4. But while those three different recensions of the Shih all
disappeared, with the exception of a single treatise of Han Ying, their
unhappy fate was owing not more to the convulsions by which the empire
was often rent, and the consequent destruction of literary monuments
such as we have witnessed in China in our own day, than to the
appearance of a fourth text, which displaced them by its superior
correctness, and the ability with which it was advocated and commented
on. This was what is called the Text of Mao. It came into the field
rather later than the others; but the Han Catalogue contains the Shih of
Mao, in twenty-nine chapters, and a Commentary on it in thirty-nine.
According to Kang Hsuean, the author of this was a native of Lu, known as
Mao Hang or 'the Greater Mao,' who had been a disciple, we are told by
Lue Teh-ming, of Hsuen Khing. The work is lost. He had communicated his
knowledge of the Shih, however, to another Mao,--Mao Kang, 'the Lesser
Mao,' who was a great scholar, at the court of king Hsien of Ho-kien, a
son of the emperor King. King Hsien was one of the most diligent
labourers in the recovery of the ancient books, and presented the text
and work of Hang at the court of his father,--probably in B.C. 129. Mao
Kang published Explanations of the Shih, in twenty-nine chapters,--a
work which we still possess; but it was not till the reign of Phing
(A.D. 1 to 9) that Mao's recension was received into the Imperial
College, and took its place along with those of Lu, Khi, and Han Ying.

The Chinese critics nave carefully traced the line of scholars who had
charge of Mao's Text and Explanations down to the reign of Phing. The
names of the men and their works are all given. By the end of the first
quarter of our first century we find the most famous scholars addicting
themselves to Mao's text. The well-known Kia Khwei (A.D. 30 to 101)
published a work on the Meaning and Difficulties of Mao's Shih, having