FOREWORD
TO
"THE COMPLETE WORKS OF HAN FEI TZŬ
WITH COLLECTED COMMENTARIES"
The Works of Han Fei TzŬ in the remote past had Yin
Chi-chang's Commentary[1]
as mentioned in the Records of
Arts and Letters in the History of T`ang.[2]
The number of
the books was not recorded most probably because the
Commentary has been lost long before. During the Yüan
Dynasty (a.d. 1279-1367) Ho Huan said that Li Tsan's
Commentary[3]
had been in existence. Yet Li Tsan's life and
work can no longer be traced. The edition which appeared
during the Ch`ien-tao period (a.d. 1165-1173)[4]
of the Sung
Dynasty (a.d. 960-1279) bears no name of the editor.
Nobody has as yet disclosed the anonymity. All the quotations
and citations from Han Fei TzŬ's Works as found
in the T`ai-p`ing Imperial Library,[5]
the Literary Works on
Facts and Varieties,[6]
and Classical Selections for Beginners,[7]
coincide with the text of the Ch`ien-tao edition. If so, the
anonym must have lived before the Sung Dynasty.
As regards these early commentaries, they do not
completely cover the whole works of the author, and,
moreover, contain mistakes and errors. Nevertheless, these
pioneering efforts have proved exceedingly helpful to
scholars of recent times. Accordingly, I have juxtaposed
the various commentaries and from place to place interposed
my own viewpoints among them. In consequence, I have
compiled the present work,
The Complete Works of Han
Fei TzŬ with Collected Commentaries, in which the author's
text is largely based on the Ch`ien-tao edition whose errors
are corrected and hiatuses are supplied in accordance with
the contents of other editions.
Wang Hsien-shen.
Changsha,
First Winter Month,
21st Year of Kuang-hsü
(November, 1895).
