| 138. | 當 | 講 | 求 | which should be carefully explained and analysed. | |
| Tang1 | chiang3 | ch'iu2 | |||
| Ought | explain | seek |
Tang see line 36
Chiang see line 108.
Ch'iu is classed under radical 水 shui water. With it is here understood the word 研 yen to grind (note the radical 石 shih stone). [The Six Classics are enumerated by Chuang Tzŭ (line 174) as the five given above, i.e. without dividing the Rites, and a Book of Music. Unfortunately the passage in question (ch. XIV, ad fin.) is undoubtedly an interpolation, and this classification must therefore be referred to a later date. It has been customary since the Sung dynasty (line 251), not the T'ang dynasty (line 239) as Wylie says, op. cit. p. 7, to speak of the complete Canon as consisting of 十三經 shih san ching Thirteen Classics. Such works as the Classic of Filial Piety (line 131), the 爾雅 Erh Ya, an ancient vocabulary of classical and other words and phrases, sometimes spoken of as the Literary Expositor, and the two less known commentaries on the Spring and Autumn Annals (lines 164, 166), have been included; but there is actually no fixed list, various editions of the Thirteen Classics having been published with varying contents. Mayers, in his Reader's Manual, p. 352, reaches the full tale of thirteen only by counting two of them twice over. The Rites of the Chou Dynasty (line 136) was set aside under the Ming dynasty (line 254K), and the number of so-called Classics reduced to five; hence we now speak of the Four Books (line 114) and the Five Classics.]
