Of all the various editions of
The Paintings of the Six Classics, only the edition included in The Complete Library in Four
Divisions ( Si Ku Quan Shu ), has been handed down. The author of this paper, however, has recently got hold of a set of the tablet rubbings of
The Paintings of the Six Classics from his grandfather' s library, which is, in many aspects, different from the edition in The Complete Library in Four Divisions to a large extent. Upon examination, it has been verified that it was first written by Yang Jia during the Song Dynasty, and that, during the subsequent
dynasties, it has been revised by means of enlargement and abridgement. But, generally speaking, its various editions have evolved themselves along two lines: one is from the Changzhou stone - carved edition to the one of Xinzhou, and they belong to the category of the tablet edition; whereas the other is from Cheng Sen' s wood - carved edition to the on of Wu Shiji' s, and they fall under the category of the book edition. The latter, being revised at will, is no longer what the Yang Jia s edition has been like though; the former retains all its textual features of the Song and Yuan Dynasties, and is consequently of the greater value as historical data.