encounter. positive decision. At the same time I may say that the view that Tso was a disciple of the master has very formidable difficulties to The Classic stops in the 14th year of duke Gae, B.C. 480, but Tso's commentary extends to the 4th year of duke Taou, Gae's successor, B.C. 463. In the last paragraph of it, moreover, there is an allusion to the ruin and death of Seun Yaou or Che Pib, a great officer of Tsin, which took place in 452, 27 or 28 years after the close of the Ch'un Tsew. Not only so. The Head of the Chaou family is mentioned in the same paragraph by his posthumous or honorary title, and of course he could not have received it till after his death, which took place in B.C. 424, 56 years after the capture of the lin, and 54 years after the death of the sage. Is it possible to believe that one so much younger than Confucius was among his disciples and possessed his confidence to the extent which the commonly received accounts of the making of the Ch'un Ts'ëw suppose? 3. Leaving these speculations about the naine and person of Tso, we find that his commentary made its appearance soon after the rise of the Han dynasty. Heu Shin First appearance and subsequent history of his commentary. to his account of the discovery of the Ch'un Ts'ew in the wall of Confucius house, quoted on p. 18, subjoins the statement that Chang Ts'ang, marquis of Pih-p'ing presented the commentary of Tso written in the old characters of the Chow dynasty.1 Now this Chang Ts'ang had been high in office under the Ts'in dynasty, in charge, it would appear, of the imperial library. Having joined the party of the duke of Pei, the founder of the Han dynasty, he became at last a favourite with him, and was placed in various positions of the greatest trust.2 His appointment to be marquis of Pih-p'ing3 took place in B.C. 200, about fifty years before the discovery of the text in the wall of Confucius' house. Heu Shin says that 'Chang presented' the Work, meaning, I suppose, that he did so to the first emperor of Han, who was too much occupied, however, with the establishment of his dynasty to give much attention to literary matters. But after the time of Chang Ts'ang we never lose sight of Tso's commentary. From him it passed to Këa E, of whom we have many notices as a famous 1北平侯張蒼獻春秋左氏傅郡國亦往往于山川得 鼎彝其銘卽前代之古文 2 Sce the 漢書四十二傳第 +, the first memoir. 3 Pih-p'ing embraced the present department of Yung-p‘ing, Chih-le, and some tadjacent territory. ΙΟ scholar and statesman in the reign of the emperor Wăn (B.c. 178156). He published a Work of his own upon it;5 and then it passed on to his grandson Kea Kea, and Kwan Kung, a great scholar at the court of King Heen of Ho-këen, through whom an attempt was made to obtain for it the imperial recognition, which was defeated by the friends of the commentary of Kung-yang. This, though later in making its appearance, had already found a place in the imperial college. Kwan Kung transmitted his treasure to his youngest son, named Chang-king, 10 and from him it went on to Chang Chang and Chang Yu,12 both famous men of their time. To one of them, no doubt, belonged the 'Niceties of the Ch'un Tsew, by Chang-she,' mentioned in Lew Hin's catalogue.13 Yu was intimate with Seaou Wang-che, 14 perhaps the most distinguished man of the time, whom he interested in the Work of Tso, so that he called the attention to it of the emperor Seuen (B.C. 72-48), and it might now have been formally recognized but for Yu's death. The names of Yin Kăng-ch'el and his son Yin Heen, 16 of Teih Fang-tsin,17 Hoo Chang, 18 and Këa Hoo19 lead us from Yu to Lew Hin.20 Hin's connexion with Tso's Work may be considered as forming an era in its history. Having found,' we are told in his biography, 'in the imperial library, the Ch'un Ts'ew and Tso's Chuen in the ancient characters, he became very fond of them. At that time Yin Heen, a secretary of the prime minister, being well acquainted with Tso-she, examined along with Hin the text and commentary. Hin took his opinion in some particulars, and sought to learn the correct interpretation and great aim of the Works by application to the prime minister Teih Fangtsin. Before this, because of the many ancient characters and ancient sayings in Tso's Chuen, students had contented themselves with simply explaining their meaning; but when Hin took it in hand, he quoted the words of the commentary to explain the text, and made 4漢書四十八傳第十八 5賈誼春秋左氏傳訓故 6 賈嘉 7貫公 8 See the proleg. to vol. IV. p. 11. 