7. On the other two early commentaries, those of Kung-yang and Kuh-lëang, it is not necessary that I should write at so much length. The commentaries of Kung-yang and Kuh-lëang.There is really nothing in them to entitle them to serious attention. Down to the present day, indeed, there are scholars in China who publish their lucubrations in favour of the one or of the other; but I think that my readers will all agree with me in the opinion which I have expressed about them, when they have examined the specimens of them which are appended to this chapter.
The commentaries themselves and various Works upon them are mentioned in Lëw Hin’s catalogue;—as stated above on page 17.
With regard to the Work of Kung-yang, Tae Hwăng, of the second Han dynasty, tells us that Kung-yang Kaou received the Ch‘un Ts‘ëw Kung-yang.and explanations of it from Confucius’ disciple Puh Shang or Tsze-hëa, and handed it down to his son Kung-yang P‘ing; that P‘ing handed it down again to his son Te; Te to his son Kan; Kan to his son Show; and that, in the reign of the emperor King (B.C. 155–140), Show, with his disciple Hoo-woo Tsze-too, committed it to bamboo and silk.[1] According to this account, the Work was not committed to writing till about the middle of the second century before Christ. If it were really transmitted, from mouth to mouth, down to that time from the era of Confucius, we can hardly suppose that it did not suffer very considerably, now receiving additions and now losing portions, in its onward Course.[2] The fact, moreover, of its having been confined for more than 300 years to one
- ↑ 戴宏曰,子夏傳與公羊高,高傳與其子平,平傳與其子地,地傳與其子敢,敢傳與其壽,至漢景帝時,壽乃共弟子齊人胡母子都著於竹帛; quoted in the preface to Ho Hëw's edition of Kung-yang.
- ↑ According to Ho Hëw, this transmission of the Classic from mouth to mouth was commanded by Confucius, from his foreknowledge of the attempt of the tyrant of Ts`in to burn all the monuments of ancient literature!—孔子知秦將燔詩書,其說口授相傳,至漢公羊氏及弟子胡母生等,乃記於竹帛.
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