MAO CH'ANG

flourished 145 BC, Chao, China Pinyin Mao Chang Chinese scholar whose revision of and commentary on the great Confucian Classic the Shih Ching (Classic of Poetry) became so famous that for the next 2,000 years this text was often referred to as the Mao shih (Mao Poetry). His work is still generally considered the authoritative version of that Classic. During the interregnum when China came under the rule of the Ch'in dynasty (221206 BC), a massive burning of books took place in which most copies of the Confucian Classics were destroyed. When the Han dynasty (206 BCAD 220) followed the Ch'in, an intensive campaign was undertaken to replace the Classics; older scholars who had memorized these works entirely provided a chief sourceand a reasonfor the many conflicting versions of the different Classics available. In the midst of this confusion, Mao, who had supposedly received the Shih Ching from his father, prepared an edition of the work that was so well researched and documented that it is generally considered the version originally handed down by Confucius. Mao's explanation of the meaning of the text also had great influence, helping to define the Confucian beliefs that underlay most subsequent Chinese dynasties for the next 2,000 years.