Page:Sun Tzu on The art of war.djvu/34

 [1758]. And the Chinese printed in Capt. Calthrop’s first edition is evidently a similar version which has filtered through Japanese channels. So things remained until Sun Hsing-yen [1752–1818], a distinguished antiquarian and classical scholar, who claimed to be an actual descendant of Sun Wu, accidentally discovered a copy of Chi T‘ien-pao’s long-lost work, when on a visit to the library of the  Hua-yin temple. Appended to it was the  I Shuo of   Chêng Yu-hsien, mentioned in the T‘ung Chih, and also believed to have perished. This is what Sun Hsing-yen designates as the  or   “original edition (or text)”—a rather misleading name, for it cannot by any means claim to set before us the text of Sun Tzŭ in its pristine purity. Chi T‘ien-pao was a careless compiler, and appears to have been content to reproduce the somewhat debased version current in his day, without troubling to collate it