9 Kung Ying-tah, in his preface to Too Yu's edition of the Tso Chuen says:-(B.c. 139—86) H;†, J 閒獻左氏議立左學公羊之徒上書詆左氏左氏之學 不立 10 長鄉 11 張敬 12 張禹 18 張氏春秋微, 十篇 14 蕭望之: There is a long and interesting memoir of him in the 漢書 t. We find him, on his first introduction to the emperor Seuen, appealing to a passage 16 尹咸 17 翟方進 18 胡 in the Ch'un Ts'ëw. 15 尹更始 常 19賈護: 20 劉歆 them throw light on each other, and from this time the exhibition of them in paragraphs and clauses was cultivated. Hin preferred Tso to Kung-yang and Kuh-lëang, considering that he agreed in his likings and dislikings with the sage, and that he had himself seen the master, a very different case from that of Kung and Kuh who were subsequent to the seventy disciples 21 The history then relates the disputes between Hin and his father Heang, who was an adherent of the commentary of Kuh-lëang, and how he made an attempt to get the emperor Gae (B.C. 5—A.D.) to give Tso a place in the imperial college along with Kung and Kuh, which was defeated by the jealousy of their supporters. From this time, however, the advocates of Tso-she became more numerous and determined to have justice done to their master. They were successful for a short time in the reign of the emperor Ping (A.D. 1-5), but Tso's Work was again degraded as of less authority than the other two commentaries; and though Këa Kwei22 presented an argument on forty counts to prove its superiority, which was well received by the emperor Chang (A.D. 76-88), it was not till A.D. 99, under the emperor Ho,23 that the footing of Tso in the imperial college was finally established. The famous Ching K'ang-shing (A.D. 127-199) having replied to three Works of Ho Hew,24 the maintainer of the authority of Kung-yang, against Tso and Kuh-lëang, and shown the superiority of Tso, the other two commentaries began from this time to sink into neglect. It is melancholy to read the list of writers on Tso during the second and third dynasties of Han, of whom we have only fragmentary sentences remaining; but in A.D. 280, Too Yu or Too Yuen-k‘ae, a scholar and general at the commencement of the Tsin dynasty, 25 completed a great Work under the title of 'Collected Explanations of the Text and Commentary of Tso-she on the Ch'un Ts'ëw, in thirty chapters. '26 This Work still remains, and will ever be a monument of the scholarship and painstaking of the writer. 21 See the 漢書三十六楚元王傳第六. I have carefully rend over the Work of of the present dynasty, included in the, and called ★ * * * * in which he labours to upset all the testimony about Lëw Hin, but it 22 賈逵 23 Luh Tih-ming and others say is quite inconclusive and unsatisfactory. this took place under Ho, in the 11th year of the period. But that period lasted only one year. 元典 must be a mistake for永元 24-see further on. 2+ 25 春 秋左氏經傳集解三十卷-by杜預styled 元凱He is also called E, from his military operations in the South, as in the quotation from Ma Twan-lin on p. 19. He was born A.D. 222, and died in 281. 