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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 December 2009
After the death of Han Yü 
in 823, his literary works were collected and edited by his relative and disciple Li Han 
. These works were soon forgotten, and the name of Han Yü remained virtually unknown until the chance discovery of a fragmentary copy by the child Ou Yang Hsiu 
in the house of a friend in 1016.1 Ou Yang Hsiu, who within thirty years had done much both to restore Han Yü′s text, and to demand for him the recognition that he had claimed but never received during his lifetime, was followed in his work by every Confucian scholar of note, until Han Yü′s position as the last of the classical writers was irremovably established. In his original edition Li Han had arranged Han Yü′s works according to categories: he may have made some attempt at a chronological order within those categories, but if so, the disintegration of copies during the 200 years of neglect undid his work.
1 A full account of the finding of Han Yü′s works, and their subsequent history, is given by Ou Yang Hsiu in his essay Chi Chiu Pen Han Wen Hou 
. See Ou Yang Wen Chung Chi 
, 73.14.
2 There are altogether five essays in this series: The Yüan Tao 
or Inquiry into the Way, the Yüan Hsing 
or Inquiry into the Nature, the Yüan Hni 
or Inquiry into Slander, Yüan Jen 
Inquiry into Man, and Yüan Kuei 
Inquiry into Ghosts. Of these the Yüan Tao and Yüan Hui have both been translated by Giles, “ Gems′ of Chinese Literature ”, and Margouliès, “ Le Kou Wen Chinois ”. A translation of the Yüan Hsing by Legge is to be found in the Prolegomena to the Second Volume of the Chinese Classics, Mencius. The five essays are to be found at the beginning of the 11th section of Han Yü′s Collected Works (Han Ch′ang Li Chi 
, 11.1–5).
1 In Han Yü′s biography in the Chiu T′ang Shu 
, number 101, it is recorded that Tu Ku Chi and Liang Su modelled their style upon Tung Chung Shu 
and Yang Hsiung 
and that Han Yü followed them with enthusiasm. An essay claiming for Tu Ku Chi and Liang Su the credit of having founded the Ku Wen 
movement is to be found in the Nien Erh Shih Cha Chi 
20.17.
2 Han Yü gives the fullest account of his examination career in his letter to Ts′ui Li Chih 
, Works 16.5. The special literary examination bore the title of Po Hsuch Hung Ts′e 
for details of which see Des Rotours, “ Le Traite des Examens ”, Note, pp. 220–1.
3 Han Yü first uses the term Ku Wen in a letter written in 797 to Feng Su 
, one of his fellow Chin Shih. “ I do not know ”, he said, “ whether any use can be found for Ku Wen in the world to–day. All I can do is to wait for recognition from the discerning.” See Yü Feng Su Lun Wen Shu 
, Works 17.6. Up to this time Han Yü′s essays mainly took the form of self–pitying allegories, in which the dominating influence was the book of Chuang Tzu 
. It was such pieces as the Tsa Shuo 
or Trivia (Works 11.8) that Chang Chi condemned as silly and fictitious.
1 Han Yü, who was left an orphan at the age of two, was brought up by his eldest brother Hui 
. In 777 Hui was accused of complicity with the late chief minister Yüan Tsai 
, a notorious Buddhist, who had been arrested and executed earlier in the year, and banished to Shao Chou 
, in the south, where he soon died. It seems likely that Han Yü, who was convinced of his brother′s innocence, attributed this exile and the subsequent hardships of his own adolescence to the Buddhist religion, for which he maintained a strong antipathy throughout his life. His weakness for self–dramatization drove him especially in times of stress to choose a spectacular role; and he would have needed little persuasion to regard himself as one of the “ super men ”, of whom the last representative had been Yang Hsiung.
2 The very interesting correspondence between Chang Chi and Han Yü is to be found in section 14 of the collected works, numbers 11 and 12. Chang Chi′s two letters, the only prose works of his which survive, were preserved in the collection Wen Yüan Ying Hua 
and are now included in all editions of Han Yü′s collected works. It will be seen that Han Yü′s arguments for waiting until he was 50 or 60 to write his book are far from convincing. In fact to make such an effort he needed a far greater stimulus than the criticism of a sincere admirer.
3 See Li Wen Kung Chi 
, 7.5 and for Han Yü′s allegory of the Unicorn, the Works of Han Yü 12.1. Li Ao imitated this in an essay “ Recognizing the Phœnix ” (Li Wen Kung Chi 5.1) written in 798. His Tsa Shuo (Li Wen Kung Chi 5.7) are also modelled on the Tsa Shuo of Han Yü;.
