Satapatha Bramhana Part 02

SR No.: 007678
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Julius Eggeling
Publisher: Oxford
Publication Year: 1885
Total Pages: 2521
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 44 MB

Page 544

THE LÎ xi.
CH. 1.
"The Lî King says.' In another passage, he says to a Mr. King Khun, "Have you not read the Lil?' It does not appear that Mencius was always referring to one and the same collection of Li; but it is clear that in his time there were one or more such collections current and well known among his countrymen. There are now three Chinese classics into which the name
Li enters:—the I Li, the Kau Li, and the Li Now there are three Li King, Ki, frequently styled, both by the Chinese or three Rituals. themselves and by sinologists, ‘The Three Rituals?! The first two are books of the Kâu dynasty (B. C. 1122-225). The third, of which a complete translation is given in the present work, may contain passages of an earlier date than either of the others; but as a collection in its present form, it does not go higher than the Han dynasty, and was not completed till our second century. It has, however, taken a higher position than those others, and is ranked with the Sha, the Shih, the Yi, and the Khun Khid, forming one of 'The Five King,' which are acknowledged as the books of greatest authority in China. Other considerations besides antiquity have given, we shall see, its eminence to the Li K 1.
2. The monuments of the ancient literature, with the exception, perhaps, of the Yi King, were in a condition of State of the Li disorder and incompleteness at the rise of the of the Hanse Han dynasty (B. C. 206). This was the case
dynasty. especially with the I Li and Kau Lĩ. They had suffered, with the other books, from the fires and proscription of the short-lived dynasty of Khin, the founder of which was bent especially on their destructions; and during the closing centuries of Kâu, in all the period of 'The Warring Kingdoms,' they had been variously mutilated by the contending princes*.
I Works of Mencius, III, ii, 2. a.
* See Wylie's Notes on Chinese Literature, p. 4, and Mayers' Chinese Reader's Manual, p. 300. • Sze-ma khien's Biographies, Book 61
. 5. Other testimonies to the fact could be adduced.
• Mencius V, ii, 2. 3. See also the note of Lid Hsin, appended to his catalogue of Li works, in the Imperial library of Han.
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