Textual Criticism of theCollated Edition of the Commentary on the Book of Ritesby Shanghai Classics Publishing House

The Commentary on the Book of Ritespublished by Shanghai Classics Publishing House, was collated and edited by Mr. LV Youren in 2008. It is acclaimed by the academic community as the best collated edition due to its meticulous selection of excellent versions and incorporation of various strengths from other versions. However, it is undeniable that there are, even in this collated edition, still some debatable or even erroneous aspects. Building upon the achievements of the previous studies, we have fully utilized the facsimile edition of Southern Song Dynasty’s eight-column edition of The Commentary on the Book of Rites, published by Peking University Press in 2014. Through repeated comparisons and meticulous examinations, we have identified 82 issues related to textual criticism in the collated edition, including 63 instances of typographical errors, 9 instances of missing text, 7 instances of interpolated text, and 3 instances of reversed text. These issues are listed and briefly analyzed respectively.