[[alternative]]Hu Shih and His Shui-ching Chu Scholarship

[[abstract]]For a long time, people do not understand why Hu Shih (1891-1962) spent his last twenty years studying the Chinese classic work, Shui-ching chu (Commentary on the Classic of the Waterways). Was this ambitious academic project a departure from his early mission as a westernizer? Was the Shui-ching chu his ivory tower? Why did he try so hard to prove that Tai Chen (1724-1777) was innocent of plagiarism? This paper will attempt to answer a number of such questions which have puzzled scholars about Hu Shih, the Shui-ching chu, and Ch'ing scholarship through a case study of the Shui-ching chu controversy. The focus of the controversy is the question of whether Tai Chen plagiarized Chao I-Ch'ing (1709-1764) or Ch'uan Tsu-wang (1705-1755). Hu argued that Tai arrived at identical results as Chao and Ch' Qan independently because these three mid-Ch'ing scholars employed the same research method of textual criticism. This research indicates that Hu's main intention in studying the Shui-ching chu was not to defend the cultural heritage of his homeland, to prove his ability in reading classics, to hide himself from the punishing reality, or to fight for justice. Rather, he used this issue as an ideological weapon to fight with cultural conservatives and to advocate the aspects of modernity, such as objectivity and scientific spirit, that he found in Ch'ing scholarship. Tai Chen was a hero to Hu because he represented a cultural heritage which could be utilized in modern China for an epis-temological and methodological revolution. Hu's scholarship on the Shui-ching chu is controversial. His collation and examination of more than sixty different editions of the text was perhaps his most important contribution to Shui-ching chu studies. No one has examined the Shui-ching chu controversy more comprehensively than Hu. However, Hu did not make a real breakthrough. His handwritten manuscripts are loosely organized and badly written. He shifted the attention of scholars away from more important areas in Shut-eking chu studies. His research was also far from being neutral and objective. He was too lenient toward Tai Chen and too harsh on Tai's critics. He also failed to respond directly to the unfavorable arguments raised by Tai's critics. Key Words: Hu Shih, Shut Ching Chu, Intellectual history of modern China[[fileno]]JA01_1997_p23