Sacred Books of the East Vol. 40 - Taoism Vol. 2

{fn. 1. {img 25500}.} {fn. 2. See also Ma Twan-lin's great work, ch. 211, p. 18a.} {fn. 3. See Kwang-dze, Bk. XI, par. 4.} {p. 256} and many of them hold that this Kwang Khäng-dze was an early incarnation of Lâo-dze himself, so that the Yin Fû might well be placed before the Tâo Teh King! Lî Hsî-yüeh is one of the scholars who adopt this view. I will not say that under the Kâu dynasty there was no book called Yin Fû, with a commentary ascribed to Thâi-kung{fr. 1}, for Sze-mâ Khien, in his biography of Sû Khin (Bk. lxix), relates how that adventurer obtained 'the Yin Fû book of Kâu,' and a passage in the 'Plans of the Warring States' tells us that the book contained 'the schemes of Thâi-kung{fr. 1}.' However this may have been, no such work is now extant. Of all the old commentaries on it mentioned in the Khien-lung Catalogue, the only one remaining is the last,--that of Lî Khwan; and the account which we have of it is not to be readily accepted and relied on. The story goes that in A.D. 441 Khâu Khien-kih, who had usurped the dignity and title of Patriarch from the Kang family, deposited a copy of the Yin Fû King in a mountain cave. There it remained for about three centuries and a half, till it was discovered by Lî Khwan, a Tâoist scholar, not a little damaged by its long exposure. He copied it out as well as he could, but could not understand it, till at last, wandering in the distant West, he met with an old woman, who made the meaning clear to him, at the foot of mount Lî; after which he published the Text with a Commentary, and finally died, a wanderer among the hills in quest of the Tâo; but the place of his death was never known{fr. 2}.