Page:Sacred Books of the East - Volume 3.djvu/492

 It is hardly necessary to say more on the preservation of the Hsiâo King. In 996 the  second emperor of the Sung dynasty gave orders for an annotated edition of it to be prepared. This was finally completed in 1001, under the superintendence of Hsing Ping (932–1010), with a large critical apparatus, and a lengthened exposition, both of the text and of Hsüan ung's explanation. This work has ever since been current in China.

Notwithstanding the difficulty about one chapter which has been pointed out on p. 455, Hsüan ung's text was generally accepted as the representative of that in modern characters, recovered in the second century There were still those, however, who continued to advocate  the claims of 'the old text.' Sze-mâ Kwang, a distinguished minister and scholar of the Sung dynasty (1009–1086), presented to the court in 1054 his 'Explanations of the Hsiâo King according to the Old Text,' arguing, in his preface and in various memorials, for the correctness of that text, as recovered by Liû Hsüan in the sixth century. Fan û-yü (1041–1098), a scholar of the same century, and in other things a collaborateur of Kwang, produced, towards the end of his life, an 'Exposition of the Hsiâo King according to the Old Text.' He says in his preface:—'Though the agreement between the ancient and modern texts is great, and the difference small, yet the ancient deserves to be preferred, and my labour upon it may not be without some little value .'