2. The Shih shared in the calamity which all the other classical works,
excepting the Yi, suffered, when the tyrant of Khin issued his edict for
their destruction. But I have shown, in the Introduction to the Shu, p.
7, that that edict was in force for less than a quarter of a century.
The odes were all, or very nearly all[1], recovered; and the reason
assigned for this is, that their preservation depended on the memory of
scholars more than on their inscription on tablets of bamboo and on silk.

Three different texts.

3. Three different texts of the Shih made their appearance early in the
Han dynasty, known as the Shih of Lu, of Khi, and of Han; that is, the
Book of Poetry was recovered from three different quarters. Liu Hin's
Catalogue of the Books in the Imperial Library of Han (B.C. 6 to 1)
commences, on the Shih King, with a collection of the three texts, in
twenty-eight chapters.

[1. All, in fact, unless we except the six pieces of Part II, of which
we have only the titles. It is contended by Ku Hsi and others that the
text of these had been lost before the time of Confucius. It may have
been lost, however, after the sage's death; see note on p. 283.]

The text of Lu.

i. Immediately after the mention of the general collection in the
Catalogue come the titles of two works of commentary on the text of Lu.
The former of them was by a Shan Phei of whom we have some account in
the Literary Biographies of Han. He was a native of Lu, and had received
his own knowledge of the odes from a scholar of Khi, called Fau Khiu-po.