, invested with that fief by his nephew, king Khang, though, remaining for reasons of state at the royal court, he never took possession of it in person, but sent his son Po-khin to do so in his room. Because of his great services in the establishment and consolidation of the new dynasty, however, various privileges were conferred on the rulers of Li above the lords of other states. These are much exaggerated in the Book; and after the sixth paragraph, we hear no more of the Hall of Distinction. All that follows is occupied with the peculiar privileges said to have been claimed, and antiques reported to have been possessed, by the marquises of Li. What is said has no historical value, and the whole Book is excluded from the expurgated editions.
The Khien-lung editors say that its author must have been an ignorant and vainglorious scholar of Li in the end of the Kau dynasty. Some have imagined that it was handed on, with additions of his own, by Ma Yung to Kang Hsüan; but the latter says nothing about the other in his brief prefatory note.
The Hall of Distinction was a royal structure. Part of it was used as a temple, at the sacrifices in which peculiar honour was done to king Wan (The Shih, IV, i, 7). It was also used for purposes of audience, as on the occasion referred to in this Book; and governmental regulations were promulgated from it (Mencius, I, ii, 5). To this third use of it would belong the various references to it in Book IV of this collection.
The principal Hall was in the capital; but there were smaller ones with the same name at the four points where the kings halted in their tours of inspection to receive the feudal lords of the different quarters of the kingdom. It was one of these which Mencius had in his mind in the passage referred to above.
In the 67th Book of the Li of the Greater Tai there, is a description of the building and its various parts; and among the 'Books of Kau' said to have been found in A.D. 279 in the grave of king Hsiang of Wei, the 55th chapter has the title of Ming Thang, but it is little more than a rifacimento of the first four paragraphs of this Book of the Li King.
In Morrison's Chinese Dictionary, vol. i, p. 512, there is a ground-plan of the Hall according to a common representation of it by Chinese authorities.
BOOK XIII. SANG Fu HSIAO King.
This 'Record of Smaller Points in connexion with the Dress of Mourning,' is the first of the many treatises in our collection, devoted expressly to the subject of the mourning rites, and especially of the dress worn by the mourners, according to the degree of their relationship. The expurgated editions do not give any part of it; and it is difficult--I may say impossible--to trace any general plan on which the compiler, who is unknown, put the different portions of it together. Occasionally two or three paragraphs follow one another on the same subject) and I have kept them together after the example of Khung Ying-ta; but the different notices are put down as if at random, just as they occurred to the writer.
King Hs says that Dze-hsia made a supplementary treatise to the 11th Book of the Li, and that we have here an explanation of many points in that Book. It is so; and yet we may not be justified in concluding that this is a remnant of the production of Dze-hsia.
BOOK XIV. TA KWAN.
This Book, 'the Great Treatise,' has been compared to the Hs? Zhze, the longest and most important of the Appendixes to the Yu King, which is also styled Ta Kwan.
It is short, however, as compared with that other; nor is it easy to understand, the subjects with which it deals being so different in the conceptions of Chinese and western minds. 'It treats,' said Khan Hsiang-tao (early in the Sung dynasty), 'of the greatest sacrifice,--that offered by the sovereign to all his ancestors; of the greatest instance of filial piety,--that of carrying back to his forefathers the title gained by the sacrificer; of the greatest principle in the regulation of the family,--that expressed by the arrangement of the names of its members according to their relations to one another; and of the course of humanity as the greatest illustration of propriety and righteousness. On account of this it is called The Great Treatise.'
From this summary of its contents the importance of the Book will be seen. We know nothing either of its author or of the date of its compilation.
BOOK XV. SHAO I.
The Shao, or 'Smaller Rules of Conduct,' is akin to much of the first Book in our collection, 'the Summary of the Rules of Ceremony.' Shao means 'few,' and often 'few in years,' or 'young;' and hence some have thought that the subject of the Book is 'Rules for the Young.' So Callery, who gives for the title, 'Règles de Conduite des Jeunes Gens.'
But the contents cannot be so restricted; and since the time of King Hsüan, shao has been taken by most Chinese commentators as equivalent to hsiao[1], which occurs in the title of Book XIII. The difference between the two Chinese characters is not so great as that between these alphabetic exhibitions of their names. Li Teh-ming says, 'Shao is here equivalent to hsiao;' and Kang says, that the Book is named Shao 'because it records the small rules of demeanour at interviews and in bringing in the provisions for a feast.' But the observances described are very various, and enable us to form a life-like picture of manners in those early days.
According to King Hsi, the Book was intended to be a branch of the smaller learning, or lessons for youth; but
[1. ### and ###.]
was extended to a variety of subjects in daily life and the intercourses of society. When and by whom it was compiled is not known.
BOOK XVI. HSIO King
The Hsio King, or 'Record of Studies,' is a treatise of very considerable interest and importance. Khang-dze, whom King Hs? was accustomed to call his 'Master,' considered it to be, after Books XXVIII and XXXIX, the Kung Yung and Ta Hsio, the most correct and orthodox Book in the Li King.
The Khien-lung editors say that in paragraphs 4 and 5 we have the institutions of the ancient kings for purposes of education; in 6 to 19, the laws for teachers; and in what follows, those for learners. The summary is on the whole correct, but the compiler (who is unknown) did not always keep his subjects distinct. In the three commencing paragraphs the importance of education to the moral well-being of the people is strikingly exhibited. The whole displays an amount of observation and a maturity of reflection on the subject, which cannot but be deemed remarkable. The information about ancient schools and higher institutions may be found in the earlier Books, but we are glad to have this repetition of it.
