ABSTRACT
T he Shih -kang pT ing -yao [SKPY], 36 ch” is captioned: ” Com piled and commented on by Ning-yeh Wu TsTung-hsien of Hsintu .rT This is an outline of the chronological history [of China] from antiquity down to the Yiian dynasty. Besides sampling the data of certain historical episodes, the author used such de vices as [adding] "c irc les ,” ” dots” and "side-lin ing” [the equivalent of underlining ] as well as [jo tting] ” c ritica l notes in the space between colum ns，n TTcritica l notes on the upper margin [of the fo lio ]M and [w riting ] TTcommentaries at the end of each individual paragraph” to expound his comments and discussions on the historical episodes and related historical personalties.2 In the front page of this book there is a preface written by Wu TsTung-hsien dated the kuei-chTou year of Wan-li (1613). A c cording to Wu TsTung-hsienTs lite ra ry collection, HsiaochTuang tzu-chi [HCTC]，which was printed in the following year and includes also this preface, it is beyond doubt that the SKPY was engraved and published in the 41st year of Wan-li (1613).3
