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66 THE ANALECTS : INYRODUCTION.
the Han dynasty, though the injury done to literature, and
especially to Mstorical literature was great, a considerable
amount was still recoverable.
Whatever monuments we possess of ancient China we
owe to Confucius and his followers, and though the records
from which he compiled his books were all destroyed, and
though what he left behind suffered loss, enough was
recovered to gratify if not to satisfy the student of antiquity.
What books we now have were recoveled, after a lapse of
years, in some cases from memory, but more generally
flora places where the bamboo tablets had been hidden,
these having in the meantime suffeled more or less injury.
from the circumstances of their concealment.
Immediately before the dawn of the Christian era, in
the famous catalogue of Lm Hsin _lJ l_J_ who in obedience
to Imperial orders completed the work of his father
Liu Hsiang :_1]f.J and others, in cataloguing all known
literary monuments, we find that an immense mass of
literary matter had been collected. "There were 294 "
collections of the Yih-king, from 13 diffment individuals or
editors, 412 collections of the Shoo-king, from 9 individuals
; 416 volumes of the She-king, flom 6 different individuals;
of the books of Rites, 555 collections, from 13
different individuals; of the Books on Music, I65 collections,
from 6 different editors ; 948 collections of tiistory,
under the heading of the Ch'un Ts'ew, from 23 different
individuals ; 229 collections of the Lun Yu, includii_g the
Analects and kindred fragments, fiom I2 different indi-
viduals ; of the Heaou-king, embracing also the Urh ga,
and some other portions of the ancient lite.rature, 59 collec-