Han Three "poetry"

There existed four versions of "Book of Songs" in the East-Han and West-Han Dynasties, among which the versions of the Lu, Qi, and Han were regarded as "Three Versions of Book of Songs", and their original texts have been lost. However, from the stone inscriptions at Xiping in "Lu Poetry of Shijing" valuable information about "Book of Songs" was obtained, and from WangYinglin of South-Song Dynasty on, a good number of previous scholars engaged in the addendum of "Three Versions of Book of Songs". Especially, scholars of Qin Dynasty by pooling their efforts in collecting various facts through different channels enabled the texts to be visible and readable. The materials of "Three Versions of Book of Songs" are very applicable for proofreading, commentary on ancient texts and implicating. Research on the "Three Versions" has practical significance; therefore, it is necessary for us to examine them thoroughly.Some texts of "Book of Songs" were spread during the period of the Spring and Autumn Dynasties, which originated from senior teachers' instruction. Confucius once for a time took them as teaching resources for his students; consequently, they became classical books for students of Confucian School. In the period of Qin Emperor, a movement of "Burning Books and Killing Confucianism" broke out, the spreading of "Poetry", "Book of History" and the "Book of Songs" was prevented to some extent, and some texts could be handed down from one generation to another only by the way of instructing and recounting orally in different regions of ancient China. Therefore, different versions of "Book of Songs" appeared in the East-Han and West-Han Dynasties.During the periods of various countries of the Spring and Autumn Dynasties, High-ranking officials paid close attentions to interpretation of expressions and poetic sentiments as well as the writers of the "Book of Songs". Confucius, Mencius and Xuncius made greater contributions to its theoretical studies, and many other scholars devoted themselves in the study of its expressions. During the Han Dynasties, the four versions of "Book of Songs" inherited research findings of the Previous Qin Dynasty by copying arid imitating. So the four versions of "Book of Songs" came into being by means of knocking together different materials existing at that time. Although some materials of which the majority were used for commentary on ancient texts that came from previous scholars who were ordinary researchers of Qin Dynasty rather than Confucians.The texts of the "Three Versions of Book of Songs" distinguished from the "MaoVersion of Book of Songs" which primarily manifested in the areas of titles, sections, chapters, sentences, words orders, the number of words and especially in phraseologies. The greater differences in phraseology were mainly embodied in the aspects of inheriting, reciting, recording, characters developing and spreading. If judged from the volumes, sections and chapters, we hardly find differences or only superficial differences between the four versions of "Book of Songs". So we can safely say that the texts of Three Versions and the "Mao Version of Book of Songs" are identical in general and there exist no so-called texts of "JinWen" (the Chinese script in the Han Dynasty) and "GuWen" (the Chinese script before the Qin Dynasty).Although the "Three Versions" are in fragmentary, we still could find that there exist some interpretations of their theoretical system. Specifically, "Lu Version" put forward the doctrine of "Si Shi" and classified the "Book of Songs" in terms of its contents; and the doctrine of "Wu Ji" was presented hi "Qi Version" which connects the "Ying Yang Wu Xing" with "Book of Songs". Compared with "Three versions" with "Mao version", these four versions achieved the results approximately in the fields of commentary on ancient texts though they were in different methods. As to their characteristics, that the "Mao version" which possess its own system and focus on history; while the study styles of the "Lu Versiotf' is rigorous; and the "Qi V...