The Scriptures

the texts that carry it — language, era, and use Part of Stories & Scripture →

The Analects. Twenty books of fragments — a question, a reply, sometimes a single remark with no context — assembled by students of students. There is no system in it and several passages have no agreed meaning. It has nevertheless been memorised entire by East Asian children for two thousand years, and its phrases are ordinary speech in four languages. Language Classical Chinese, about 15,900 characters in twenty booksComposed Compiled by disciples and their disciples over perhaps a century and a half after his death in 479 BCE Open the book — context →

The Mencius. Where the Analects gives fragments, this argues — for innate goodness, for the four sprouts, and for the proposition that a ruler who ruins the people is no longer a ruler and killing him is not regicide. The first Ming emperor had that passage struck from the official edition, which is the best evidence of how the book reads. Language Classical Chinese, in seven booksComposed Fourth to third century BCE Open the book — context & 1 source →

The Great Learning and the Doctrine of the Mean. Two short chapters that Zhu Xi lifted out of the Book of Rites and promoted into free-standing classics. The first gives the ladder from investigating things through making the intention sincere to bringing peace to the world; the second makes sincerity a cosmic principle. With the Analects and Mencius they became the examination curriculum for six hundred years. held by most Language Classical Chinese; both are short chapters lifted out of the Book of RitesComposed Warring States, canonised as separate books by Zhu Xi in the twelfth century Open the book — context →

The Book of Songs. Three hundred and five poems — courtship, harvest, complaint about being conscripted, and court hymns. Confucius said the whole collection comes down to one line: no twisty thoughts. Being able to quote it aptly was a working diplomatic skill, and he told his own son that without it he would have nothing to say. Language Archaic Chinese verse, 305 poemsComposed Eleventh to seventh century BCE Open the book — context →

The Book of Rites. Forty-nine chapters on how to sit, stand, address a superior, mourn, marry, offer and bury. It is the operating manual, and almost everything anyone actually does in Confucian practice comes from here rather than from the Analects — which is why a tradition famous for a book of sayings is in fact organised around a book of procedures. held by most Language Classical Chinese, forty-nine chaptersComposed Compiled Han, from earlier material Open the book — context →

The Yijing. A Zhou divination manual with a philosophical commentary attached centuries later, which converted a book about casting lots into a book about change. It is shared with Taoism and with everyone else in the Chinese world. Confucius is said to have worn out the leather cords binding his copy three times. ⚖ contested within Language Classical Chinese, sixty-four hexagrams with appended commentaryComposed Divination core Western Zhou; the Ten Wings appended by the Han Open the book — context →

The Classic of Filial Piety. Eighteen short chapters framed as Confucius instructing Zengzi, scaling filial duty from the commoner up to the emperor and claiming it as the root from which all virtue and all teaching grow. It was among the first texts put in front of a child, and it is the source of the line about not daring to injure the body your parents gave you. held by most Language Classical Chinese, eighteen short chaptersComposed Han, attributed to a conversation between Confucius and Zengzi Open the book — context & 1 source →