Chapter 10 Chapter IX Classical Chinese Classics

9.1 Variations from ancient to modern times When we look through the large four-part catalog or the ancient book cards in the big library, we may have the impression that the titles of the books are so vast that they must be a collection of ancient books of all dynasties.If this summary means, the writings of the Warring States period plus the writings of the Han Dynasty plus the writings of the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties..., then it is wrong, because all the ancient books we have now (public, private and flowed abroad) are not It is equal to the sum of the classics that have existed in the past dynasties.Not only are they not equal, but they are very different.The so-called poor, not just quantity, but also quality.The following sub-items describe this situation.

9.1.1 Loss Preservation of antiquities is not easy, because there are many reasons for it to be destroyed or die.Taking architecture as an example, it goes without saying that Efang Palace and Tongque Terrace are nearby, such as Changchun Garden, which has no traces, and Yuanmingyuan has traces, but they are pitifully few.Compared with this kind of buildings, books are still fortunate. After the natural and man-made disasters of the past dynasties, generally speaking, they only decreased but did not die out.But speaking individually, too many died.In the past, people often said that ten does not keep one, which seems to be an exaggeration. In fact, if this refers to before the Middle Ages (the beginning of block editions), it is not an exaggeration, but a reduction.Before the Middle Ages, the most important books that recorded the situation of books in our country were "Hanshu·Yiwenzhi" and "Suishu·Jingjizhi". We can see that what was recorded by the former existed during the Han Dynasty, and what was recorded by the latter. Most of them still exist in the early years of the Tang Dynasty (because they also record Liang, Chen, Qi, and Zhou dynasties), but what about now?In particular, most of the records described in "Hanshu·Yiwenzhi" are gone.Before the Middle Ages, books were more difficult to preserve for a number of reasons.One is that they must be hand-copied, and there are not many species, especially those with a bad reputation. Very few people copy them, and they often become orphans and are easy to become extinct.The second is that after a long time, the storage conditions are poor, and it will gradually become extinct due to damage and incompleteness.The third is that after many natural disasters and wars, it is not easy to become a survivor every time.Fourth, the rulers burned books in large quantities in a planned way, such as the burning of books by Qin Shihuang, the burning of 140,000 volumes of books by Emperor Liang Yuan when Jiangling fell, and the burning of prophecy books in the Sui Dynasty.Fifth, the people who store it cannot be the seeds of reading from generation to generation. Some valuable books are not valued and thrown away in a daze.After the Middle Ages, when there were printed editions, the situation was better because of the large number.But there is a new factor that makes it difficult to spread. It is easy to engrave books, and it is inevitable that they will be overwhelming. Some books may not be worthless, but because they are not valued, they will disappear after a long time, or even not for a long time.For example, Zheng Zhenduo tried his best to collect Qing anthologies. He said in his book "The Secretary in the Tribulation" that he had obtained more than 800 kinds of anthologies, but many sinologists' anthologies still cannot be found.This was still the case in the Qing Dynasty, let alone the Song, Yuan and Ming Dynasties.Therefore, when we talk about classics in classical Chinese, we can say that there are all that can be said. If expressed by addition, it should be: the remnants of the writings of the Warring States period plus the remnants of the writings of the Han Dynasty and the remnants of the writings of the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties... In short, compared with the ones that have survived , just bits and pieces.

