Questions of King Milinda Part 02

SR No.: 007682
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: T W Rhys Davids
Publisher: Oxford
Publication Year: 1894
Total Pages: 2240
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 38 MB

Page 1640

160
THE TEXTS OF TÂOISM.
BK. xxxi.
BOOK XXXII. LIEH YU-KHẤU.
Lieh Yü-khâu, the surname and name of Lieh-zze, with which the first paragraph commences, have become current as the name of the Book, though they have nothing to do with any but that one paragraph, which is found also in the second Book of the writings ascribed to Lieh-zze. There are some variations in the two Texts, but they are so slight that we cannot look on them as proofs that the two passages are narratives of independent origin.
Various difficulties surround the questions of the existence of Lieh-zze, and of the work which bears his name. They will be found distinctly and dispassionately stated and discussed in the 146th chapter of the Catalogue of the Khien-lung Imperial Library. The writers seem to me to make it out that there was such a man, but they do not make it clear when he lived, or how his writings assumed their present form. There is a statement of Liû Hsiang that he lived in the time of duke Mû of Kăng (B.C. 627– 606); but in that case he must have been earlier than Lâo-zze himself, whom he very frequently quotes. The writers think that Lill's "Mū of Kăng' should be Mû of Lů (B.C. 409-377), which would make him not much anterior to Mencius and Kwang-gze; but this is merely an ingenious conjecture. As to the composition of his chapters, they are evidently not at first hand from Lieh, but by some one of his disciples; whether they were current in Kwang-zze's days, and he made use of various passages from them, or those passages were Kwang-zze's originally, and taken from him by the followers of Lieh-zze and added to what fragments they had of their master's teaching ;—these are points which must be left undetermined.
Whether the narrative about Lieh be from Kwang-zze or not, its bearing on his character is not readily apprehended; but, as we study it, we seem to understand that his master Wû-zăn condemned him as not having fully attained to the Tâo, but owing his influence with others
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