Page:Eminent Chinese Of The Ch’ing Period - Hummel - 1943 - Vol. 2.pdf/313

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Yen
Yin-chên

Manchuria in this pious search. Finally he met a half-sister at Shên-yang who informed him that their father had died some thirteen years earlier. After a visit to his father's tomb, he returned (June 6, 1685) to Po-yeh, carrying with him an ancestral tablet on which his father's name was inscribed. In the following year his mother, who in the meantime had remarried, also died. Feeling a need for wider personal contact with scholars in other places, he devoted half a year, in 1691, to travel in southern Chihli and part of Honan, teaching wherever he went. Early in 1694 Hao Wên-ts'an 郝文燦 (T. 公函), a native of Fei-hsiang, Chihli, came to study under him and later invited him to be director of the Chang-nan 漳南 Academy at Fei-hsiang. After repeated solicitations, Yen accepted the invitation, assumed his duties in June 1696, and prepared a curriculum in accord with his theories of education which provided for military training, including strategy, archery, riding and boxing; for classical and historical study, including the dynastic histories, imperial decrees, memorials, and poetry; and for such practical sciences as mathematics, astronomy, and mechanics. But unfortunately on September 11, 1696 the school buildings were inundated by a flood of the Chang River. Yen returned in the same year to the village of Pei-yang ts'un where three years later he mourned the death of his best friend, Wang Yang-ts'ui. Yen himself died there in 1704 and was privately canonized as Wên-hsiao 文孝.

Yen Yuan's native stoicism, his abhorrence of mere book-learning, and his devotion to practical activity precluded the writing of many books. But in addition to the four titles already mentioned there are miscellaneous essays and letters which were collected by a disciple, Chung Ling 鍾錂 (T. 金若, d. age 78 sui), and published under the title Hsi-chai chi-yü (記餘), 10 chüan, with a preface by Chung dated 1750. With Yen's diary as a basis, Chung compiled another work, entitled Yen Hsi-chai hsien-shêng yen-hsing lu (言行錄), 2 chüan, Chung's preface being dated 1737. The writings of Yen in denunciation of Buddhism were brought together by Chung Ling under the title Yen Hsi-chai hsien-shêng p'i-i lu (闢異錄), 2 chüan, with Chung's preface dated 1738. About 150 years after Yen's death Tai Wang 戴望 (T. 子高, 1837–1873), a scholar of Tê-ch'ing, Chekiang, became so interested in the teachings of the pragmatic school that, during the years 1868–69, he made an intensive study of them and produced a work on the philosophy of Yen and his disciples, under the title 顏氏學記 Yen-shih hsüeh-chi, 10 chüan. Tai's preface is dated 1869. Thanks to this study, the teachings of the Yen-Li School came again into favor. In recent years the works of Yen and his disciples have often been reprinted, notably by Hsü Shih-ch'ang (see under Tuan-fang) who compiled a collectanea of some twenty items entitled Yen-Li i-shu (遺書). He also published several studies, among them: Yen-Li shih-ch'êng chi (師承記), 9 chüan, comprising biographies of Yen and his disciples; and Yen-Li yü-yao (語要), 2 chüan, important quotations from Yen and Li. In 1919, when Hsü Shih-ch'ang was President, a mandate was issued that the memory of the two philosophers would thereafter be celebrated, together with other sages, in the Temple of Confucius. In the following year a society was formed in Peking to study their teachings. This society took the name Ssŭ-ts'un-hsüeh hui 四存學會, after Yen's four books, named above, whose titles begin with the word "Ts'un". The society reprinted many works by Yen and Li and maintained several schools.

One of the few exponents of the Yen-Li philosophy in central and south China, particularly in his early years, was Ch'êng T'ing-tso 程廷祚 (earlier ming 默 T. 啟生 H. 綿莊, 1691–1767). He characterized Yen as "one man in five-hundred years", and seems indirectly to have brought the Yen-Li philosophy to the attention of Tai Chên [q. v.]. But after middle life, owing perhaps to the persecution of heterodox thinkers in the first half of the eighteenth century, he did not actively promote these views, though he seems not to have abandoned them.


[1/486/20a; 2/66/55a; 10/16/1a; 15/1/1a; 17/1/101a; Chung-kuo chin san-pai nien hsüehshu shih: two works by this title, one by Liang Ch'i-ch'ao (see bibl. under Hui Tung) pp. 167–221, another by Ch'ien Mu (see bibl. under Mao Ch'i-ling) pp. 158–219; Ch'ing-tai hsüeh-shu kai-lun (see bibl. under Fang Tung-shu); Chin Hsü-ju 金絮如, Yen yüan yü Li Kung (1935); 北平學術機關指南 Peiping hsüeh-shu chi-kuan chih-nan (1935) p. 30; Hu Shih, "The Philosopher Ch'êng T'ing-tso of the School of Yen Yüan" (in Chinese) Kuo-hsüeh chi-k'an (Jour. of Sinological Studies) vol. 5 no. 3 pp. 1–43.]

J. C. Yang


YIN-chên 胤禎 (H. 破塵居士), Dec. 13, 1678–1735, Oct. 8, third Emperor of the Ch'ing dynasty, ruled in the years 1723–36, under the

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