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Rh family takes away from the confidence which we might otherwise be inclined to repose in it.

There can be no doubt, however, that it was made public in the reign of King, and was acknowledged and admitted by his successor Woo (B.C.139–86) into the imperial college. Hoo-woo was a contemporary and friend of the scholar Tung Chung-shoo; and in the biography of the scholar Këang Kung, an adherent of Kuh-lëang’s commentary, we are told that the emperor Woo made Këang and Tung dispute before him on the comparative merits of their two Masters, when Tung was held to be the victor. The emperor on this gave in his adhesion to Kung-yang, and his eldest son became a student of his Work.

It is not important to trace the history of Kung-yang’s commentary further on. The names of various writers on it and of their Works are preserved, but the Works are lost till we arrive at Ho Hëw (A.D.129–183), who published his ‘Explanations of Kung-yang on the Ch‘un Ts‘ëw.’ This still remains. Ho Hëw did for Kung-yang what, as we have seen, Too Yu did at a later period for Tso K‘ëw-ming.

The commentary of Kuh-lëang is, like that of Kung-yang, carried back to Tsze-hëa; but the line of transmission down to the Han dynasty is imperfectly given. The general opinion is that Kuh-lëang’s name was Ch‘ih, but Yen Sze-koo says it was He.* The next name mentioned as intrusted with the text which Ch‘ih or He had received, and the commentary which he had made upon it, is Sun K‘ing, the same who appears on p.27, as the 6th in the list of those who handed on the Work of Tso. From Sun K‘ing it is said to have passed to a Shin Kung of Loo.’ Këang Kung, mentioned above, received it from Shin; and though it did not win the favour, as advocated by him, of the emperor Woo, yet it gained a place in the imperial college in the reign of Seuen (B.C.72–48), and for some time was held generally in great estimation. It has been preserved to us in the Work of Fan Ning, a famous scholar and statesman of the Tsin dynasty in the second half of the 4th century; the title of which is, ‘A Collection of the Explanations of the Chuen of Kuh-lëang on the Ch‘un Ts‘ëw.’

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