Text of Confucianism Part 01

SR No.: 007675
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: James Legge
Publisher: Oxford
Publication Year: 1879
Total Pages: 2829
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 50 MB

Page 1899

BK. XXVI.
KHUNG-BZE HSIEN KÜ.
281
that mourning without garb, it extends to future generations.'
6. Zze-hsiâ said, '(It is said that) the virtue of the kings (who founded the) three dynasties was equal to that of heaven and earth; allow me to ask of what nature that virtue was which could be said to put its possessors on an equality with heaven and earth.' Confucius said, 'They reverently displayed the Three Impartialities, while they comforted all beneath the sky under the toils which they imposed.' 3ze-hsià said, Allow me to ask what you call the “Three Impartialities."' Confucius said, 'Heaven overspreads all without partiality; Earth sustains and contains all without partiality; the Sun and Moon shine on all without partiality. Reverently displaying these three characteristics and thereby comforting all under heaven under the toils which they imposed, is what is called "the Three Impartialities.” It is said in the Book of Poetry (IV, iii, ode 4, 3), “God in His favour Thang's House would not leave, And then Thang rose that favour to receive. Thang's birth was not from Hsieh too far re
moved, His sagely reverence daily greater proved; For long to Heaven his brilliant influence rose, And while his acts the fear of God disclose, God Thang as model fit for the nine regions
chose:"— such was the virtue of Thang.
7. .To Heaven belong the four seasons, spring, autumn, winter, summer, with wind, rain, hoar-frost, and dew;—in the action) of all and each of these there is a lesson.
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