Page:Sacred Books of the East - Volume 27.djvu/56

 expression of his ideas. What he says on the subject of Inscriptions towards the conclusion is interesting. He was a true Lû man, and his views on the sacrifices of his state are contrary to the standard of Chinese orthodoxy about them.

King Kieh has been translated "Explanations of the Classics," and Callery gives for the title "Sens Général des Livres Canoniques." A slight attention to the few paragraphs which compose the Book, however, will satisfy the reader that these translations of the name are incorrect. No explanation is attempted of passages in the different King. The true meaning of King Kieh was given by Hwang Khan in A.D. 538. "Kieh," he says, 'is to be taken in the sense of "separation" or "division;" and the Treatise describes the difference between the subjects dealt with in the different King.'

The Book, though ingenious, is not entitled to much attention. The first two paragraphs, assigned to Confucius, could not have come from him. They assume that there were six King; but that enumeration of the ancient writings originated with the scholars of the Han dynasty. And among the six is the Khun Khiû, the work of Confucius himself, which he compiled only a year or two before his death. It was for posterity, and not for him, to raise it to the rank of a King, and place it on the same level with the Shû, the Shih, and the Yî. It may be doubted, moreover, if there were ever a Yo King, or "Classic of Music." Treatises on music, no doubt, existed under the Kâu dynasty, but it does not appear that there was any collection of them made till the attempts that have been referred to in the introductory notice to Book XVII.

Who the ingenious, but uncritical, compiler of the King Kieh was is unknown.