4. Nothing need be said on the history of the commentary of Tso since the beginning of the Han dynasty. Some of the scholars of that age traced it back from Chang Ts'ang to nearly the Attempt to trace Tso's Work time of Confucius, and K'ung Ying-tah in nearly to the time of Confucius. his preface to Too Yu's Work quotes the following from a production of Lew Hëang (B.c. 80—9) which is now lost :-‘Tso K‘ëw-ming delivered his Work to Tsăng Shin. Shin transmitted it to Woo K'e; Woo K'e to his son K'e; K'e to Toh Tsëaou, a native of Ts'oo, who copied out selections from it in 8 books; Toh Tsëaou to Yu King, who made 9 books of selections from it; Yu King to Seun K'ing; and Seun King to Chang Ts'ang." I wish we had different and more authority for this statement, as Heang was not himself an adherent of Tso's Work. In his son Hin's catalogue which I have already referred to, two Works are mentioned by Toh-she and Yu-she, but there is nothing in their titles to connect them with Tso; and Sze-ma Ts'een says nothing in his memoir of Seun K'ing about any connexion that he had with the transmission of the commentary.3 Tsăng Shin was the grandson of Tsăng Sin, one of Confucius' principal disciples,— the Tsang Se of Mencius, II. Pt. i. I. 3. Tso's committing his Work to him would agree with what I have said in par. 2, and cast a doubt on his being a contemporary of the sage himself. 5. I have said that generally we have in the Work of Tso the details of the events of which we have but a shadow or the barest The nature of Tso's Work. intimation in the text of the Ch'un Ts'ëw; but we have more than this. Of multitudes of events that during the 242 years of the Ch'un Ts'ew period took place in Loo and other States, to which the text makes no allusion, we have from Tso a full account. Where he got his information he does not tell us. Too Yu is probably correct when he says that Tso was himself one of the historiographers of Loo. Whatever of the history of that State was on record he was familiar with. If the records of other States were also collected there, he had studied them equally with those of his own. If he did not find them there, he must 劉向別錄云左邱明授會申申授吳起起授其子期 期授楚人鐸椒椒作抄撮八卷授虞卿卿作抄 卷授荀卿卿授張蒼 2鐸氏微三篇;虞氏微傳 3 See the 史記七十四列傳第十四 身為國史躬覽載籍必廣記而備言之: have gone in search of them, for he is as much at home in the events of Chow, Tsin, Ts'e, Sung, Ching, Ts'oo, and other States, as he is in those of Loo. And not only does he draw from the records about the ruling Houses of the States, but also from the histories of the principal families or clans and the chief men in them.2 From whatever quarter, in whatever way, he got his information, he has transmitted it to us. The events and the characters of the time pass as in reality and life before us. In no ancient history of any country have we such a vivid picture of any lengthened period of its annals as we have from Tso of the 270 years which he has embraced in his Work. Without his Chuen the text of the sage would be of little value. Let the former be preserved, and we should have no occasion to regret the loss of the latter. He wished first to explain the text. To myself it appears plain that Tso's Work was compiled on a twofold plan. First, he had reference to the text of the Ch'un Tso's Work compiled on a two-fold plany Tsëw, and wished to give the details of the events which were indicated in it. Occasionally also he sets himself to explain the words of that text, being sometimes successful and sometimes not. He lays down canons to regulate the meaning and application of certain characters, but it can hardly be said that we find him under the influence of the 'praise-and-censure' theory. In this respect he differs remarkably from Kung-yang and Kuh-lëang; and I have sometimes fancied that the characteristic is an evidence that he lived before Mencius, and had never read the accounts of the Classic which we find in him. His object evidently was to convey to his readers a knowledge of the facts given in the master's paragraphs as if independent and isolated in their connexion with one another. Hence he often mentions new facts which are necessary for that 2 The following passage from Tan Tsoo (啖助) of the T'ang dynasty sets forth correctly this characteristic of Tso's work, and I adduce it without reference to Tsoo's peculiar opinions about our author:-左氏傳自周晉齊宋楚鄭等國之事最詳 則每出一師具列將佐宋則每因典廢備舉六 故 知史策之文每國各異左氏得此數國之史以授門人, 義則口傳未形竹帛後代學者乃演而通之總而合之 編次年月以為傳記文廣采當時文籍故兼與子產晏 子及諸國卿佐家傳幷卜書及雜占書縱橫家 諫等 在其中,故叙事雖多釋意甚少是非交錯 其大略皆是左氏舊意故比餘傅其功最高博 采諸家,叙事尤備能合百代之下頗見本末 |