BOOK XVII. YO King
The Yo King, or 'Record of Music,' will be found to have more interest for general readers than most of the other Books of the Li. Khang-dze speaks of it in terms similar to those quoted from him in the preceding notice about the Hsio King. That, so far as correctness and orthodoxy are concerned, is next to the Kung Yung and Ta Hsio; this is near to them. Its introduction into our collection is ascribed to Ma Yung.
The old documents on music that, had been recovered during the earlier Han dynasty, appear in Li? Hsin's Catalogue after those of the Li, amounting in all to 165 phien, distributed in, six collections. The first of these was the Yo King, in 23 phien; the second, the King of Wang Yü[1], in 24 phien. Khung Ying-ta, deriving his information from a note in Hsin's Catalogue and other sources, sums up what he has to say about this Book in the following way:--On the rise of the Han dynasty, the treatises of former times on music, as well as the practice of the art, were in a state of special dilapidation. In the time of the emperor W?, his brother Teh, with the help of many scholars, copied out all that remained on the subject of music, and made a Yo King, or 'Record of Music,' in 24 phien or books, which Wang Yü presented to the court in the time of the emperor Khang (B.C. 32-7);--but it was afterwards hardly heard of. When Li? Hsiang (died B.C. 9) examined the books in the Imperial library, he found a 'Record of Music' in 23 phien, different from that which Wang Yü had presented. Our present Yo King contains eleven of those phien, arranged with the names of their subjects. The other twelve are lost, though their names remain.
Most of the present text is found in Sze-ma Khien's Monograph on Music; and as he was so long before Li? Hsiang (Khien died between B.C. 90 and 80), the Khien-lung editors suppose that it is one of the portions of Khien's work, supplied by Kh? Shao-sun[2], who was a contemporary of Hsiang.
King Hs? had a great admiration of many passages in the Yo King, and finds in them the germs of the views on the constitution of humanity, and on the action and interaction of principle and passion, reason and force, in the economy of what we call Providence, on which he delighted to dwell in his philosophical speculations. We expect from the title, as Hwang Kan-hsing (Ming dynasty) says, that music will be the chief subject of the Treatise, but everywhere we find ceremonial usages spoken of equally and in their relation to it; for, according to the view of the author, the framework of society is built on the truth
[1. ###.
2. ###; see Wylie's Notes, p. 14.]
underlying ceremonies, and music is the necessary expression of satisfaction in the resulting beauty and harmony.
BOOK XVIII. ZA King.
Book XVII is given nearly complete in the expurgated edition translated by Callery, while the 18th or 'Miscellaneous Records,' happily rendered by him by the one French word 'Mélanges,' is reduced to about a third of its length in the Chinese text. Notwithstanding its name of 'Miscellanies,' the greater part is occupied with the observances of the Mourning Rites. Interesting questions concerning them are discussed, and information is given on customs which we do not find in such detail elsewhere,--such, for instance, as those relating to the gifts of grave-clothes and other things for the burial of the dead. Towards the end other customs, besides those of the mourning rites, are introduced. It would be a mistake, however, to suppose that this is done to justify the name of Miscellaneous Records given to the whole. It is a peculiarity of many of the other Books that the writer, or writers, seem to get weary of confining themselves to one subject or even to a few subjects, and introduce entries of quite a different nature for no reason that we can discover but their arbitrary pleasure.
The correctness and integrity of many paragraphs have been justly called in question. The authority of the Book does not rank high. It must be classed in this respect with the Than Kung.
BOOK XIX. SANG TA King.
Book XIII deals with smaller points in connexion with the dress of mourning; Book XVIII, with miscellaneous points in mourning; and this Book with the greater points, especially with the two dressings of the dead, the coffining, and the burial. Beginning with the preparations for death in the case of a ruler, a Great officer, or an ordinary officer, it goes methodically over all the observances at and after death, until the burial has taken place. It takes us into the palace, the mansion, and the smaller official residence, and shows us what was done at the different steps that intervened between death and the committing of the coffin to the grave. Some of the observances differ in minor points from details in those other Books, and in the Than Kung or Book II; but taking them all together, we get from them a wonderfully minute account of all the rites of mourning in ancient China. W? Khang says, 'This Book relates the greater rules observed in each event which it mentions.' It was not, intended to supplement the information elsewhere given about smaller details; and hence it is named 'The Greater Record of Mourning Rites.'
BOOK XX. King FU.
Ki Fa, so named from the first two characters in the Book, and meaning 'Laws or Rules of Sacrifices,' is the first of three treatises, all on the subject of sacrifices, that come together at this part of the collection of the Li. They were not, perhaps, the production of the same hand; but the writer of this one evidently had before him the 17th article in the first Part of the Narratives connected with the state of Li, which form the second Section of 'the Narratives of the States[1].' That article contains an exposition of the subject of sacrifices by a Ken Khin, in deprecation of a sacrifice ordered by Zang Wan-kang, who had been for about fifty years one of the ministers of Li. Zang died in B.C. 617.
Difficulties attach to some of the historical statements in the Book, which cannot be cleared up from our want of sufficient documents. The whole consists of two Parts,--paragraphs 1-8, and paragraph 9. All the former is excluded from the expurgated editions; but in it, as well as in the other, the sacrifices are mainly those to departed worthies. There is no idea of deprecation in them; much less of atonement. They are expressions of gratitude, and commemorative of men whose laws and achievements were
[1. ###.]
beneficial to their own times, and helped on the progress of civilisation, so that they would be beneficial also to all ages.
In the conclusion, the sacrifices to the sun, moon, and other parts of nature appear; and it is said that they were instituted because the action of those bodies contributed to promote the comfort and agency of men. So 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. King I.
