SBE 3: Part IV: The Books of Shang: Book VI. The Common Possession of Pure Virtue

BOOK VI. THE COMMON POSSESSION OF PURE VIRTUE.

This is the last of the 'Instructions' of Î Yin;--addressed, like those of the last two Books, to Thâi Kiâ, but at a later period when the great minister wished to retire from the toils of administration. He now disappears from the stage of history, though according to Sze-mâ Khien, and a notice in the Preface to the Shû, he lived on to B. C. 1713, the eighth year of Thâi Kiâ's son and successor.

In this Book, his subject is 'Pure or Single-eyed Virtue,' and the importance of it to the ruler of the kingdom. He dwells on the fall of Kieh through his want of this virtue, and the elevation of Thang through his possession of it; treats generally on its nature and results; and urges the cultivation of it on Thâi Kiâ.

1. Î Yin, having returned the government into

4. 'Oh! (to retain a place) in the seven-shrined temple 1 of ancestors is a sufficient witness of virtue.* To be acknowledged as chief by the myriad heads of families is a sufficient evidence of one's government.

Footnotes

102:1 It is beyond a doubt that the ancestral temple of the kings of Kâu contained seven shrines or seven small temples, for the occupancy of which, by the spirit-tablets of such and such kings, there were definite rules, as the line of sovereigns increased. It would appear from the text that a similar practice prevailed in the time of the Shang dynasty.