Page:Eminent Chinese Of The Ch’ing Period - Hummel - 1943 - Vol. 1.pdf/152

Rh chronologically in 32 chüan and printed under the title 東華錄 Tung-hua lu, "Records from within the Eastern Flowery Gate," in reference to the great east gate (Tung-hua Mên) of the Palace area, near which the State Historiographer's Office was located. This work was expanded by Wang Hsien-ch'ien 王先謙 who added data about later reigns. After the compilation of Chiang's edition of the Tung-hua lu the Ch'ing official history was subjected to several revisions, hence Chiang's version preserves some passages which cannot be found in the revised history. There is a manuscript copy in 16 chüan in the Kuo-hsüeh Library, Nanking.

Chiang Liang-ch'i served for five years (1779-84) as vice-governor and commissioner of education of Fêng-t'ien-fu. Recalled to Peking, he was promoted to the directorship of the Court of the Imperial Stud, and made inspector of a school for imperial clansmen. On February 14, 1785 (the fiftieth anniversary of the accession of Emperor Kao-tsung) Chiang was honored by an invitation to the Banquet for Elderly Men (Ch'ien-sou yen, see under ). Later he was made commissioner in the Office of Transmission. He died in Peking, but was buried in his native district.

Chiang Liang-ch'i is said to have been an able calligrapher and also to have composed several volumes of poems.

[Ch'üan-chou chih (1799) 6/6b, 8/49a–63a; Hu-hai wên-chuan 52/13b; Chi-fu t'ung-chih (see ) 30/48b; 盛京通志 Shêng-ching t'ung-chih (1778) 41/7b; 千叟宴詩 Ch'ien-sou yen shih (1785), 3/21a, for date of birth; Biggerstaff, Knight, "Some Notes on the Tung-hua lu and the Shih-lu", Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, vol. 4, no. 2, July 1939.]

2em

 CHIANG Shêng 江聲, 1721–1799, Oct. 1, native of Yüan-ho (Soochow), was one of the disciples of the great classicist,. In his youth he aspired to official honors, but early in his thirties, while observing the period of mourning for the death of his parents, he devoted himself to a serious study of the Classics, becoming a pupil of Hui Tung under whom he mastered the technique of textual criticism. When he was about forty sui he began to study the Classic of History, and after thirteen years of labor (1761–73) he completed his 尚書集注音疏 Shang-shu chi-chu yin-shu, 12 + 2 chüan, an exegetical study of the entire text of that classic with pronunciation of the characters and with commentaries written from the point of view developed by and Hui Tung. His special contribution is a detailed study of the chapter, entitled T'ai-shih (泰誓, "The Great Declaration"). The fame of the Shang-shu chi-chu yin-shu spread rapidly and in 1793 it had the distinction of being printed in the ancient chuan (篆) characters. At the close of the seventeen-eighties Chiang was a member of the famous secretarial staff of whom he assisted in editing the Shih-ming shu-chêng (see under ). In 1796, when the newly-enthroned Emperor Jên-tsung ordered that men of eminent virtue be recommended to him, the governor of Kiangsu, Fei Ch'un 費淳, submitted the name of Chiang Shêng who was decorated with the Opaque White Button of the sixth rank.

As a textual critic and philologist Chiang Shêng stressed the study of the origin and formation of the characters, a knowledge of which he regarded as fundamental for adequate textual criticism. For this reason he studied the ancient lexicon, Shuo-wên (see under ) but finding, it is said, that Tuan Yü-ts'ai was occupied with the same subject, he gave up his own researches on it and sent his manuscript drafts to Tuan. A short essay by Chiang, entitled 六書話 Liu-shu shuo, is significant for its systematic analysis of the six categories in which Chinese characters are usually classified. He was particularly successful in the interpretation of the category called chuan-chu (轉注), covering extended or derived meanings. The Liu-shu shuo was printed by the Hu (胡) Family of Soo-chow in the 琳琅秘室叢書 Lin-lang pi-shih ts'ung-shu (1853–54). So devoted was Chiang Shêng to the study of antiquity that he often used the archaic chuan characters even in his more personal writings.

Chiang Shêng left several works on the Classics, among them the 論語竢質 Lun-yü ssŭ-chih, 3 chüan, a textual study of the Analects; and the 尚書逸文 Shang-shu i-wên, 2 chüan, a collection of fragments of the ancient text of the Classic of History which are not contained in the ordinary text. The former was printed in the Lin-lang pi-shih ts'ung-shu and the latter, after being re-edited by, was printed in 1795 as an appendix to the ku-wên text of the Classic of History which Sun arranged and annotated. Chiang Shêng also left an astro- 140