James Legge on the Lun Yu’s text history

The article examines the views of the outstanding British Sinologist James Legge (1815–1897) on the textual history of the Lun Yu’. Based on the methodological approach as adapted in the textual historical studies the author, Lidia Golovacheva studies the views by J. Legg on the phenomena as follows. 1. The Qing views on the destruction of books and the killing of scholars, which took place during the Qin dynasty and on the targeted collection of ancient books in the Han era. 2. The compilation process of Lun Yu’s text by the Han dynasty scholars. 3. When and by whom the Lun Yu was written. 4. Who left comments on Lun Yu. 5. Variant readings in Lun Yu. The views on Lun Yu by Legge to a significant part are influenced by those of traditional Chinese scholars. They reflect the general height, reached by the Lun yu’ textology in the 19th cent. This builds a solid basis for future research on the development of Lun Yu studies in the Sinological studies in China, Western Europe and worldwide.