9.1.2 Authenticity As mentioned in section 9.1 above, there are still qualitative problems regarding the existing classical Chinese classics.The so-called quality problems are some of them now, some of which are not original or even counterfeit, so one cannot be counted as one.Simply put, some books are not true or not all true. "Mencius · Dedicated to the Heart" said: "It is better to have no books than to believe in books. In "Wu Cheng", I just took two or three strategies." This means that when King Wu defeated Zhou, he thought that Yin people should not resist. "Cheng" said that the war was fierce, and the record is not true.Wang Chong's "Lunheng" has "Shu Xu Pian", which says that "the words of the masters of the book are passed down in the world, and many want to create strange things", so it is not credible.What is recorded is not true, not credible, because what is written is different from the facts. It can be said that almost all writings are inevitable.What is being said here is not really a different matter, it was Zhang San who insisted that Li Si did it.The vast majority of these are the works of later generations pretending to be the works of previous generations, commonly known as forgery, and they are regarded as counterfeit books.The issue of authenticity of books, especially ancient ones, is very complicated, because of the age, ambiguity, and insufficient literature. People involved in the debate have different opinions, and it is often difficult to reach a conclusion.The most typical example is "Shangshu". From the Han Dynasty, there was a dispute between modern and ancient prose until the Qing Dynasty. Yan Ruoqiu wrote "Shangshu Guwen Shuzheng". The analysis is detailed and there is a lot of evidence. It seems that the ancient prose is not true. , but afterwards, "Shangshu" was regarded as a classic as a whole.Not only "Shangshu", since the Tang and Song Dynasties, the trend of identifying fakes has become more and more popular. From Ming Hu Yinglin's "Four Bu Zhengyao", Qing Yao Jiheng's "Ancient and Modern Forged Books" to Gu Jiegang's "Ancient History Discrimination", etc., To raise doubts and find contradictions, almost all early classics have been caught in the net, and loopholes have appeared.There are big loopholes, and they are not true at all, such as "Bamboo Book Chronicles" (originally a history book of the Wei State during the Warring States Period, unearthed in the early Jin Dynasty, lost, and faked by people after the Song Dynasty) and "Miscellaneous Things and Secrets" (written by Ming Yang Shen under the guise of Han people) ; there are small ones, which are partially untrue, such as the miscellaneous articles "Rang Wang" and "Root Zhi", which are generally recognized as forgeries. I don't think Han Fei did it.There is also a case where the content of the book is quite desirable, but it is not clear exactly why it was entrusted by someone. For example, "Liezi" (written by Lie Yukou in the old title) and "Miscellaneous Records of Xijing" (written by Liu Xin) are so.In addition, there are also some mistakes. For example, when Li Daoyuan wrote annotations for "Shui Jing", he quoted a lot of books. Sometimes he stated the source, but he often did not mention the source. If the source is stated, such as the familiar "Three Gorges" (quoted from Sheng Hongzhi's "Jingzhou Ji"), it must be the author's handwriting, but it is not. This is not the author's intentional falsification, but negligence.Another kind of blunder is Zhang Guan Li Dai. For example, Ouyang Xiu’s collection of Ci (with different titles) collected some works from Feng Yansi’s "Yang Chun Ji". This is not theft, but the negligence of the editors of later generations.Forgery is generally done in the pre-Qin and Han Dynasties, because books are more valuable than ancient books.But there are also later ones. For example, "Nandulu" assumes Xin Qiji in the early Southern Song Dynasty, and "History of the Heart" assumes Zheng Sixiao in the late Southern Song Dynasty.When reading classical Chinese classics, the issue of authenticity is very complicated. It is not easy to determine the authenticity. After it is determined to be a forgery, it is not easy to evaluate its historical value.I just want to explain here that even the little remnants of classical Chinese classics that we can see have to be discounted in terms of authenticity.

9.1.3 Positive change Righteousness refers to the original face of the work; change means that the work has been changed more or less, not the original face.Take it as an example, it was finalized during the Warring States period, and it was respected, copied, engraved, read, and studied in subsequent dynasties. and, for example, the meaning of "Sesi Juyi" in "Xiangdang" is unclear, and some people infer that "se" is a typo, which proves that the current version is no longer what it is.The best-preserved works are like this, but others can be imagined. It can almost be said that none of the works that are not very recent and circulated in the world are the original appearance when they were finalized.In fact, it is quite recent. For example, the author Pu Songling once had a final manuscript (only half of it was found), and compared it with the Qingketing engraved edition. The characters are different, which is obviously changed by the engraver.The only ones that can maintain the original appearance are the manuscripts (now there are photocopies, which are not difficult to see) and the author's own engravings, but unfortunately there are not many.The handed down book cannot maintain its original appearance, and the situation can be divided into two categories: one is incomplete, and the other is modification.The reasons can also be divided into two categories accordingly.Incompleteness comes from various accidents, as mentioned in section 9.1.1 above.Changes are more complicated.One is the modification that wants to restore the original appearance, which is collation.Changes due to collation may be correct, but they may also be wrong.One is the modification of copying.Works before printed editions were handed down by copying.Copying, the low hand may have little knowledge, and it is the easiest to recognize it as a pig, so it can't be good;The result is that the more copies are copied, the farther it is from the original.With the engraving method, the situation will be better, but after repeated reprinting, problems such as collation and copying will also occur (Ming Dynasty people often delete and modify at will), so it is difficult to preserve the original appearance.

