Book Title: Text of Confucianism Part 01
Author(s): James Legge
Publisher: Oxford

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Page 2727
________________ APPENDIXES. APPENDIX I. Khing Kăng King, or 'The Classic of Purity ?' So I must translate the title of this brochure, as it appears in the Collection of the Most Important Treatises of the Taoist Fathers' (vol. xxxix, p. xvii), in which alone I have had an opportunity of perusing and studying the Text. The name, as given by Wylie (Notes, p. 178), Balfour (Taoist Texts), and Faber (China Review, vol. xiii, p. 246), is Khing King King ?, and signifies “The Classic of Purity and Rest.' The difference is in the second character, but both Khing Kăng and Khing King are wellknown combinations in Taoist writings; and it will be seen, as the translation of the Text is pursued, that neither of them is unsuitable as the title of the little Book. It is, as Dr. Faber says, one of the 'mystical canons' of Taoism ; but the mysticism of Taoism is of a nature peculiar to itself, and different from any mental exercises which have been called by that name in connexion with Christianity or Mohammedanism. It is more vague and shadowy than any theosophy or Sufism, just as the idea of the Tâo differs from the apprehension of a personal God, however uncertain and indefinite that apprehension may be. Mr. Wylie says the work treats under very moderate limits of the subjection of the mental faculties.' This indeed is the consummation to which it conducts the student; a # *. Digitized by Google

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