Page:Eminent Chinese Of The Ch’ing Period - Hummel - 1943 - Vol. 1.pdf/430

Rh lived. Three years later he moved with Sun to Yangchow where he remained until his mother's death, late in 1816, forced him to return home. Shortly after the death of Sun, in February 1818, Ku was invited by Wu Tzŭ (see under ) to Yangchow to edit the manuscripts left by Sun. He finished this assignment in the following year and returned home. In 1821, at the call of Hung Ying 洪瑩, Ku returned several times to Yangchow, but about the year 1828 retired to his native place. Two years later he was affected by paralysis, and died after four years in bed.

Ku Kuang-ch'i spent most of his life as a collator of books—more than a hundred texts of various kinds being subjected to his revision. But the majority of the books which he collated and edited were published under the names of the above-mentioned scholars who supported him financially. He assisted Huang P'ei-lieh in editing the Wang-pên Li-shih k'an-wu, and collating the Kuo-yü, and other works (see under ). The following titles, reprinted by Sun Hsing-yen, were chiefly collated and edited by Ku: T'ang-lü shu-i; Ku-wên yüan; Pao-p'o tzŭ; Ku-wên shang-shu k'ao-i (for these see under ); 華陽國志 Hua-yang kuo-chih, a topographical account of West China, completed about the year 347 A.D.; 紹熙雲間志 Shao-hsi yün-chien chih, a topography of Sungkiang compiled in 1193, etc. For Chang Tun-jên, Ku collated the Sung editions of the Book of Rites (Li-chi) and the Decorum Ritual (I-li, see under ), and the 1501 edition of the 鹽鐵論 Yen-t'ieh lun, or "Discourses on Salt and Iron," compiled by Huan K'uan 桓寬 in the first century B.C. The corrected texts of these three works were printed in the years 1806–07 under Chang's name. At the request of Hu K'o-chia 胡克家, Ku and P'êng Chao-sun collated the 1181 edition of the Wên-hsüan (see under ) and the Yüan edition of the Tzŭ-chih t'ung-chien (see under ) annotated by Hu San-hsing (see under ). The former was printed in 1809 with critical remarks by Ku Kuang-ch'i in 10 chüan; and the latter was printed in 1817—both under the name of Hu. For Wu Tzŭ, Ku collated and edited the Yen-tzŭ ch'un-ch'iu (see under ) and the 韓非子 Han-fei tzŭ. The critical remarks on the Wên-hsüan and the Han-fei tzŭ, chiefly written by Ku, are still regarded as authoritative. For Ch'in Ên-fu, whose library he often visited, Ku edited the Chih-p'ing (1064–68) edition of the 法言 Fa-yen, an apocryphal book attributed to Yang Hsiung 揚雄, and written in imitation of the Analects; and some other works of the T'ang period. For Hung Ying, he collated and reprinted the 宋名臣言行錄 Sung ming-ch'ên yen-hsing lu, "Memoirs of Sung Officials," originally compiled by Chu Hsi and later revised. The Seikadō Library, Tokyo (see under ), has several rare manuscripts which bear the annotations of Ku Kuang-ch'i.

With the financial support of Ku Chih-k'uei, he collated and edited, during the years 1795–96, the Sung edition of the 列女傳 Lieh-nü chuan, "Noted Women of Antiquity," a biographical work in 8 chüan, commonly attributed to Liu Hsiang 劉向 and later provided with illustrations purporting to be by the fourth century painter, Ku K'ai-chih 顧愷之. Expanded editions appeared in 1403 and in 1779 with other illustrations. But in 1796 Ku published his emended text of the ancient Lieh-nü chuan, in 8 chüan, without illustrations. In 1806 he collated and reprinted the 1538 edition of the 爾雅 Êr-ya, a lexicon with the words and phrases arranged under categories, which was published not earlier than the second century B. C. and was later provided with commentaries by Kuo P'u 郭樸 and by Hsing Ping 邢昺. The two last mentioned works have been handed down as his own.

Ku Kuang-ch'i was one of the great students of textual criticism of the Ch'ing period, but for a long time his contribution was little recognized owing to the fact that almost all his works were published under the names of other scholars. As evidence of his scholastic ability and foresight it is worth mentioning that in July 1805 he completed the collation of a manuscript copy of the 元朝秘史 Yüan-ch'ao pi-shih, "Secret History of the Mongols," which he found in the library of Chang Hsiang-yün. This work is a phonetic transcription in Chinese characters with a Chinese translation (made in 1369) of the Mongholum Niucha Tobchiyan, completed in 1240 and phonetically transcribed into Mongol by means of Uigur characters. Ku Kuang-ch'i was the first scholar of the Ch'ing period to take notice of this first Chinese edition, and modern scholarship owes much to his fore- 418