The size of the change is generally determined by time and the nature of the book.As far as time is concerned, the older they are, the more powerful they become. After the block editions became available, especially in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the situation became much better.As far as the nature of the books is concerned, those with less reputation are more powerful, while those with high status, such as official histories and anthologies of great masters, the situation is much better.As for the changes, there are so many things that it is difficult to describe them in one word (see the solutions to some catalogs for details).Here I want to go from heavy to light, give a little example.One is "editing loss".The original book has long since been lost, but other books, such as the Annotations to "Wen Xuan" and "Taiping Yulan" often quote its sentences, so they can be collected and compiled together to form a book with the same name.People in the Qing Dynasty liked to do this work. For example, Ma Guohan had "Yuhanshanfang Collection of Lost Books", which collected as many as six or seven hundred books, all of which were pieced together in this way.Of course, the book compiled in this way only has the same name, and is far from the reality of the original book.One is "incomplete".This is the original book, but it is not complete.There are many such cases in the pre-Qin and Han works. For example, "Guanzi" originally had 86 chapters, but the current version lacks 10 chapters;The other is "disorder".For example, in "Laozi", the silk script discovered in Mawangdui No. 3 Han Tomb in Changsha in 1973 has the moral chapters first and the Dao chapters later, but the current version is reversed; Note, later generations wrote consecutively and mixed the two together, so many people were tired of distinguishing, and it took a lot of effort.There is also a "word change".The range of changes varies from big to small, and here we only talk about the small ones, such as "The Analects of Confucius·Xueer" "The poor are happy with Taoism, and the rich are good at propriety". It has been edited (mostly by omission); Tao Yuanming "received happily", and some books "gui" as "pro", which means wrong, and it is obviously changed.There is also a special change of characters to avoid taboos. For example, Emperor Gaozong of the Tang Dynasty was named Li Zhi, and "Zhi Chao" should be changed to "Li Chao".In addition, there is another situation that is "ambiguous".For example, Wang Zhihuan, the popular original work "Yellow River is far above the white clouds", the original work "Yellow sand is straight up between the white clouds", and the famous line in "Breaking the Huanxi Sands" by the central master of the Southern Tang Dynasty "Drizzy dream returns to the chicken, and the small building blows through the Yusheng cold" The last sentence in Ma Ling's "Book of the Southern Tang Dynasty" reads "Xiao Yumeng returns to clear and leaky forever", both of which can be one or the other; but the original can only be one, and it can be seen that there have been changes.All these situations show that although the classical Chinese classics we read generally have the author marked, there are always big or small differences from the author's original work.

Form of version 9.2.1 Book edition is a complicated subject, and you can get a general idea only by reading more (reading the book on the table of contents, seeing the real thing) and memorizing more.Here I just want to answer a small question: What are the styles of the so-called classical Chinese classics?Three aspects can be discussed from coarse to fine.Let's talk about appearance first.The appearance is also quite complicated, but it can be summarized into three categories according to the order of time: the earliest is "book", the middle is "juan", and the latter is "ben" (using common sense of the meaning of "ben" in a book).

Before the Qin Dynasty, characters were mostly written on slender bamboo or wood chips, called Jian or Ce.Arrange the Janes together vertically like bamboo curtains laid horizontally (right in front, left behind), top and bottom (or both in the middle) are woven or worn horizontally with silk ropes or leather strips, and can be read when unfolded. After reading it, it can be rolled up from left to right, it is a volume.The unit that represents the volume is an edition or a chapter, which is also called a volume later.For example, there are seven chapters in "Mencius", each chapter is divided into upper and lower parts, and the total should be fourteen volumes.Of course we can't find such a book if we want to read it.But you can get a general idea based on the literature.One is far away. In the early years of the Western Jin Dynasty, a person from Jijun (surname, sound fou) quasi-robbed the tomb of King Wei (one said King Xiang, the other said King Anli) of the Warring States Period, and found dozens of carts of bamboo books. Although they were already scattered, it is speculated that It's all made up like this.One is very recent. In December 1975, archaeologists excavated twelve tombs from the Warring States period to the Qin Dynasty in Shuihudi, Yunmeng County, Hubei Province. In tomb No. 11, more than a thousand bamboo slips from the Qin Dynasty were found. Ten kinds of legal books, such as Chronicle, Yushu, and Eighteen Kinds of Qin Law, have traces of silk rope weaving in the upper, middle and lower parts of the bamboo slips, which proves that they were also weaved in this way.

The book is very bulky. "Zhuangzi · Tianxia" said: "Benefits are multi-faceted, and its books are five carts." And it is easy to scatter. In the pre-Qin period, there was a method of writing characters on silk fabrics (silk script). The silk is a very long piece of horizontal. The characters are written on it, and it can be rolled up directly to form a roll without interlacing. Only a few such rolls are found in Unearthed cultural relics, it is not easy to see the real thing. But you can see a large number of papers written on paper, which are scrolls written in and around the Tang Dynasty (mainly Buddhist scriptures) discovered in the Dunhuang Stone Chamber at the end of the Qing Dynasty. The scrolls are average. It is very long, and many sheets of paper that are not very long must be glued together. Writing starts from the right end; the left end is connected to a thin round wooden shaft, with the shaft as the center, rolled to the right to form a roll (or a shaft), so that , you can read it in the order of the articles after opening the volume. Up to now, most of the books are still called several volumes, even though the actual name has changed and the old name is still used.

