Chinese classics

A common Chinese word for "classic" (經; 经; jīng) literally means 'warp thread', in reference to the techniques by which works of this period were bound into volumes.

[1] Texts may include shi (史, 'histories') zi (子 'master texts'), philosophical treatises usually associated with an individual and later systematized into schools of thought but also including works on agriculture, medicine, mathematics, astronomy, divination, art criticism, and other miscellaneous writings) and ji (集 'literary works') as well as the cultivation of jing, 'essence' in Chinese medicine.

In the Ming and Qing dynasties, the Four Books and Five Classics were the subjects of mandatory study by those Confucian scholars who wished to take the imperial examination and needed to pass them in order to become scholar-officials.

This was alleged to have destroyed philosophical treatises of the Hundred Schools of Thought, with the goal of strengthening the official Qin governing philosophy of Legalism.

[5][6][7] Michael Nylan observes that despite its mythic significance, the "burning of books and burying of scholars" legend does not bear close scrutiny.

[9] The Five Classics (五經; Wǔjīng) are five pre-Qin texts that became part of the state-sponsored curriculum during the Western Han dynasty, which adopted Confucianism as its official ideology.

Mencius, the leading Confucian scholar of the time, regarded the Spring and Autumn Annals as being equally important as the semi-legendary chronicles of earlier periods.

In 26 BCE, at the command of the emperor, Liu Xiang (77–6 BC[11]) compiled the first catalogue of the imperial library, the Abstracts (別錄; 别录; Bielu), and is the first known editor of the Classic of Mountains and Seas, which was finished by his son.

Michael Nylan has characterised the scope of the Liu pair's editing as having been so vast that it affects our understanding of China's pre-imperial period to the same degree as the Qin unification does.

Information in ancient China was often by oral tradition and passed down from generations before so was rarely written down, so the older the composition of the texts may not be in a chronological order as that which was arranged and presented by their attributed "authors".