Page:Sacred Books of the East - Volume 27.djvu/22

 "The Lî King says." In another passage, he says to a Mr. King Khun, "Have you not read the Lî ?" It does not appear that Mencius was always referring to one and the same collection of Lî; but it is clear that in his time there were one or more such collections current and well known among his countrymen.

There are now three Chinese classics into which the name Lî enters:—the Î Lî, the Kâu Lî, and the Lî Kî, frequently styled, both by the Chinese themselves and by sinologists, "The Three Rituals ." The first two are books of the Kâu dynasty (B.C. 1122-225). The third, of which a complete translation is given in the present work, may contain passages of an earlier date than either of the others; but as a collection in its present form, it does not go higher than the Han dynasty, and was not completed till our second century. It has, however, taken a higher position than those others, and is ranked with the Shû, the Shih, the Yî, and the Khun Khiû, forming one of "The Five King," which are acknowledged as the books of greatest authority in China. Other considerations besides antiquity have given, we shall see, its eminence to the Lî Kî.

2. The monuments of the ancient literature, with the exception, perhaps, of the Yî King, were in a condition of disorder and incompleteness at the rise of the Han dynasty (B.C. 206).

This was the case especially with the Î Lî and Kâu Lî. They had suffered, with the other books, from the fires and proscription of the short-lived dynasty of Khin, the founder of which was bent especially on their destruction ; and during the closing centuries of Kâu, in all the period of "The Warring Kingdoms," they had been variously mutilated by the contending princes.