Scrolls are also inconvenient. If you want to see the end of a scroll, you must unfold the entire length of the front.So someone (probably a monk) came up with a folding method, that is, instead of rolling it, it folded it horizontally with a section of four or five inches, and folded it left and right to make the long paper into a rectangular stack (like the current books), called Jing. Folded or Vatican folder.Nowadays, rubbings of rubbings of rubbings are still mounted in this way.In this way, if you want to read the end of a volume, you can only unfold the tail without moving the front.The pages on the side with words are not connected after folding, and the pages on the back of the paper are not connected, so it can also be developed into a long fold.Maybe it is to strengthen the integrity, sometimes a whole piece of paper is used, the left half is glued to the top of the book, and the right half is glued to the bottom of the book to form a paperback that is exactly the same as the current paperback, which is called a whirlwind (meaning that it is flipped through one page at a time). Very convenient, like a whirlwind).In addition, there are butterfly costumes, which are in the same form as some current atlases, unfolded, and the left and right halves are connected into one.All of the above belong to the early stage of "this" installation.Then came the transitional type, which was packaged on the back. One page was divided into two pages, the front and the back, folded, and the back of the book was wrapped in paper or satin. The form was the same as the current hardcover.The Ming Dynasty was a Ming period when back-packing and thread-packing alternated. In the early period, especially the more expensive books were still packed on the back of the bag, such as "Yongle Dadian" (this trend continued until the Qing Dynasty, such as "Siku Quanshu" was still packed on the back of the bag. ).However, thread binding has many advantages, such as simplicity and sturdiness, so the form of woodcuts evolved to be dominated by thread binding during the Ming and Qing Dynasties.That is why, when we mention ancient books, the image that comes to mind is always a rectangular book with woodcut, paper printing, and thread binding.

9.2.2 Various Versions What I want to talk about here is what kind of editions are available in "various" block editions.The reasons for restricting the printed edition are: first, there is no edition issue in volumes and volumes; second, there are very few photocopies of manuscripts and transcripts;Printed version (or printed version), as a version, has many names due to various characteristics of engraving.For example, focusing on the differences of the times, there are Song editions, Yuan editions, Ming editions, and Qing editions.The engraved editions of the Song and Yuan dynasties are rare and expensive, and some people re-engraved them according to the original, so they are divided into original engraved editions and reprinted editions.There are public and private matters in engraving books.Public ones, such as the Southern and Northern Supervisory Editions in the Ming Dynasty, and the Neifu (mainly Wuyingdian) editions in the Qing Dynasty; the engraved books of various official offices also belong to this category.The public has strong financial resources and many talents. Generally speaking, the quality of the engravings is relatively high.In contrast to public engravings, private engravings, called family engravings or family school editions, are generally good; fang engravings also fall into this category.Focusing on the quality, there are fine prints and block prints (or current editions).Fine prints are not only well engraved and printed, but some have also been collated by famous scholars; Fang refers to ordinary bookstores, of course the quality is poor.When talking about editions, sometimes we also focus on the size of the format, and the much smaller format is called the case book (also known as the pocket book).Focusing on the font size, it is divided into large font and small font.Focusing on the color of the characters (the vast majority are black), there are also a few vermilion printed editions, blue printed editions, and overprinted editions in three or four colors.Characters are generally engraved on wooden boards. Some books in Wuyingdian are printed with wooden movable type, which are called rare books.Stereotype-printed books, some with a large number of prints, are printed first and then printed. The first printed clearly is called the first printed version, and the later printed blurred is called the later printed version.In addition, there are a few, the characters are written by the author himself (such as Zheng Xie's "Banqiao Collection") or by famous calligraphers (such as Wang Shizhen's "Yuyangshanren Essence Record" was written by Lin Ji), and then engraved, called writing. The nature of the printed edition is the same as that of the refined edition.Early printed editions and fine editions, which are relatively rare, are collectively referred to as rare editions, while others are current editions.There are also more detailed differences in editions, such as the Jiguge edition (engraved by Mao Jin), the Hubei Bureau edition, and the edition of "Guyi Series" (engraved by Li Shuchang), etc., which are beyond the scope of styles and need not be discussed.