1 In two letters written in 813, Liu Tsung Yüan 
testifies to the moral courage of Han Yü. “ Mencius said ”, he wrote to a young man who wished to study under him, “ that the trouble with people is that they love to try and teach others. People have had less and less use for teachers since the Wei 
and Chin 
dynasties: and nowadays you never hear of such a thing. Or if he does appear he is decried as a lunatic. Han Yu is the only man who has had the courage to ignore popular opinion and brave jeers and insults by inviting students and writing his Explanation of the Teacher.... Through this he has come to be thought mad.” See Ta Wei Chung Li Lun Shih Shuo Shu 
, Liu Ho Tung Chi 
,34.2. In the other letter (Liu Ho Tung Chi 34.4) he said briefly, “ I have neither the capacities nor the courage of Han Yü, which is another reason for my refusal to teach others.”
2 This manifesto is the Shih Shuo 
(Works 12.2) to which Liu Tsung Yüan alluded in his letter. The function of the teacher, Han Yü declared, was to transmit the way of truth and to resolve problems. “A man who loves his son will choose a teacher to instruct him, but will be ashamed to take a teacher for himself. This sort of teacher will give the boy a book and train him to read it correctly. But that is not what I call transmitting the way of truth or resolving problems.”
3 Early in 799 Han Yü left Pien Chou for Hsü Chou 
and his school moved with him. Writing to Li Ao later in the year, he mentioned that his household now numbered some thirty souls. See letter to Li Ao (Works 16.11). It is probable that even at this time many of these students were more eager to obtain Han Yü′s recommendation than to study ancient literature. In 801 Han Yii recommended ten of his best students to the assistant examiner Lu San 
, of whom nine were successful in subsequent examinations. After this he was besieged with applications from aspiring students, the more blatant of which he firmly rejected.
4 As up to now it has been thought that Li Ao wrote his Fu Hsing after Han Yü had published his Yuan Hsing, evidence for this dating must be given. At the end of the first essay (Li Wen Kung Chi 2.1) Li Ao says that after going south to look at the waterfalls he went to Yüeh Chou where he found Lu San, and discussed his ideas with him. Han Yii in his poem of farewell to Chang Chi (Works 2.2), written at Hsu Chou in the summer of 799, says, “ Of my two or three friends (Meng) Tung Yeh is exploring the Yü 
caves, Li Ao is looking at the waterfalls.” Both waterfalls and caves were in Chekiang, and the caves were visited by Li Ao on the 29th of the 5th month of 799 (see Li Wen Kung 5.5). Here a meeting with Meng Tung Yeh dated the same year (see Li Wen Kung Chi 14.4) probably took place. In the third essay Li Ao gives his age as 28. In a letter written on receiving an appointment after his disgrace he gives his age as 60 (Li Wen Kung Chi 8.6). Li Ao was disgraced from the court in 829, and appointed governor of Kuei Chou in 
831. He would have therefore been 28 in 799 or 800.
1 Ou Yang Hsiu, who had a very high opinion of the abilities of Li Ao, did in fact dismiss the Fu Hsing as mere commentaries on the Doctrine of the Mean. See Oil Yang Wen Chung Chi 73.3.
2 Han Yü has been called to account for not having attmpted to resolve the problem of whether the Nature was good or evil. This writer maintains that this was not the problem which presented itself to Han Yu. In his later restatement of the Yuan Hsing the disciple Huang Fu Shih 
expressly states that Mencius by arguing that Nature was good, and Hsün Tzu by arguing that Nature (by which in fact he meant the Passions) was evil, opened, though not deliberately, the door to heresy. Han Yü′s object was to close this door. See Huang Fu Shih Cheng Wen Chi 
, 2.4.
1 Of this correspondence unfortunately only Li Ao′s second answer to Hou Kao survives. See Li Wen Kung Chi 7.6.
2 For example, the memorial requesting a stop to the building of Buddhist and Taoist monasteries. See Li Wen Kung Chi 10.4.
3 The only possible reference to these essays in contemporary literature occurs in this letter from Han Yii to Li Sun 
(see Works 15.5). Most commentators are agreed that there are no essays other than the Yuan Tao series, to which the passage quoted could refer.
4 The friend was Meng Chien 
, a connection of Meng Tung Yeh. See Works 18.7.