Webster, J: Kan Ying Pien

Excerpt from The Kan Ying Pien: Book of Rewards and Punishments; The Chinese Text With Introduction, Translation and Notes

The tract, as a means of publishing in a popular form to the common people, the thoughts and sayings of wise men, has long been used in China. With the invention of printing during the T'ang (l?) dynasty, and its rapid development in the succeeding period, this form of literature soon became general, and increased by leaps and bounds. Since that time, an immense development has taken place, and a great part of the literature read by the ordinary classes of society is in the form of booklets. Several of these small books have come to be reckoned as classics: for example, 'the San Tzu Ching (33 is the primary reader in every Chinese school, and is known bv heart in every home.

In no country, perhaps, does the tract find so ready acceptance. In consequence of the sacredness attaching to the printed character, the lea¿et. Tract, and even wayside poster are probably oftener and more carefully read than is the case with the more progressive nations of the West, where such productions are generally but lightly esteemed. The growth of tract literature, especially moral maxims and essays, booklets issued in favour of special religious systems or particular deities, and the like, has been much fostered by persons who, wishing to accumulate to themselves merit, devote larger or smaller sums of money to the production and distribution of these works.

The Kan Ying Pien is Perhaps the most celebrated tract in the annals of literature. A book that has been scattered broadcast among a people numbering hundreds of millions, and that for several centuries, must be almost without a parallel. It is not sold in the ordinary way on street bookstalls or shops, as IS the case with Chinese tract-literature in general, but is obtainable in temples, I. For a more particular treatment of this section, see an essay in Martin's Hanlin Papers. Vol. II, 304 ii. Native Tract Literature in China.

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