9.2.3 Different versions What I want to talk about here is what kind of editions "one" book has.There are many books that are engraved only once, mostly because the author is not well-known and his work is not valued very much.On the contrary, the authors (some early works are unknown) and their works are prominent, so almost all of them have been engraved many times.There are many engravings, and different versions may be superior or inferior; if you want to distinguish the superior and inferior, you have to find out what version there is.This is of course difficult, because people's knowledge is limited, even if the various catalogs are quite rich, it is always very laborious to read all kinds of catalogs, and richness does not mean that there are no omissions.Also, even if you can know which editions are available, most of them may have been lost, or they are rare books stored somewhere, and it is not easy to see them.Therefore, for the so-called various editions of a book, what is required for ordinary readers is to know some that are both visible and popular, and which one is better and which one is worse.There is also a difference in the size of the range.The wide range is the different editions of a "writing".For example, Tao Yuanming’s poems and essays, the current editions include the large-character edition written by Su (Shi) in the Song Dynasty, the Tang and Han annotations in the Southern Song Dynasty, the edited edition of Zeng Ji, the Jiao Hong edition, the annotations of Li Gonghuan, the annotations of He Mengchun’s collection, the Zhantaihui's annotations, Tao Shu's annotations, etc. Among them, Tao Shu's annotations are of a later date, and the content is of course richer.Another example is Du Fu's poems. There are almost countless printed editions in the past dynasties. The popular ones include "Sibu Series" photocopied Song edition, Guichi Liu's Song edition, Qian Qianyi's annotation edition, Yugou Caotang engraved scarf box edition, Yang Lun's "Du Shi Jingquan", Pu Qilong's "Du Du Xinjie", Qiu Zhaoao's "Du Shaoling Collection Detailed Notes", among which Qiu Zhaoao's detailed notes are the most abundant.Smaller ones are different editions of a "book".For example, Liu Xiang's "New Preface" includes the imitation Song edition of Tiehuaguan, the engraved edition of Mingjing Factory, the engraved edition of He Liangjun, the photocopied Ming engraved edition of "Sibu Series", and the edition of "Han Wei Congshu". All books in the series are available.Another example is Zhang Xuecheng's "Wenshi Tongyi", which includes the original engraved edition, Yueyatang engraved edition, Changshafang engraved edition, Chengdu Zhigutang engraved edition, Yu's Baomozhai engraved edition, Liu's "Zhang's Posthumous Letters" etc. The book "Suicide Note" is available.In addition, in order to facilitate reading and discussion, we should also pay attention to the new printed editions that have been sorted out in recent years.The new printed editions are published later and are compiled by modern people. They are often rich in materials, clear in order, and easy to understand, such as Yu Jiaxi's "Shi Shuo Xin Yu Jian Shu", Wang Liqi's "Yan's Family Instructions Collection", and Zhonghua Book Company's "Li Qingzhao Collection" and so on. 9.3.1 Directory The name of the catalog is now commonly used, and it is more common for people to refer to the titles of the chapters in the book; sometimes outside the book, it refers to the respective titles of several books.This is pretty much the same as the ancient usage, with a small but rather important difference.For example, in the Western Han Dynasty, when Liu Xiang was the secretary of the school (the royal collection), the catalog refers to the title of the book, and the description of the title and the various conditions of the book is called Lu, which is collectively called the catalog.The description of this book is called the solution or summary by later generations, and the table of contents is just the title of the book.Names are very important. For example, if you go to a store to buy something, if there is no name, neither the buyer nor the seller can do anything, except pointing with your fingers.There are too many books to count. People who read want to know what books are available, what they need, and how to find them. If there is no catalog, there is no way at all.Therefore, just as you must have a tourist map when traveling to a certain place, if you want to understand the situation of classical Chinese classics, you must first have some knowledge of the catalog of old classics. 