The King, 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, A, 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 Zai Wo, on the constitution of man, as comprehending both the Kwei and Shin, 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.
After this we have the views of Zang-dze 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. King 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[1] in the sense of 'Root' or 'Origin[2],' 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 Khan Hsiang tao 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.
The concluding. paragraph shows that it was written while the state of Li 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 Li, which was consummated by Kh? 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
[1. ###.
2. ###.]
expression of his ideas. What he says on the subject of Inscriptions towards the conclusion is interesting. He was a true Li man, and his views on the sacrifices of his state are contrary to the standard of Chinese orthodoxy about them.
BOOK XXIII. KING KIEH.
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. 'Kieh,' 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 Khun Khi? "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 Sh?, the Shih, and the Yu. It may be doubted, moreover, if there were ever a Yo King, or 'Classic of Music.' Treatises on music, no doubt, existed under the Kau 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.
BOOK XXIV.I KUNG WAN.
'Questions of Dukei' is a translation of the three characters with which the Book commences, and which mean there 'Dukei 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 Ziang of Li, posthumously called dukei, and Confucius. The sage died in the sixteenth year of Ziang'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 Li of the Greater Tai,' purporting to be the forty-first of those which were in his larger collection; and is the same as in our Li King, with hardly a variation. The second conversation, again, appears . as the fourth article in the collection called the 'Narratives of the School[1],' 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 Wan Li, or 'Questions about Ceremonies.' There are also variations in, it; but the questioner in both articles is dukei.
The most remarkable passages of the Book are some paragraphs of the second conversation towards its conclusion. P. Callery translates Thien Tao, 'the Way of Heaven,' in paragraph 16, by 'La Vérité Céleste,' and
says in a note that Confucius speaks of this Tao in a way not unlike Lao-dze in the Tao Teh King, 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 Khin or the early days of Han, when Taoism had taken a place in the national literature which it had not had under the dynasty of Kau.
BOOK XXV. KUNG-N? YEN Kü.
The title of this Book is taken from the four characters with which it commences. Confucius has returned from his attendance at the court of Li, and is at home in his own house. Three of his disciples are sitting by him, and his conversation with them flows on till it has reached the subject of ceremonial usages. In reply to their questions, he discourses on it at length, diverging also to the subjects of music and the practice of government in connexion with ceremonies, in a familiar and practical manner.
He appears in the title by his designation, or name as married, Kung-n?, which we find also two or three times in Book XXVIII, which is received as the composition of his grandson Khung King, or Dze-sze. This Treatise, however, is much shorter than that, and inferior to it. The commentator Wang of Shih-liang[1], often quoted by Khan Hao, says, that though this Treatise has a beginning and end, the style and ideas are so disjected and loose, that many of the utterances attributed to Confucius cannot be accepted as really his.
[1. ###.]
BOOK XXVI. KHUNG-DZE HSIEN Kü.
The title of this Book is akin to that of the last, the characters of that leading us to think of Confucius as having returned from court to 'his case,' and those of this suggesting nothing of his immediate antecedents, but simply saying that he was 'at home and at leisure.' Instead of being called, as there, by his designation, he appears here as Khung-dze, 'the philosopher Khung,' or' Mr. Khung.'
The Book also relates a conversation, but only one disciple is present, and to him the Master discourses on the description of a sovereign as 'the parent of the people,' and on the virtue of the founders of the three dynasties of Hsia, Shang, and Kau, illustrating his views by quotations from the Book of Poetry. His language is sometimes strange and startling, while the ideas underlying it are subtle and ingenious. And the poetical quotations are inapplicable to the subjects in connexion with which they are introduced. If the commentator Wang could not adopt the speeches attributed to Confucius in the last Book as really his, much less can we receive those in this as such.
From their internal analogies in form and sentiment, I suppose that the two Books were made by the same writer; but I have met with no guess even as to who he was.
BOOK XXVII. FANG King.
'The Dykes,' which is the meaning of the title of this Book, is suggestive of its subject-matter. We have in it the rules or usages of ceremony presented to us under the figure of dykes, dams, or barriers; defensive structures made to secure what is inside them from escaping or dispersion, and to defend it against inundation or other injurious assault and invasion from without. The character, called fang, is used for the most part with verbal force, 'acting as a dyke or barrier;' and it would often be difficult to say whether the writer was thinking of the particular institution or usage spoken of as fulfilling the purpose of defence against peril from within, or violence from without.
The illustrations are numerous, and they are all given as if they came from the lips of Confucius himself; but we cannot suppose that they were really from him. They are not in his style, and the reasonings are occasionally unworthy of him. Many paragraphs carry on their front a protest against our receiving them as really his. Nevertheless, the Book, though sometimes tedious, is on the whole interesting, and we like the idea of looking on the usages as 'dykes.' We do not know to whom we are indebted for it. One of the famous brothers Khang of the Sung dynasty has said:-We do not know who wrote the Treatise. Since we find such expressions in it As "The Lun Yü says," it is plainly not to be ascribed to Confucius. Passages in the Han scholars, Kia and Tung Kung-sh?, are to the same effect as what we find here; and perhaps this memoir was their production.'
BOOK XXVIII. KUNG YUNG.
The Kung Yung would be pronounced, I think, by Chinese scholars to be the most valuable of all the Treatises in the Li King; and from an early time it asserted a position peculiar to itself. Its place in the general collection of Ritual Treatises was acknowledged by Ma Yung and his disciple Kang Hsüan; but in Li? Hsin's Catalogue of the Li Books, we find an entry of 'Observations on the Kung Yung, in two phien;' so early was the work thought to be deserving of special treatment by itself. In the records of the Sui dynasty (A.D. 589-617), in the Catalogue of its Imperial library, there are the names of three other special works upon it, one of them by the emperor W? (A. D. 502-549) of the Liang dynasty.
