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

When the emperor Wän ({img 31104}), by name Yang Kien ({img 31105}), a scion of the ruling House of Sui, a small principality in the present Hû-pei, and founder of the dynasty so called, had succeeded in putting down the various conflicting dynasties, and claimed the sovereignty of the empire in 581, Hsieh freely yielded his allegiance to him, and was employed in the conduct of various affairs. The important paper, of the translation of the greater part of which a translation is here attempted, was the outcome of one of them. Wän Tî regularly observed the Confucian worship of God, but also kept up the ceremonies of Buddhism and Taoism. Having repaired the dilapidated temple of Lâo-dze at his birth-place, he required from Hsieh an inscription for the commemorative tablet in it, the composition of which is referred to the year 586, 'the sixth year of Sui's rule over all beneath the sky.' Hsieh appears to have been a favourite with the emperor Wän, but when Wän was succeeded in 605 by his son, known as Yang Tî ({img 31106}),his relations with {footnote p. 312} the throne became less happy. Offended by a memorial which Hsieh presented, and the ground of offence in which we entirely fail to perceive, the emperor ordered him to put an end to himself. Hsieh was surprised by the sentence, and hesitated to comply with it, on which an executioner was sent to strangle him. Thus ended the life of Hsieh Tâo-häng in his seventieth year. His death was regretted and resented, we are told, by the people generally. A collection of his writings was made in seventy chapters, and was widely read. I do not know to what extent these have been preserved; if many of them have been lost, and the paper, here in part submitted to the reader, were a fair specimen of the others, the loss must be pronounced to be great. Of this paper I have had two copies before me in translating it. One of them is in Ziâo Hung's 'Wings to Lao-dze;' the other is in 'The Complete Works of the Ten Philosophers.' Errors of the Text occur now in the one copy, now in the other. From the two combined a Text, which must be exactly correct or nearly so, is made out.}