9.3.2 Early stage and late stage Books are classified and cataloged, and there are documents available for examination, starting from Liu Xiang, the secretary of the school in the late Western Han Dynasty.After the catalog was completed and compiled into one compilation, it became my country's first catalog book "Bie Lu". "Bie Lu" divided the more than 10,000 volumes of the royal collection at that time into six parts and 38 categories: the first "Six Arts", including nine categories such as "Yi" and "Poetry"; the second "Zhuzi", including Confucianism, Taoism The third "Poetry and Fu" includes five categories such as Fu, Qu Yuan and other Fu, and Lu Jia and other Fu; the fourth "Book of War" includes the four beauties of military strategy, military situation, and military yin and yang; The five volumes of "Shushu" include six categories of astronomy, calendar, and five elements; the sixth volume of "Prescription Techniques" includes four categories of medical classics, classic prescriptions, and Fangzhong; there is a general preface before the six volumes, which are combined into seven volumes.The cataloging and classification of ancient and modern books in our country are all based on the nature of the content of the book.But the so-called content of ancient books is different from our current view. For example, the first six arts, or scriptures, are self-contained because they come from the sage king and have a different status.This tradition has been maintained for more than two thousand years, and it was not broken until the new Westernized classification was adopted in recent years.After Liu Xiang's death, his son Liu Xin inherited his father's business, simplified "Bie Lu" and compiled it into "Qi Lue", which means to save the seven parts of "Bie Lu". Zilue, Poems and Fulue, Military Bookslue, Mathematics Lue, Fang Jilue. Neither "Bie Lu" nor "Seven Strategies" has been handed down, and "Hanshu·Yiwenzhi" is a copy of "Seven Strategies", so it has become the first and most systematic catalog in our country.The classification of these seven parts (the bibliography is only six) had a great influence on later generations. For example, Song Wangjian wrote "Seven Records", Liang Ruan Xiaoxu wrote "Seven Records", and Sui Xu Shanxin wrote "Seven Forests", all of which use seven as the total number of departments .Before the Tang Dynasty, there were also divisions into A, B, C, and D, such as Xunxu in the Western Jin Dynasty, Li Chong in the Eastern Jin Dynasty, and Yinchun in the Song Dynasty.However, these four classifications are different from those of the later period, because A, B, C, and D do not indicate the nature of the book.In short, the division in the early stage is mainly based on seven, or it may move downstream and become five or four, but there is no foregone conclusion. In the late Tang Dynasty, history was revised and "Sui Shu·Jing Ji Zhi" was compiled, and the classification method of classics, history, sons and collections was changed to four parts: one is the classics, including ten categories such as "Yi" and "Poetry", and the other is the history. Including thirteen categories such as official history, ancient history, and old affairs; the third is sub-sections, including 14 categories such as Confucianism, Taoism, and Law; Classes; Taoist scriptures and Buddhist scriptures are attached besides the four volumes.In the history of Chinese bibliography, this four-part classification became the standard in the later period. Since then, the public ones, such as the official history, art and literature records, etc., and the private ones, such as "Junzhai Shulu Zhi" and "Zhizhai Shulu Jieti", etc., are mostly used .The catalog of the later period, with the most content, the most detailed classification, and the most powerful is the "Summary of the General Catalog of Siku Quanshu" compiled by the Qing Emperor Qianlong (finalized by Ji Yun).The classification of its four parts is as follows: one is the Ministry of Classics, including "Yi", "Poetry", Li, "Spring and Autumn", "Book of Filial Piety", the general meaning of the Five Classics, "Four Books", music, and elementary school, a total of ten categories; the second is the Ministry of History , including official history, chronicle, chronicle, separate history, miscellaneous history, imperial edict, biography, historical notes, record, seasonal order, geography, official position, political book, catalog, and historical commentary, a total of fifteen categories; There are 14 sub-parts, including Confucianism, Military School, Legalism, Farming, Physician, Astronomical Algorithms, Numerology, Art, Spectrum Records, Zajia, Leishu, Novels, Buddhism, and Taoism; the fourth is Jibu, including " There are four categories: Songs of Chu, other collections, general collections, and poetry reviews.Adding up the four parts, there are a total of forty-four categories.Some categories are complex in content and are further divided into subcategories. For example, the category of scriptures and rites is further divided into six subcategories: "Zhou Li", "Yi Li", "Book of Rites", "San Li Tong Yi", Tong Li, and Miscellaneous Ritual Books; The geography category of the Ministry of History is further divided into nine subcategories: General Chronicles, Metropolitan Counties, Rivers and Canals, Frontier Defense, Mountains and Rivers, Historic Sites, Miscellaneous Notes, Travel Notes, and Foreign Notes.Addition of large and small categories, more than one hundred categories.We want to understand the situation of the classics in the old era. When we browse the catalog, we can use the classification of "Summary of the General Catalog of Siku Quanshu" as a shelf, and then compare and look at various types of catalogs in other eras, so that we can get twice the result with half the effort. 