Later on, under the Sung dynasty, the Kung Yung, the Ta Hsio, or 'Great Learning,' which is also a portion of the Li King, the Confucian Analects, or the Lun Yü, and the works of Mencius, were classed together as 'The Four Books,' which have since that time formed so important a division of Chinese literature; and ' the Kung Yung, in chapters and sentences, with a digest of commentaries on it,' was published by King Hs? early in A.D. 1189. About 125 years afterwards, the fourth emperor of the Yüan dynasty enacted that King's edition and views should be the text-book of the classic at the literary examinations. From that time merely the name of the Kung Yung was retained in editions of the Li King, until the appearance of the Imperial edition of the whole collection in the Khien-lung period of the present dynasty. There the text is given in two Sections according to the old division of it, with the ancient commentaries from the edition of 'The Thirteen King' of the Thang dynasty, followed at the end of each paragraph by the Commentary of King.
The authorship of the Kung Yung is ascribed to Khung King, better known as Dze-sze, the grandson of Confucius. There is no statement to this effect, indeed, in the work itself; but the tradition need not be called in question. It certainly existed in the Khung family. The Book must have been written in the fifth century B.C., some time, I suppose, between 450 and 400. Since A.D. 1267, the author has had a place in the temples of Confucius as one of 'The Four Assessors,' with the title of 'The Philosopher Dze-sze, transmitter of the Sage.' I have seen his tomb-mound in the Confucian cemetery, outside the city of Khü-FU in Shantung, in front of those of his father and grandfather. There is a statue of him on it, bearing the inscription, 'Duke (or Prince) of the State of.'
It is not easy to translate the name of the Treatise, Kung Yung. It has been represented by 'Juste Milieu;' 'Medium Constans vel Sempiternurn;' 'L'Invariable Milieu;' 'The Constant Medium.' 'The Golden Medium;' 'The True Medium,' and otherwise. I called it, in 1861, 'The Doctrine of the Mean,' which I have now changed for 'The State of Equilibrium and Harmony,' the reasons for which will be found in the notes on the first chapter of the present version.
I do not here enter on an exhibition of the scope and value of the Book. It gives the best account that we have of the Confucian philosophy and morals, and will amply repay careful study, and hold its place not only in China, but in the wider sphere beyond it. The writer had an exaggerated conception of the sage; but he deserves well of his own country and of the world.
BOOK XXIX. PIAO King.
The character called Piao is the symbol for the outer garments, and is used to indicate whatever is external in opposition to what is internal; the outside of things, what serves to mark them out and call attention to them. Hence comes its use in the sense which it bears in the title of this Book, for what serves as an exàmple or model. Callery renders that title by 'Mémoire sur l'Exemple;' Wylie, by 'The Exemplar Record.'
Piao is also used for the gnomon of a dial; and the Khien-lung editors fix on this application of the character in explaining the name of the Book. 'Piao,' they say, 'is the gnomon of a dial, by which the movement of the sun is measured; it rises up in the Centre, and all round is regulated by it. The Fang King shows men what they ought to be on their guard against; the Piao King, what they should take as their pattern.' Then they add--'Of patterns there is none so honourable as benevolence (or humanity proper), and to aid that there is righteousness, while, to complete it, there is sincerity or good faith, and reverence is that by which the quest for humanity is pursued.' This second sentence may be considered a summary of the contents of the Book, which they conclude by saying, they have divided into eight chapters after the example of the scholar Hwang; meaning, I suppose, Hwang Khan, who has been already mentioned as having published his work on our classic in A. D. 538.
That division into eight chapters lies on the face of the Treatise. We have eight paragraphs commencing with the characters which I have rendered by 'These were the words of the Master;' and these are followed by a number of others, more or fewer as the case may be, in which the words of the Master ('The Master said') are adduced to substantiate what has been stated in that introductory passage. The arrangement is uniform, excepting in one instance to which I have called attention in a note, and suitably divides the whole into eight chapters.
But no one supposes that 'the words of the Master' are really those of Confucius, or were used by him in the connexion which is here given to them. They were invented by the author of the Treatise, or applied by him, to suit his own purpose; and scholars object to many of them as contrary to the sentiments of the sage, and betraying a tendency to the views of Taoism. This appears, most strikingly perhaps, in the fifth chapter. On the statement, for instance', in paragraph 32, that the methods of Yin and Kau were not equal to the correction of the errors produced by those of Shun and Hs?a, the Khien-lung editors say:--'How could these words have come from the mouth of the Master? The disciples of Lao-dze despised forms and prized the unadorned simplicity, commended what was ancient, and condemned all that was of their own time. In the beginning of the Han dynasty, the principles of Hwang and Lao were widely circulated; students lost themselves in the stream of what they heard, could not decide upon its erroneousness, and ascribed it to the Master. Such cases were numerous, and even in several paragraphs of the Li Yun (Book VII) we seem to have some of them. What we find there was the utterance, probably, of some disciple of Lao-dze.'
No one, so far as I have noticed, has ventured to assign the authorship of this Book on example. I would identify him, myself, with the Kung-sun N?-dze, to whom the next is ascribed.
BOOK XXX. DZE
It is a disappointment to the reader, when he finds after reading the title of this Book, that it has nothing to do with the Black Robes of which he expects it to be an account. That phrase occurs in the second paragraph, in a note to which its origin is explained; but the other name Hsiang Po, which is found in the same paragraph, might with equal appropriateness, or rather inappropriateness, have been adopted for the Treatise.
