The status of Confucianism
During this reign, Confucianism reigned supreme as the official
philosophy and religion. The famous Liu Hsiang4 was given the task
of making a catalogue of the Imperial Private Library, the greatest library
in the empire, in the course of which he prepared and published standard
editions of some important books. He did this, for example, with the
works of the great philosopher, Hsün-tzu. An Internuncio was sent about
the empire to seek for lost books, and the `ancient text' classics and
explanations probably entered the Imperial Private Library at this time
(cf. p. 5b, 6a, n. 6.1). Pan Yu, a great-uncle of Pan Ku, assisted Liu
Hsiang4 in this undertaking and read much aloud to the Emperor (100 A:
4b). The results of this cataloguing are to be found in the "Treatise on
Arts and Literature" (HS ch. 30).
