Page:Eminent Chinese Of The Ch’ing Period - Hummel - 1943 - Vol. 1.pdf/365

Rh again in 1664 when he once more saw Ch'ien Ch'ien-i shortly before the latter died. In 1667 he revived in Shaohsing the Academy known as Chêng-jên Shu-yüan 證人書院 which had been founded by his teacher, Liu Tsung-chou, but which had suspended activities for twenty years. In 1673 he visited the famous Fan family library, T'ien-i ko, at Ningpo (see under ), made a list of its rare books, and later wrote an essay on it entitled 天一閣藏書記 T'ien-i ko ts'ang-shu chi. In this year also the northern philosopher,, presented to Huang a copy of his biographical work, Li-hsüeh tsung-chuan. Three years later,, another great scholar of the time, sent to him for criticism his well-known work, Jih-chih lu. When the special examination known as po-hsüeh hung-tz'ŭ (see under ) was initiated in 1678, was about to recommend Huang Tsung-hsi as one of the select competitors, but with the help of a pupil Huang managed successfully to have his name excluded. When the Historiographical Board for the writing of the Ming History (Ming-shih) was finally set up, in the following year, all of Huang Tsung-hsi's writings on the history of the defunct dynasty were ordered to be copied and placed at the disposal of the compilers. His pupils, and, and his youngest son, Huang Po-chia 黃百家 (original name 百學 T. 主一 H. 不失, b. 1643), were summoned to the capital to assist in the task. In 1683 Huang visited the home of in K'un-shan, Kiangsu, and acquainted himself with the latter's library, Ch'uan-shih lou of which he wrote an account, entitled Ch'uan-shih lou ts'ang-shu chi (藏書記). Huang Tsung-hsi died at the age of eighty-six (sui) and was unofficially canonized as Wên-hsiao 文孝. His name was entered in the Temple of Confucius in 1909.

In his studies Huang Tsung-hsi showed an unusually wide range of interests including classics, history, philosophy, mathematics and literature. The Ssŭ-k'u Catalogue (see under ) lists fifteen of his works of which six were copied into the Imperial Manuscript Library. About one hundred titles attributed to him are either extant or listed in various catalogues. Among several works on the classics may be mentioned the 易學象數論 I-hsüeh hsiang-shu lun, 6 chüan, written about the year 1661, chiefly to examine the genuineness of the elaborate diagrams which the Sung philosophers had traced back to the Classic of Changes (see under and ). A work on Mencius, entitled 孟子師說 Mêng-tzŭ shih shuo, 7 chüan, was written to supplement notes which his teacher, Liu Tsung-chou, had previously published on the Classics.

In the historical field Huang Tsung-hsi is generally regarded as the founder of the so-called Eastern Chekiang School 浙東學派 which attempted to set more objective standards both in history and philosophy. His 行朝錄 Hsing-ch'ao lu is a collection of brief historical accounts of the southern Ming regimes of which the individual titles and the number of chüan vary with the different editions, and some of the essays are believed by later scholars not to be his. The Hsing-ch'ao lu was listed among the banned works of the eighteenth century. For the use of the compilers of the Ming History he wrote biographical sketches of several important southern Ming figures such as Liu Tsung-chou, Ch'ien Su-yüeh 錢肅樂, and Hsiung Ju-lin. It is reported that he himself wrote a draft History of the Ming Dynasty in 244 chüan under the title 明史案 Ming-shih an. One of his best-known works is the 明儒學案 Ming-ju hsüeh-an, in 62 chüan, compiled in 1676. It is a systematic historical survey of all the important schools of thought that arose during the Ming period, showing their interconnection, their geographical distribution, with critical evaluations of the life and teachings of each man mentioned. Huang Tsung-hsi believed that only by a sound historical approach could the prevailing philosophies of Chu Hsi and Wang Yang-ming be properly evaluated. The Ming-ju hsüeh-an is usually regarded as the first great history of Chinese philosophy. Previous efforts of the same kind, such as the 聖學宗傳 Shêng-hsüeh tsung-chuan by Chou Ju-têng 周汝登 and the above-mentioned Li-hsüeh tsung-chuan by Sun Ch'i-fêng, printed in 1666, were discursive and lacking in objectivity.

In a still more ambitious work known as the 宋元學案 Sung Yüan hsüeh-an, which Huang Tsung-hsi began in his old age but left unfinished at his death, he attempted to do the same for the thought of the Sung and Yüan periods. His son, Huang Po-chia, carried on the task for a time, and Ch'üan Tsu-wang worked on it during the years 1746–54, but after the latter's death in 1755 the manuscript reverted to the Huang family. The extant edition of the Sung Yüan hsüeh-an, in 100 chüan, was supplemented and edited by Fêng Yün-hao 馮雲濠 and 353