It is really of the same nature as the preceding, and contains twenty-four paragraphs, all attributed to 'the Master,' and each of which may be considered to afford a pattern for rulers and their people. It ought to form one Book with XXIX under the title of 'Pattern Lessons.' I have pointed out in the notes some instances of the agreement in their style and phraseology, and the intelligent reader who consults the translation with reference to the Chinese text will discover more. Li Teh-ming (early in the Thang dynasty) tells us, on the authority of Li? Hsien, that the Dze was made by a Kung-sun Ni-dze. Li? Hsien was a distinguished scholar of the early Sung dynasty, and died about A. D. 500; but on what evidence he assigned the authorship of the Book to Kung-sun Ni-dze does not, in the present state of our knowledge, appear. The name of that individual is found twice in Li? Hsin's Catalogue, as belonging to the learned school, and among 'the Miscellaneous writers,' with a note that he was 'a disciple of the seventy disciples of the Master.' The first entry about him precedes that about Mencius, so that he must be referred to the closing period of the Kau dynasty, the third century B.C. He may, therefore, have been the author of 'The Black Robes,' and of the preceding Book as well, giving his own views, but attributing them, after the fashion of the time, to Confucius; but, as the commentator Fang (? Ming dynasty) observes:--'Many passages in the Book are made to resemble the sayings of a sage; but the style is not good and the meaning is inferior.'
BOOK XXXI. PAN SANG.
This Book refers to a special case in connexion with the mourning rites, that of an individual who has been prevented, from taking part with the other relatives in the usual observances at the proper time. It might be that he was absent from the state, charged by his ruler with public business, or he might be in the same state but at a distance, and so occupied that he had been unable to take part in the mourning services.
But they were too sacred to be entirely neglected, and we have here the rules applicable to such a case, in a variety of circumstances and different degrees of consanguinity. Some other matter, more or less analogous, is introduced towards the end.
We have seen how the first of the 'Three Rituals' recovered in the Han dynasty was seventeen Books that now form the Li. Kang Hsüan supposed that the Pan Sang had been another Book of that collection, and was afterwards obtained from the tablets found in the village of Yen-kung in Li. It has been decided, however, that the style determines it to be from another hand than the Li.
Here it is, and we have only to make the best of it that we can, without knowing who wrote it or when it came to light. The Khien-lung editors say :--'Anciently, in cases of mourning for a year or shorter period even, officers left their charges and hurried to the rites. In consequence of the inconvenience arising. from this, it was enacted that officers should leave their charge only on the death of a parent. It was found difficult, however, to enforce this. The rule is that a charge cannot be left, without leave asked and obtained.'
BOOK XXXII. WAN SANG.
The Wan Sang, or 'Questions about Mourning Rites,' is a short Treatise, which derives its name from inquiries about the dressing of the corpse, the putting off the cap and replacing it by the cincture, and the use of the staff in mourning. Along with those inquiries there are accounts of some of the rites, condensed and imperfect. The Book should be read in connexion with the other Books of a similar character, especially XIII.
Much cannot be said in favour of the style, or of the satisfactoriness of the replies to the questions that arc propounded. The principal idea indeed in the mind of the author, whoever he was, was that the rites were the outcome of the natural feelings of men, and that mourning was a manifestation of filial piety. The most remarkable passage is that with which the Treatise concludes, that the use of the staff was not to be sought in any revelation from heaven or earth, but was simply from the good son's filial affection. The way in which the sentiment is expressed has often brought to my mind the question of the Apostle Paul about faith, in Romans x. 6-8.
BOOK XXXIII. FU WAN.
Like the last two Books and the two that follow, the FU Wan is omitted in the expurgated editions. It is still shorter than the Wan Sang, and treats also of the mourning rites, and specially of the dress in it, and changes in it, which naturally gave rise to questioning.
The writer, or compiler, often quotes from what he calls the Kwan, a name which has sometimes been translated by 'Tradition.' But the Chinese term, standing alone, may mean what is transmitted by writings, as well as what is handed down by oral communication. It is used several times in Mencius in the sense of 'Record' and 'Records.' I have called it here 'The Directory of Mourning.' W? Khang says rightly that the Book is of the same character as XIII; that the mourning rites were so many, and some of them so peculiar, that collisions between different rites must have been of frequent occurrence. The FU Wan takes up several such cases and tells us how they were met satisfactorily, or, as we may think, unsatisfactorily.
BOOK XXXIV. KIEN KWAN.
The Kien Kwan is a Treatise on subsidiary points in the mourning rites, It is not easy to render the name happily in English. I have met with it as 'The Intermediate Record.' Kwan is the character spoken of in the preceding notice; Kien is the symbol for the space between two things, suggesting the idea of distinction or difference. Kang Hsüan says that 'the name has reference to the distinctions suitably made in mourning, according as it was lighter or more important.'
However we translate or explain the name, we find the Book occupied with the manifestations of grief in the bearing of the mourners; in the modulation of their voices; in their eating and drinking; in their places; in the texture of their dress; and in the various changes which were made in it till it was finally put off. Some points in it are difficult to understand at this distance of time, and while we are still imperfectly acquainted with the mourning usages of the people at the present day.
BOOK XXXV. SAN NIEN WAN.
The 'Questions about the Mourning for three years' is occupied principally with the mourning for parents for that period, but it touches on all the other periods of mourning as well, explaining why one period differs in its duration from the others.
