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INTRODUCTION.
13
Nor are those of the previous dynasty of Shang open to suspicion. We ascend by means of them The Books of Shang. to Thang the Successful, its founder, with a confident step. The beginning of his rule is placed chronologically in B.C. 1766.
Of the still earlier dynasty of Hsiâ, there are only four documents, and we have no evidence that The Books of Hsiâ. there were any more when the collection of the Shû was made in the times of Kâu. The first and longest of the four, though occupied with the great achievement of Yü, the founder of Hsiâ, whose chronological place is B.C. 2205–2196, really belongs to the reign of Yâo, and is out of place among the records of Hsiâ. The other three documents bring us down only to the reign of Kung Khang (B.C. 2159–2145), and I see no grounds for doubting their genuineness. In the last of them a celestial phenomenon is mentioned, which has always been understood to have been an eclipse of the sun in Fang, a space of about 512° from π to σ of Scorpio, on the first day of the last month of autumn. P. Gaubil thought he had determined by calculation that such an eclipse really took place in the fifth year of Kung Khang, B.C. 2155. Doubts, however, have been cast, as will be seen in the next chapter, on the accuracy of his calculation, and therefore I do not avail myself of it here as a confirmation of the truth of the document.
3. We come to the earlier records, those of the reigns of Yâo and Shun, which must be classed The Books of Thang and Yü. the Tribute of Yü, the first of the documents of Hsiâ; and it must be admitted that there is not the same evidence that they existed originally in their present form.
i. The Canon of Yâo and three of the four still existing books of the time of Yü, all commence They are professedly later compilations. with the words, 'Examining into antiquity, we find.' They are therefore, on their own showing, the compilations of a later age. The writer separates himself from the date of the events which he narrates, and while professing to draw from the records
