The Chinese Classics | Page 8

to the magistrates and learn of them."
'The imperial decision was -- "Approved."'
The destruction of the scholars is related more briefly. In the year after
the burning of the Books, the resentment of the emperor was excited by
the remarks and the flight of two scholars who had been favourites with
him, and he determined to institute a strict inquiry about all of their
class in Hsien-yang, to find out whether they had been making ominous
speeches about him, and disturbing the minds of the people. The
investigation was committed to the Censors [1], and it being discovered
that upwards of 460 scholars had violated the prohibitions, they were
all buried alive in pits [2], for a warning to the empire, while
degradation and banishment were employed more strictly than before
against all who fell under suspicion. The emperor's eldest son, Fu-su,
remonstrated with him, saying that such measures against those who
repeated the words of Confucius and sought to imitate him, would
alienate all the people from their infant dynasty, but his interference
offended him father so much that he was sent off from court, to be with
the general who was superintending the building of the great wall.
8. No attempts have been made by Chinese critics and historians to
discredit the record of these events, though some have questioned the

extent of the injury inflicted by them on the monuments of their ancient
literature [3]. It is important to observe that the edict against the Books
did not extend to the Yi-ching, which was
1 御å²æ‚‰æ¡ˆå•è«¸ç”Ÿ, 諸生傳相告引.
2 自除犯ç¦è€…, 四百å…-餘人, 皆阬之咸陽. The
meaning of this passage as a whole is sufficiently plain, but I am unable
to make out the force of the phrase 自 除.
3 See the remarks of Chamg Chia-tsi (夾際é„-æ°), of the Sung
dynasty, on the subject, in the æ–‡ç»é€šè€ƒ, Bk. clxxiv. p. 5.
exempted as being a work on divination, nor did it extend to the other
classics which were in charge of the Board of Great Scholars. There
ought to have been no difficulty in finding copies when the Han
dynasty superseded that of the Ch'in, and probably there would have
been none but for the sack of the capital in B.C. 206 by Hsiang Yu, the
formidable opponent of the founder of the House of Han. Then, we are
told, the fires blazed for three months among the palaces and public
buildings, and must have proved as destructive to the copies of the
Great Scholars as the edict of the tyrant had been to the copies among
the people.
It is to be noted also that the life of Shih Hwang Ti lasted only three
years after the promulgation of his edict. He died in B.C. 210, and the
reign of his second son who succeeded him lasted only other three
years. A brief period of disorder and struggling for the supreme
authority between different chiefs ensured; but the reign of the founder
of the Han dynasty dates from B.C. 202. Thus, eleven years were all
which intervened between the order for the burning of the Books and
rise of that family, which signaled itself by the care which it bestowed
for their recovery; and from the edict of the tyrant of Ch'in against
private individuals having copies in their keeping, to its express
abrogation by the emperor Hsiao Hui, there were only twenty-two years.
We may believe, indeed, that vigorous efforts to carry the edict into
effect would not be continued longer than the life of its author,-- that is,
not for more than about three years. The calamity inflicted upon the

ancient Books of China by the House of Ch'in could not have
approached to anything like a complete destruction of them. There
would be no occasion for the scholars of the Han dynasty, in regard to
the bulk of their ancient literature, to undertake more than the work of
recension and editing.
9. The idea of forgery by them on a large scale is out of the question.
The catalogues of Liang Hsin enumerated more than 13,000 volumes of
a larger or smaller size, the productions of nearly 600 different writers,
and arranged in thirty-eight subdivisions of subjects [1]. In the third
catalogue, the first subdivision contained the orthodox writers [2], to
the number of fifty-three, with 836 Works or portions of their Works.
Between Mencius and
1 凡書å…-ç•¥, 三å八種, 五百ä¹åå…-家,
è¬ä¸‰åƒäºŒç™¾å…-ä¹å·.
2 儒家者æµ.
K'ung Chi, the grandson of Confucius, eight different authors have
place. The second subdivision contained the Works of the Taoist school
[1], amounting to 993 collections, from thirty-seven different authors.
The sixth subdivision contained the Mohist writers [2], to the number
of six, with their productions in 86 collections. I specify these two
subdivisions, because they embrace the Works of schools or sects
antagonistic