Mourning, it is said, is the outcome of the relative feeling proper to man; the materials of the dress, the duration of the rites, and other forms are from the ancient sages and legislators, to regulate and direct the expression of the feeling.
What is said in paragraph 4 about the mourning of birds and beasts is interesting, but fantastical. Though the mourning for a parent is said to last for three years, the western reader is not to suppose that it continues to the end of that time, but simply that it extends into the third year. Virtually it terminates with the twenty-fifth month, and positively with the twenty-seventh. It is the eastern mode in speaking of time to say that it lasts for three years. Similarly, I have often been told that a child, evidently not more than six months, was two years old, when a little cross-questioning has brought out the fact that it had been born towards the end of the previous year, that it had. lived in two years, and was, therefore, spoken of as two years old.
BOOK XXXVI. SHAN I.
The Shan is what we should expect from the name, a description of the dress so-called. It was the garment of undress, worn by all classes of the people, from the highest to the lowest, when they were at home and at ease. What distinguished it from other dresses was that in those the jacket or upper garment was in one piece, and the skirt or lower garment in another, whereas in this they were joined together, so that it could be put on and off with ease.
In the Khien-lung edition of the Li King, chapter 29, second collection of Plates, there are pictures of the Shan, taken from King Hs?'s 'Rules for the Family,' but they do not correspond with the description here. More accurate plates are to be found in a monograph on the subject by Yung Kiang, a senior licentiate of the present dynasty, which forms the 251st chapter in the 'Explanations of the Classics under the Imperial dynasty of Khing.' The proper meaning of Shan is 'The Deep Dress;' but the garment was also called 'The Long Dress,' which suits our nomenclature better; and 'The Inner Dress,' when it was worn under another.
The reasons assigned for fashioning it after the description in paragraphs 3 and 4 are of course fanciful; but M. Callery is too severe on the unknown author, when he says:-'On est tenté de rire en voyant les rapprochements que Pauteur cherche à établir entre la forme de cet habit et les principes les plus abstraits de la morale. Je suis porté à croire que toutes ces allegories ont été imaginées après coup; car si elles avaient dirigé la coupe primitive du Shan, il faudrait dire que les ateliers des anciens tailleurs de la Chine étaient des écoles de mysticisme.'
BOOK XXXVII. THAU HO.
The Thau H?, or 'Pitching into a jar,' gives the description of a game, played anciently, and probably at the present day also, at festal entertainments. It was a kind of archery, with darts instead of arrows, and the hand instead of a bow; 'the smallest,' as Kang says, 'of all the games of archery,' and yet lessons for the practice of virtue and for judging of character might be learned from it. It is interesting to us, however, simply as a game for amusement, and a sufficient idea of it may be gained from this Book.
Two might play at it, or any number. The host and guest in the text are the representatives of two sides or parties. It was a contest at pitching darts into the mouth of a pot or vase, placed at a short distance from the players,--too short a distance, it appears to us. There was nothing peculiar in the form of the vase of which we have an account in paragraph 10. We are surprised to read the description of it in the late Dr. Williams' Syllabic Dictionary, under the character for H?:--'One ancient kind (of vase) was made with tubes on each side of the mouth, and a common game, called Thau H?, was to pitch reeds into the three orifices.' This would have been a different jar, and the game would have been different from that here described, and more difficult.
The style of the Treatise is like that of the Li, in the account of the contests of archery in Books VIII-XI, to which we have to refer to make out the meaning of several of the phrases.
The Book should end with paragraph 10. The three paragraphs that follow seem to have been jotted down by the compiler from some memoranda that he found, that nothing might be lost which would throw light on the game.
Then follows a paragraph, which may be pronounced unintelligible. The whole Book is excluded from the expurgated editions.
BOOK XXXVIII. ZU HSING.
The ZA Hsing, or 'Conduct of the Scholar,' professes to be a discourse delivered to dukei of Li on the character and style of life by which scholars, or men claiming to possess literary acquirements, ought to be, and were in a measure, distinguished. Even so far back, such a class of men there was in China. They had certain peculiarities of dress, some of which are alluded to in Odes of the Shih. The duke, however, had not been accustomed to think highly of them; and struck by something in the dress of Confucius, he asks him if he wore the garb of a scholar. The sage disclaims this; and being questioned further as to the conduct of the scholar, he proceeds to dilate on that at great length, and with a remarkable magnificence of thought and diction. He pourtrayed to his ruler a man sans peur et sans reproche, strong in principle, of cultivated intelligence, and animated by the most generous, patriotic, and benevolent spirit. We are told in the conclusion that the effect on dukei was good and great. It made him a better man, and also made him think more highly of the class of scholars than he had done. The effect of the Book on many of the literati must have been great in the ages that have intervened, and must still be so.
But did such a conversation really take place between the marquis of Li and the sage? The general opinion of' Chinese scholars is that it did not do so. Lü Ta-lin (of the eleventh century, and a contemporary of the brothers Khang), as quoted by the Khien-lung editors, while cordially approving the sentiments, thinks the style too grandiloquent to allow of our ascribing it to Confucius. Another commentator of the Sung period, one of the Lis[1], holds that the language is that of some ambitious scholar of the period of the Warring States, who wished. to stir up the members of his order to a style of action worthy of it. P. Callery appends to his translation the following note:--'In general, the maxims of this chapter are sufficiently profound to justify us in ascribing them to Confucius, in preference to so many other passages which the author of this work places to the credit of the great philosopher. We find nevertheless in it some ideas of which the really authentic works of Confucius do not offer any trace.'
BOOK XXXIX. TA HSIO.