9.3.3 Various directories Catalogs that have been lost, such as Liu Xiang's "Bie Lu" and Xun Xu's "Jinzhong Jingbo" are not counted. There are still a large number of surviving ones, and it is not easy to understand them.Only a few examples are given here.Catalogs, especially in the early days, are mostly public.This is no wonder, because the vast majority of books are in the hands of the public.Public catalogs can be mainly divided into two categories: one is to record the collections of the Royal Secret Palace, "Bie Lu", Li Chong's "Catalogue of the Four Parts of Emperor Jin and Yuan", Liu Xiaobiao's "Catalogue of the Four Parts of the Royal Palace of Liang Wende", and Tang Yuan Xingchong's "Four Books of Qunshu" , Song Wang Yaochen's "Chongwen Zongmu" and so on; one category is history books and art literature records, such as "Han Shu·Yiwenzhi", "Sui Shu·Jingjizhi", "New Tang Book·Yiwenzhi", "Song History·Yiwenzhi" and so on.Private catalogues, existing from the Song Dynasty, such as Chao Gongwu’s Junzhai Shuzhi, You Miao’s Suichutang Bibliography, and Chen Zhensun’s Zhizhai Shulu Jieti are all well-known.After the Song Dynasty, engraved books became popular, more and more private collections were made, and the collections became larger and larger. Private catalogs sprang up like bamboo shoots after a spring rain, and there are simply countless, such as Ming Fan Bangdian's "Tianyige Bibliography" and Huang Yuji's "Qianqingtang Bibliography" , Qing Qian Qianyi's "Jiangyunlou Bibliography", Xu Qianxue's "Chuanshilou Bibliography" are all very famous.The above are general.There are also bibliographies of various natures, such as "Chu San Zang Ji Ji" and "Kaiyuan Shijiao Lu" are Buddhist scriptures catalogs, "Jinshi Lu" and "Bao Ke Congbian" are Jinshi catalogs, "Xuanhe Painting Book" and "Secret Temple Pearl "Forest" is an art catalog, "Tianlu Linlang Bibliography" and "Hundred Song Yichang Bibliography" are rare book catalogs, and so on.For beginners, if you want to understand the general situation of classical Chinese classics, you can find one or two books on catalogs, which is of great benefit. 9.3.4 Utilization of directories For the knowledge about the catalog, it is better to have a blog; as for the use, you can choose what you want.The so-called important means that it is not only rich in content, but also able to lead the way for modern readers.For example, various history, art and literature records, especially the early ones, many of which have not been handed down, so it is not very useful for us to read.Another example is the catalog of various rare books. Even if the books in them are not lost, it is difficult for us to find them, so it is not very useful to read them.Also, there are many catalogs that only list the title, version, etc. without solving the problem, so they cannot play the role of leading the way.Taking into account all kinds of conditions, the most suitable one is "Summary of General Catalog of Siku Quanshu" (200 volumes), because firstly, it is of a recent age, and most of the books it collects can still be found; secondly, there are many books collected , the total number of official copies and records exceeds 10,000; three, each has a fairly detailed summary, introducing the version, author, content, circulation, etc., and commenting on its gains and losses; four, there are many versions of the book , a photocopy of the Zhonghua Book Company and an index of the title and author for easy inspection.This book introduces ancient books, whether it is commentary or textual research, there are subtleties (of course, mistakes are unavoidable, and my friend Yu Jiaxi pointed out some in "Siku Abstract Dialectics"), so we can use this book to learn classical Chinese and explore classical Chinese classics. The book is used as a dictionary of titles. If the purpose is not to explore in-depth and broad aspects, but just want to know what are the more important and popular ancient books, and what editions are available for a certain kind, then you can refer to Zhang Zhidong (some say it was Miao Quansun), Fan Xizeng Supplementary "Bibliography Questions and Answers Supplement".This book contains more than 2,000 kinds of books, and the style is slightly changed according to the "Summary of the General Catalog of Siku Quanshu". It also includes series books and beginners' books.The advantage is that it can tell readers what version they can find and what version is suitable for reading a certain book. The versions cited are all current and easy to find, so they are practical. Since the Ming and Qing Dynasties, there has been a custom of engraving various books into series. Some books are difficult to find in a single line, and can often be found in series.Therefore, when reading ancient books, it is best to be familiar with the series.In recent years, Zhonghua Book Company has published three volumes of "Comprehensive Records of Chinese Series", which are rich in content and clear in organization, which can help readers understand: first, which series of books are still in existence, and which books are included in each type; second, whether a certain book is included in the series , if accepted, which series of books are included; third, what works of a certain author are included in the series, and which series of books are included.There are thousands of series of books in existence and tens of thousands of books collected. Therefore, it is much more convenient to have this book as a guide when reading ancient books. 