YEN JO-CH

born Nov. 11, 1636, Huai-an, Kiangsu, China died July 9, 1704, Peking Pinyin Yan Ruoju great Chinese scholar from the early period of the Ch'ing dynasty (16441911/12) who proved that 25 chapters of the Shu Ching (q.v.), or Shang shu, one of the Five Classics of Confucianism, upon which the government modeled itself for more than a thousand years, were forged. Yen early became interested in determining the authenticity of the Shu Ching. The work dated from the early Chou period (1122771 BC), but after the years of turmoil following the end of the Han dynasty (206 BCAD 220), only 29 chapters of it remained extant. Then, in the 4th century AD, an alleged copy of the 16 chapters of the ancient script text appeared, with 9 additional chapters. These were accepted as authentic. The 54 chapters (later some chapters were divided to make a total of 58) were made one of the bases of the Chinese civil service examination. Yen spent 30 years making an intensive textual analysis of the work and then published his Shang shu ku-wen shu-cheng (Inquiry into the Authenticity of the Ancient Text of the Shang shu), which utilized historical and philological reasoning to prove that the so-called ancient script chapters of the Shu Ching had been forged. Yen's book helped bring about a new critical reexamination of the Classics.