Like the Kung Yung (XXVIII), the Ta Hsio has long been published separately from the other Books of the Li King, and is now. the first of the well-known 'Four Books.' As it appears in this translation, we follow the arrangement of the text given by the Khien-lung editors from that in the Thirteen King published by Khung Ying-ta, who himself simply followed King Hsüan. Early in the Sung dynasty the brothers Khang occupied themselves with the Treatise; and thinking that errors had crept into the order of the paragraphs, and that portions were missing, made various alterations and additions. King Hs? entered into their labours, and, as he thought, improved on them. It is now current in the Four Books, as he published it in 1189, and the difference between his arrangement and the oldest one may be seen by comparing the translation in the first volume of my Chinese Classics and that in the present publication.
Despite the difference of arrangement, the substance of the work is the same.
There can be no doubt that the Ta Hsio is a genuine monument of the Confucian teaching, and gives us a sufficient idea of the methods and subjects in the great or higher schools of antiquity. The enthusiasm of M. Pauthier is not to be blamed when he says:--'It is evident that the aim of the Chinese philosopher is to exhibit the duties of political government as the perfecting of self and the practice of virtue by all men.'
Pauthier adopts fully the view of King, that the first chapter is a genuine relic of Confucius himself, for which view there really is no evidence. And he thinks also that all that follows should be attributed to the disciple, Zang-dze, which is contrary to the evidence which the Treatise itself supplies.
If it were necessary to assign an author for the work, I should adopt the opinion of Kia Kwei (A.D. 30-101), and assign it to Khung King, the grandson of Confucius, and author of the Kung Yung. 'When Khung King,' said Kia, 'was still alive, and in straits, in Sung, being afraid that the lessons of the former sage (or sages) would become obscure, and the principles of the ancient TAs and Kings fall to the ground, he made the Ta Hsio, as the warp of them, and the Kung Yung as the woof.' This would seem to have been the opinion of scholars in that early time, and the only difficulty in admitting it is that Kang Hsüan does not mention it. Notwithstanding his silence, the conviction that Khung Ki wrote both treatises has become very strong in my mind. There is that agreement in the matter, method, and style of the two, which almost demands for them a common authorship.
BOOK XL. KWAN I
A fuller account of the ceremony of capping is obtained from portions of the ninth and other Books, where it comes in only incidentally, than from this Book in which we might expect from the title to find all the details of it brought together. But the object of the unknown writer was to glorify the rite as the great occasion when a youth stepped from his immaturity into all the privileges and responsibilities of a man, and to explain some of the usages by which it had been sought from the earliest times to mark its importance. This intention is indicated by the second character in the title called, which we have met with only once before in the name of a Book,-in King, 'the Meaning of Sacrifices,' the title of XXI. It is employed in the titles of this and the five Books that follow, and always with the same force of 'meaning,' 'signification,' 'ideas underlying the ceremony.' Callery renders correctly Kwan by 'Signification de la Prise du Chapeau Viril.'
The Chinese cap of manhood always suggests the toga virilis of the Romans; but there was a difference between the institutions of the two peoples. The age for assuming the toga was fourteen; that for receiving the cap was twenty. The capped Chinese was still young, but he had grown to man's estate; the gowned Roman might have reached puberty, but he was little more than a boy.
Until the student fully understands the object of the Treatise, the paragraphs seem intricate and heavy, and the work of translation is difficult.
BOOK XLI. HWAN I.
After capping comes in natural order the ceremony of marriage; and we are glad to have, in the first portion of this Book, so full an account of the objects contemplated in marriage, the way in which the ceremony was gone about, and the subsequent proceedings by which the union was declared to be established.
The writer made much use of the chapters on marriage in the Li. Nothing is said of the age at which it was the rule for a young man to marry; and this, we have seen, is put down, in other parts of this collection, as thirty. The same age is mentioned in the Kau Li, XIII, 55, on the duties of the marriage-contractor. But marriage, we may assume from the case of Confucius himself, actually took place earlier in ancient times, as it does now. The Dze[1], or name of maturity, which was given at the capping, is commonly said to be the name taken at marriage, as in Morrison's Dictionary, I, i, page 627.
The duties set forth in the Book, however, are not those of the young husband, but those of the wife, all comprised in the general virtue of 'obedience.' After the tenth paragraph, the author leaves the subject of marriage, and speaks of the different establishments of the king and queen and of their functions. So far what is said on these topics bears on marriage as it sets forth, mystically, that union as analogous to the relations of heaven and earth, the sun and moon, and the masculine and feminine energies of nature; and the response made by these to the conduct of the human parties in their wedded union.
BOOK XLII. HSIANG YIN KI
Hsiang was anciently the name for the largest territorial division of the state. Under the dominion of Kau, from the hamlet of five families, through the lü, the ZA, the tang, and the kau, we rise to the hsiang, nominally containing 12,000 families, and presided over by a 'Great officer.' The royal domain contained six hsiang, and a feudal state three.
In more than one of these territorial divisions, there were festive meetings at regular intervals, all said to be for the purpose of 'drinking.' There was feasting at them too, but the viands bore a small proportion to the liquor, called by the name of Ki?, which has generally been translated wine, though the grape had nothing to do with it, and whether it was distilled or merely fermented is a disputed point.
The festivity described in this Book was at the true Hsiang meeting, celebrated once in three years, under the superintendence of 'the Great officer' himself, when, in the, principal school or college of the district, he assembled the gentlemen of accomplishments and virtue, and feasted them. His object was to select, especially from among the young men, those who were most likely to prove useful to the government in various departments of service. There was in the celebration the germ of the competitive examinations which have been for so long a characteristic feature of the Chinese nation.
