Page:Essays on the Chinese Language (1889).djvu/72

58 For his edition of the latter treatise he studied the various texts and commentaries in existence. These, and specially the works of Liu Hsin, Sun Yen, and Kao Lien he used as his foundation; but he adopted as his text that of Kuo Po's edition and retained all Kuo Po's comments. Classic and commentary, however, were subjected to a careful examination before being incorporated in the new work. The short title of this is "Urh-ya-chu-su," that is, the "Urh-ya" with Kuo Po's explanations and the commentary of Hsing Ping and his colleagues. This edition was for a time popular among students, but it fell into disrepute even during the Sung period. It has been condemned by later critics as superficial and unclassical, and as careless and dishonest. Still it has been often reprinted, and it is one of the Thirteen Canonical Treatises in Yuan-yuan's edition of these. But in the last century it has been superseded apparently by the better work of Shao Chin-han, to be noticed shortly.

Of other writers on the language during the tenth century only two or three need be here mentioned. One of Hsü Hsüan's fellow-workers was Kou Chung-chêng (句中正 al. Tan-jen 坦然), a native of Ch‘êng-tu in Ssŭchuan, who lived from 929 to 1002. Kou was celebrated in life for his great learning and specially for his thorough acquaintance with the antiquities of the language. In addition to his contributions to Hsü's "Shuo-wên" he assisted in the compilation of the "Yung-hsi Kuang-yun," that is, the edition of the "Kuang-yun" which was published in the Yung-hsi period (984 to 988) of T‘ai Tsung's reign. A Buddhist monk of the Khitan country, by name Hsing-chün (行均) published in 997 a treatise to which he gave the title "Lung-k‘an-shou-ching" (龍龕手鏡). This was a sort of dictionary explaining about 26,400 characters. It soon obtained popularity in the country of the author, but it was not admitted openly into China for several years after its publication. Another of the Buddhist monks who contributed to a knowledge of the language at this period was Mêng-ying (夢英). He was far seen in the old writings and