The Canon of Laws or Classic of Law (simplified Chinese: 法经; traditional Chinese: 法經; pinyin: Fǎ Jīng) is a lost legal code that has been attributed to Li Kui, a Legalist scholar and minister who lived in the State of Wei during the Warring States period of ancient China (475-220 BCE).
This code has traditionally been dated to the early fourth century BCE.
Still, a considerable amount of scholars now consider it to be a forgery from the fifth or sixth-century CE.
[1][2][3][4][5][6] According to the traditional account, which first appeared in the monograph on law (Xingfa Zhi 刑法志) of the Book of Jin, the Canon of Laws was the earliest legal canon of ancient China and became the basis for all later legal works.
[8] Although the original text has been lost, according to later records the Canon of Laws comprised six chapters: