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 580

40
THE LÎ ki.
CH. III.
says in a note that Confucius speaks of this Tâo in a way not unlike Lào-gze in the Tào Teh King, adding that 'these two fathers of Chinese philosophy had on this mysterious Being ideas nearly similar.' But a close examination of the passage, which is itself remarkable, shows that this resemblance between it and passages of the Taoist classic does not exist. See my concluding note on the Book. If there were a Taoist semblance in the phraseology, it would make us refer the composition of the Treatise to the time of Khin or the early days of Han, when Taoism had taken a place in the national literature which it had not had under the dynasty of Kau.
BOOK XXV. KUNG-Nİ YEN KU.
The title of this Book is taken from the four characters with which it commences. Confucius has returned from his attendance at the court of La, and is at home in his own house. Three of his disciples are sitting by him, and his conversation with them flows on till it has reached the subject of ceremonial usages. In reply to their questions, he discourses on it at length, diverging also to the subjects of music and the practice of government in connexion with ceremonies, in a familiar and practical manner.
He appears in the title by his designation, or name as married, Kung-nî, which we find also two or three times in Book XXVIII, which is received as the composition of his grandson Khung Kî, or 3ze-sze. This Treatise, however, is much shorter than that, and inferior to it. The commentator Wang of Shih-liang!, often quoted by Khăn Hào, says, that though this Treatise has a beginning and end, the style and ideas are so disjected and loose, that many of the utterances attributed to Confucius cannot be accepted as really his.
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