[
    {
        "id": 212261,
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        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
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        "document_key": "RAS-1990",
        "page_number": 203,
        "title": "RAS-1990",
        "content_text": "180\n\nCLUES TO THE LIFE AND ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENTS OF ONE OF THE MOST FAMOUS NINETEENTH CENTURY EUROPEAN SINOLOGISTS – JAMES LEGGE (AD 1815-1897)\n\nLAUREN F. PFISTER*\n\nJames Legge (1815-1897) was perhaps the most important intellectual, among both foreigners and Chinese, in 19th century Hong Kong. His eight-volume set of translations of the Chinese Classics, written in Hong Kong, has passed through at least nine reprintings (the most recent being in 1985). Numerous independent copies have been made of the second edition of the Four Books, which Legge himself re-edited (1893-1895) before he died in 1897. The complete set of translations, commentaries, and critical notes earned Legge much international recognition.\n\nThe international acclaim arrived as a result of correspondence which passed between Legge and the brilliant sinologist of the French Academy, Stanislas Julien, during the 1860s. When the latter died in 1872, an international prize for Chinese Literature was established under his name; Legge was its first recipient in 1875. This led a group of English businessmen and friends to promote the creation of a chair in Chinese for the retired missionary. Funds were raised, and Legge was accepted on rather unusual terms at Oxford University in Corpus Christi College as the First Professor of Chinese Language and Literature (1876-1897).\n\nDuring Legge's tenure at Oxford, he was an active member of the Royal Asiatic Society, completed six further volumes of Confucian and Taoist translations for F. Max Müller's series, The Sacred Books of The East, while writing and lecturing to students and the general public in Oxford on a broad range of issues including Chinese language and literature, Taoism, Buddhism, Chinese History, Indian and Syrian influences in early Chinese History, as well as topics in Chinese philosophy and political thought.\n\n#\n\n* This article is edited from a longer manuscript with the consent of the author [Editor]\n\n \n7",
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    {
        "id": 212290,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
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        "document_key": "RAS-1990",
        "page_number": 232,
        "title": "RAS-1990",
        "content_text": "209\n\n7\n\nThe texts translated by Legge were given the special subtitle, The Sacred Books of China: The Texts of Confucianism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1879-1891). They included six volumes (numbers 3, 16, 27-28, 39-40) in The Sacred Books Of The East Series under the general editing of F. Max Müller: Part I. The Shu King (the Book of Documents), The Religious Portion of the Shih King (The Book of Odes), and the Hsiao King (the Classic of Filial Piety) (XW) (1879); Part II. The Yi King (the Book of Changes) (58) (1882); Part III. The Li Ki (the Book of Rites), (禮記) I-X (1885); Part IV. The Li Ki, XI-XLVI (1885); Part V. The Tao Teh King (道德經) and the Writings of Kwang-Tze (莊子) (the Taoist Classics by Laozi and Zhuangzi), I-XVII (1891); Part VI. The Writings of Kwang-Tze, XVIII-XXXII, and the Thai-Shang Tractate of Actions and Their Retributions, (太上感應篇) with Appendices, I-VIII (1891). One of Legge's more important addresses in this field was to the Oriental Congress which met in Lyons and Florence during September, 1878. It was entitled, \"On the Present State of Chinese Studies and What is Wanted to Complete the Analysis of the Chinese Written Characters\" (September 16, 1878). Legge was Chairman of the Congress.\n\nAfter his Inaugural Address at Oxford, Legge quickly sought to attract students and any interested public by presenting very practical discussions of Chinese language. On November 7, 1876, he presented \"The Nature and History of the Chinese Written Character\". In 1878 another public lecture dealt with \"Principles of Composition in Chinese, or Grammar without Inflections\". By January, 1877, he was able to attract enough students to begin a course entitled \"Elements of Chinese and the Confucian Analects\". By the school year of 1881-1882, Legge was presenting classes on The Four Books, Laozi's (Zhuangzi) Daode Jing (道德經), and Chinese Poetry. See Oxford University Gazette, 1876-1877, pp. 64, 191; 1878-1879, p. 93; 1881-1883, pp. 200-201. The text he used for the grammar course in his early years at Oxford was Stanislas Julien's Syntaxe Nouvelle de la Langue Chinoise (ibid, 1877-1878, p. 193).\n\n* Besides the major Taoist volumes in The Sacred Books of the East, Legge also presented independent public addresses on Laozi and Zhuangzi (莊子) at Oxford's Taylorian Institute. The high regard Legge had for Zhuangzi can be seen in the typescript of the address, still available in the Bodleian. See Oxford University Gazette, 1889-1890, p. 92.\n\nLegge's response to Buddhism was very much influenced by the polemical attitudes of the Tang dynasty scholar, Han Yu, and other criticisms of Buddhism he read in Chinese tractates written by notable missionary scholars. He employed Han Yu's memorial against Buddhism as part of class readings beginning in 1883, added other texts to this in the late eighties and early nineties, and spoke publicly on \"The Purgatories of Buddhism and Taoism!