890 t h e a n n a l s o f k i n g t’a e j o
the Four Books (Sasŏ chŏlyo) and submitted it to the king together with the
following memorial:
“Since the rule of the king depends on the learning of the mind- and- heart
(simhak), one should strive to focus his mind to take the Middle Way and
saturate and nurture himself in it so that he can cultivate his person, regu-
late his household, and rule the state.
“As we survey the books left by the sages, Analects, Mencius, Doctrine
of the Mean, and Great Learning are generally most outstanding. We
respectfully believe that Your Majesty has venerated and studied the sacred
learning given by Heaven. At the beginning of your enthronement, you
desired to study and illustrate the learning of Confucius, Zengzi, Zisi, and
Mencius,^32 but it was difficult for you to read and study them thoroughly
during the leisure hours away from your work. So you ordered us to select
the essential parts from those books and submit them to you.
“We believe that there are no words from the sages that are not profound
and significant in their meaning. However, since their words were often
occasioned by certain incidents or produced differently according to the
people who asked questions, it would be necessary for the ruler who studies
their books to set a priority in his proceeding. Thus, we have selected only
the sections that are essential to learning or related to the way of ruling the
people and submit these to you after making a copy of them and binding
this into a book.
“We sincerely urge you to read them whenever you find time and thereby
set straight your learning of the mind- and- heart. If you start from the studies
of simple matters and extend your knowledge to attain the general under-
standing of the Four Books, and if you keep cherishing your old knowledge
so as to continually be acquiring new and make progress day after day and
month after month, you will see that beginning and end agree with each
other, the work of your virtue flourishes, the way of sages regains its influ-
ence, and the rule of peace is accomplished.”
The king was pleased with the memorial. On this day, the king attended
the royal lect u re. He a sked Yu Kwa n a quest ion i n relat ion to t he lect u re: “W hat- The authors of the Four Books. Though Confucius did not write the Analects, the book
is ascribed to him. Zisi is generally believed to be the author of the Doctrine of the Mean;
Zengzi, the author of the Great Learning, according to Zhu Xi; and Mencius was written by
Mencius himself with the participation of his disciples, according to Sima Qian.