The writer had before him the sixth and seventh Books of the Li on the same subject, or their equivalents. He brings out five things accomplished by the ceremony, all of a moral and social nature; but in trying to explain the arrangements, he becomes allegorical or mystical, and sometimes absurd.
BOOK XLIII. SHê I
There were various games or competitions of archery; at the royal court, at the feudal courts, at the meetings in the country districts which form the subject of the last Book, and probably others of a less public and distinguished character. We have references in this Book to at least one of the archery trials at the royal court; to that at the feudal courts; and to one presided over by Confucius himself, of which it is difficult to assign the occasion. The object of the author is to show the attention paid to archery in ancient times, and how it was endeavoured to make it subservient to moral and educational purposes.
He had before him the accounts of the archery for officers in Books VIII, IX, and X of the Li; but he allows himself more scope, in his observations on them, than the authors of the two preceding Books, and explains several practices in his own way,--unsatisfactorily, as I have pointed out in my notes.
BOOK XLIV. YEN I
The Yen, or 'Meaning of the Banquet,' is a fragment of only five paragraphs, which, moreover, are inartistically put together, the first having no connexion with the others. The Book should begin with paragraph 2, commencing: 'The meaning of the Banquet at the feudal courts was this.' It was of this banquet that the compiler intended to give his readers an idea.
The greatest of all the ancient banquets was that which immediately followed the sacrifices in the ancestral temple, given to all the kindred of the same surname as the ruler, and to which there are several references in the Shih King. Thang San-zhai (Ming dynasty) specifies four other occasions for the banquet besides this:--It, might be given by a feudal prince, without any special occasion,--like that described in the second of the Praise Songs of Li; or to a high dignitary or Great officer, who had been engaged in the royal service,--like that in the Minor Odes of the Kingdom, iii, 3; or when a high dignitary returned from a friendly mission,--like that also in the Minor Odes, i, 2; or when an officer came from one state to another on a friendly mission. Many other occasions, however, can be imagined on which public banquets were appropriate and might be given. The usages at them would, for the most part, be of the same nature.
The eleventh and twelfth chapters of the Li are occupied with the ceremony of the banquet. The author of this Treatise quotes passages here and there from them, and appends his own explanation of their educational significance. Two lessons, be says, were especially illustrated in them:--the right relations to be maintained between superiors and inferiors, and the distinction between the noble and the mean.
BOOK XLV. PHING I
The subject of the Phing is the interchange of missions between the ancient feudal states. It was a rule of the kingdom that those states should by such interchange maintain a good understanding with one another, as a means of preventing both internal disturbances and aggression from without. P. Callery gives for the title:--'Signification (du Rite) des Visites.' I have met with it rendered in English by 'The Theory of Embassies;' but the Phing was not an embassy on any great state occasion, nor was it requisite that it should be sent at stated intervals. It could not be long neglected between two states without risk to the good fellowship between them, but events might at any time occur in any one state which would call forth such an expression of friendly sympathy from others.
A mission occasioned a very considerable expenditure to the receiving state, and the author, with amusing ingenuity, explains this as a device to teach the princes and their peoples 'to care little for such outlay in comparison with the maintenance of the custom and its ceremonies.
Those visits are treated with all the necessary details in the Li, Books XV-XVIII; and though the extracts from them are not many, we get from the author a sufficiently intelligible account of the nature of the missions and the way in which they were carried through.
In paragraph 11, however, be turns to another subject, and writes at some length about archery, while the concluding paragraphs (12 and 13) give a conversation between Confucius and his disciple Dze-kung on the reasons why jade is thought so much of. The three paragraphs have no connexion with those that precede on the subject of the missions; and the question arises-Whence were they derived? The previous paragraphs, taken from or based on the Li, are found in one of the surviving Treatises of the larger collection of the Greater Tai, the thirty-sixth Book, called Khao-sze, in consequence of which the Khien-lung editors suggest that these concluding paragraphs were an addition made by his relative, Tai Shang. It may have been so, but we should not thereby be impressed with a high idea of the skill or judgment with which Shang executed his work.
BOOK XLVI. SANG FU SZE KIH.
This Book, with which the collection of the Li King concludes, is an attempt to explain the usages of the mourning rites, and especially of the dress, wherein they agree, and wherein they differ, by referring them to the four constituents of man's nature,--love, righteousness, the sentiment of propriety, and knowledge, in harmony with the operations of heaven and earth in the course of nature. We do not know who was the author of it, but the Khien-lung editors contend that it could not have been in the original compilation of the Smaller Tai, and owes its place in the collection to Kang Hsüan.
The greater part of it is found in the thirty-ninth, or last but one[1], of the Books still current as the Li of the Greater Tai; and another part in the 'Narratives of the School,' the third article in the sixth chapter of that Collection[2], the compilation of which in its present form is attributed to Wang S? in the first half of our third century. But this second fragment must have existed previously, else Kang
[1. ###.
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himself could not have seen it. The argument of those editors, therefore, that some scholar, later than the Smaller Tai, must have incorporated it with what we find in the Greater Tai, adding a beginning and ending of his own, so as to form a Book like one of those of Tai Shang, and that Kang thought it worth his while to preserve it as the last portion of Shang's collection,--this argument is inconclusive. The fragment may originally have formed part of Tai Teh's thirty-ninth Book or of some other, and the whole of this Book have been arranged, as we now have it by Shang himself, working, as he is reported to have done, on the compilation or digest of his cousin. However this be, the views in the Book are certainly ingenious and deserve to be read with care.
A few lines in Callery's work are sufficient to translate all of the Book which is admitted into the expurgated editions.