\" in 1893. See Oxford University Gazette, 1882-1883, p. 558; 1884-1885, p. 339; 1892-1893, pp. 226, 491. His most important text and article relating to Buddhism are A Record of Buddhist Kingdoms, Being an Account by the Chinese Monk Fa-Hien of His Travels in India and Ceylon (AD 389-414) In Search of the Buddhist Books of Discipline (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1886), and “A Fair and Dispassionate Discussion of the Three Doctrines Accepted in China', by Liu Mi, A Buddhist Scholar”, (London; n.d., presented to the Orientalist Congress 188?, pp. 563-580). The original source of publication for the article is not clear.\n\n† Besides the Buddhist texts mentioned above in §9, Legge also published Christianity In China: Nestorianism, Roman Catholicism, Protestantism. On the flyleaf is the following title: Christianity in China; A Rendering of the Nestorian Tablet at Si-an-fu to Commemorate Christianity. London: Trübner & Co, 1888.\n\nCf Lindsay Ride's \"Biographical Note\", in The Chinese Classics with a Translation, Critical and Exegetical Notes, Prolegomena, and Copious Indexes (Taipei: Southern Materials Center, Inc, 1985), p. 22. At the age of 26 he had been awarded a Doctorate of Divinity by New York University (1842).",
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    {
        "id": 215994,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
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        "document_key": "RAS-2002",
        "page_number": 293,
        "title": "RAS-2002",
        "content_text": "227\n\nand phrasing typical of Ruist discourse in the late Qing period.\n\n26. Although Legge held this position by 1848 and argued for it in his extensive study of 1852, The Notions of the Chinese Concerning God and Spirits, he did make slight changes in the position later on in his Oxford years. Shàngdì was for Legge a high name for any monotheistic vision of God, but it was a composite term. Later in 1865 when he for the first time published a translation of the Book of Historical Documents (CC3), Legge shifted his position to claim that the single term, di (the second character in shangdi) carried the essential meaning of “God” in certain contexts. Shàngdi was only its \"intensified form.\" For this he had to develop a further justification, which he published in two different settings. For further details of these arguments see James Legge, The Sacred Books of China: The Texts of Confucianism, Part I: The Shu King. The Religious Portion of the Shih King, The Hsiao King (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1879), pp. xxiii-xxix, and A Letter to Professor F. Max Muller Chiefly on the Translation into English of the Chinese Terms Ti and Shang Ti in Reply to a Letter to him by 'Inquirer' in the Chinese Recorder and Missionary Journal for May-June 1880 (London: Trübner & Co., 1880). The first text appears as the third volume in the Sacred Books of the East series edited by F. Max Müller in Oxford.\n\n27. For the letter written by Legge and Chalmers on July 9, 1856, see the incoming letters for CWM/South China/Box 5/Jacket C/Folder 4. Later when meeting Legge in Hong Kong, Ch’ea said that \"he wished to receive the ordinance [of baptism] because it was commanded, but it was not the baptism with water which regenerated the soul, but the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Being asked where he had learned that, [Ch’ea] said that it was in the New Testament, he could not tell the book and the Ch., but if he had a book he knew where to find it. A New Testament being given to him, he soon turned up to the third Ch. of the Gospel of John.\" See EMMC/MM (October 1856), p. 215.\n\n28. Rambo describes \"intellectual conversion\" as the result of a person who \"seeks knowledge about religious or spiritual issues via books, television, articles, lectures, and other media that do not involve significant social contact.\" Then the person \"actively seeks out and explores alternatives.\" He adds, \"Belief generally occurs prior to active participation in religious rituals and organizations\" (Rambo, Understanding Religious Conversion, pp. 14-15).\n\n29. The letter describing Legge's encounter with the Daoist priest from Mount Luofu is dated February 22, 1854 (CWM/South China/Personal/Legge/Box 8), and confirmed in a later report to the London office by John Chalmers in his letter dated March 24, 1854 (CWM/South China/Box 5/Jacket E/Folder 3). EMMC/MM 21 (September 1857), p. 206. The original quotation is in the plural, describing both Ch'ea and a more recent convert named Kot A-Yuk. David Johnson also notes that in the late Qing period\n\nthere must have been a substantial number of individuals whose limited schooling had made it possible for them to grasp the meaning of many texts but not to write easily or well. Such persons had some access to the literary tradition and hence had transcended the confines of local oral culture, but were unable to use writing to order and record their thoughts. The distinction between those literates who could not write, or at",
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