5g RENAISSANCES

than 33,179 characters but was remarkable for the achievement of
arranging these under not more than 214 radicals, in contrast to the 540
that was the lowest figure to which the number had been reduced in any
previous analysis.1 K'ang Hsi(imperabatA.n. 1662-1722) organized the
production of a lexicon dealing with more than 40,000 characters* (the
K'ang Hsi Tsi-Tien, published in A.D. 1716) and two concordances (the
P'ei-Wen Yiin-Fu, published in A.D. 1711 in 444 books, with a supple-
ment of 112 books published in A.D. 1716, and the P'ien-Tsi-lici-Pitm,
published in A.D. 1726 in 240 books) that were designed for the same
use as the Modern Western Humanist's Gradus ad Parncmum* There
are corresponding works to the credit of private Byzantine scholars-—
Photius's lexicon,4 Soutdhas' encyclopaedia,5 and a number of etymo-
logical dictionaries of unknown authorship6— but, if these Byzantine
scholars could have had any inkling of the scale on which K'ung Hsi was
to do for the Sinic classics what they were trying to do for the I lellenic
classics in the lexicographer's line, there would have been no more
spirit in them than there was in the Queen of Sheba when she hud seen
all Solomon's wisdom.7

When we pass from lexicography to criticism and exegesis, Orthodox
Christendom can produce one outstanding figure in the person of the
twelfth-century scholar-bishop Eustathius, whose commentary on the
Homeric poems had proved of lasting value to succeeding Byzantine and
Western students down to the time of writing. Eustathuta's intellect was
no less eminent than his moral character.8 But how could one single
champion be expected to prove a match for the legion of Western scholars
who invaded the field of Hellenic studies in the fifteenth century of the
Christian Era, or for the two waves of Far Eastern scholars who made
progressive conquests in the field of Sinic studies in the age of the Bung
and the age of the Manchu Dynasty ?°

Critical scholarship in China under the Manchu domination was the
child of abortive political endeavours that, in failing, moved the scholar-
administrators who had made them to transfer their energies to an in-
tellectual field in which they could count on finding themselves still
masters of the situation. In the early decades of the seventeenth century
of the Christian Era, when the Ming imperial regime in China was in its
death agonies, the Confucian civil servants made two successive attempts
— which were as honourable and as unsuccessful as the similar attempts
that these latter-day imperial administrators* predecessors had made in
the last days of the Posterior Han10 — to save the regime from collapse

1 See Goodrich, op. cit., p. 20$.

z According to Der Grosse Brockhaus, 1939, vol. iv, p, 55, the number wa» 40,545}
according to The Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1929, vol. v, p. 573, this lexicon ran to
49»ooo characters arranged under 2.14 radicals (like Me* Ying-tw/it 7'*0-//uJ).

3 D<% Grosse Brockhaus, 1939, vol. iv, p. 55. Dettili will ba found in Mayert, loc, cit.,
pp. aoo-oi.

lee Krumbacher, op. cit., pp. 519-41* * See &&„ pp. 569*70,

See ibid., pp. 573-6. 7 , Kjfog, x; j tn<| 4,

, . ., . * „ . *

.; See ibid., pp. 573-6. 7 , Kjfog, x; j tn<| 4,

• In A,IX 1185 even the obscene Western Christian conquerow of Silonicn, tha
Orthodox Christian city that was Eu$tathiu$'* archiepiscopal »«*, were unable to raiUt
the spell of this schismatic' prelate's saintliness; and, a* for aa hi» unfortunate flock did
receive any roercy, they owed it to his intrepid intercession on their behalf (wo IX.

« See'Zfcr Grosse Brockhaus, 1920, vol. iv, p. 55. *o Sett VI. vU, 371, n, 3.