9.4 Finishing Classical Chinese classics, especially the early ones, are simple and ancient, and some are incomplete and jumbled, so it is not easy to read.In order to make it easier, there have been people in the past dynasties who have done the work of tidying up.The organized ones are easier to read than the unorganized ones, so when reading ancient books, it is best to be able to know the status of the sorting.In this situation, there are specifics, that is, a certain kind of book, who has sorted it out, how to sort it out, and now I want to read it, which kind of book is the best.Obviously, such specific situations cannot be exhausted.So I just want to talk about the generalization here, which is the commonly used finishing method.There are three kinds of these, which are chapters and sentences, collation and notes. Before there were new punctuation marks, the characters of all works in our country were continuous writing.This is of course laborious to read, and there are a few places that are still unclear.Confucian classics teachers in the Han Dynasty used various classics established by academic officials as teaching materials. In order for their students to read them correctly, they divided the text into chapters and sentences, so they came to the study of chapters and sentences.For example, in the back of "Zhou Nan·Guan Ju", it is written "Guan Ju five chapters, chapter four sentences", "Zhao Nan Cao Chong" is written "Cao Chong three chapters, chapter seven sentences"; "Mencius", the first chapter of this edition The title is "Liang Huiwang Zhang Ju Shang (Fan Qi Zhang)", and the title of the second chapter is "Gongsun Chou Zhang Ju Shang (Fan Jiu Zhang)": these are all traces of the study of Zhang Ju.Chapters and sentences seem easy, but they are not.Because before you divide into chapters and sentences, you must be able to understand them correctly.Taking the sentence sentence as an example, "The Analects of Confucius·Zihan" is the traditional reading method of "the thought of the future, how far is the husband". Above; "Mencius·Gaozi Xia" is the traditional reading method of "empty body and chaotic behavior". Sentencing is sometimes not easy, which shows that the study of chapters and sentences should not be underestimated. Collation is generally carried out at the same time as annotation, and it is mentioned here separately for convenience.This is due to errors in the copying of the text. "Lushi Chunqiu Chazhuan" records that someone in Weiguo read Shiji (the title of the ancient history book) and said that "the Jin master sanju crossed the river". Already collation.By the time of the Confucian scholars in the Han Dynasty, collation also became a profession.This trend continued into the Qing Dynasty, and people like Lu Wenchao, Wang Niansun, Yu Yue, etc. also wrote special books ("Quan Shu Su Bu", "Dushu Magazine", "Examples of Ancient Books' Doubts", etc.).To collate a certain book, on the one hand, we must have a wide range of materials, such as different editions, quotations from other books, the context of this book, relevant knowledge, etc., and on the other hand, we must have the ability to judge; otherwise, we may be wrong. .The safer way is to provide more evidence and raise opinions instead of changing them.In any case, we must always admit that books that have been collated are generally easier to read. Sorting out ancient books and annotating them are the most difficult and important work, because it involves the most extensive areas, and it is difficult to be competent without profound knowledge.Since the Han Dynasty, there have been experts and famous works in this field in all dynasties, such as Zheng Xuan's annotations on various scriptures, "Historical Records" three annotations, Liu Xiao annotations, "Wenxuan" Li Shan annotations, Hu Sanxing annotations, As well as Duan Yu's commentary on "Shuowen Jiezi", and so on.Annotations have various names, such as the name "Zhuan" for the scripture annotation, and "Shu" for the biography of the annotation scripture;As far as the origin is concerned, some annotations are written by one person, such as Guo Xiang's annotations; those that absorb predecessors' annotations are collective annotations or collective annotations, such as Zhu Xi's "Four Books Collection".Notes are from the hands of many people, such as "Wen Xuan" has five ministers and six ministers' notes.There are also books that were annotated by predecessors and later annotated by later generations. For example, "Chu Ci" was first annotated by Wang Yi, and then supplemented by Hong Xingzu.Some important classics have more than one annotation, such as Du Fu's poems and Han Yuwen, there are many annotations.From the perspective of content, annotations usually include the following aspects: one is exegesis, which is to explain the meaning of ancient words and sentences with simple words and sentences.就是用直音、反切等办法注明生僻字和变读字的读音；三是明义，就是阐明词句的微言大义；四是证事，就是引用其他史料来更详细地说明情况；五是校勘。古人作注解，常常因原书的性质不同而有所偏重，如《老子》王弼注着重明义，《三国志》裴松之注着重证事，《文选》李善注着重词句的来历。旧注当然都是用文言，而且，常常是现代读者会感到难解的，它却未必注。但从积极一面看，它总是给我们解决了大部分疑难，所以读文言典籍，一定要学会利用旧注。