The Four Books and the Five Classics are my country's famous classics. They record in detail historical facts about politics, military, diplomacy, culture and other aspects in the history of my country's early ideological and cultural development, as well as the important thoughts of thinkers such as Confucius and Mencius. So, do you know what the Four Books and the Five Classics refer to? Let’s take a look below.
The four books in the Four Books and the Five Classics refer to: "Great Learning", "The Analects of Confucius", "Mencius", and "The Doctrine of the Mean"; "Book of Rites", "Book of Changes", "Spring and Autumn". The Four Books and Five Classics represent Confucianism. The Four Books and Five Classics first appeared in the Southern Song Dynasty and were integrated by Zhu Xi, a famous Neo-Confucian scholar in the Southern Song Dynasty.
Introduction to the Four Books
The Four Books, also known as the Four Books, are the collective name of The Analects of Confucius, Mencius, The Great Learning, and The Doctrine of the Mean. Zhu Xi, a famous Neo-Confucian scholar in the Southern Song Dynasty, took the two articles "The Doctrine of the Mean" and "The Great Learning" from the "Book of Rites" and wrote them into separate books. Together with the "Analects" which records the words and deeds of Confucius, and the "Mencius" which records the words and deeds of Meng Ke, they are combined into the "Four Books". The Four Books are the basic teaching materials for Confucian preaching and teaching. For hundreds of years, the "Four Books" have been widely circulated in our country, and many of their sentences have become popular aphorisms.
Introduction to the Five Classics
Confucianism originally had six classics, which are "The Book of Songs", "The Book of Documents", "The Rites", "The Book of Music", "The Book of Changes" and "The Spring and Autumn Annals". The First Emperor of Qin "burned books and harassed Confucians", which resulted in the loss of the "Le Jing". As a result, it became the current Five Classics: "The Book of Songs", "Shangshu", "Book of Rites", "Book of Changes", and "Spring and Autumn". The Five Classics is the collective name for the five ancient classics that serve as the basis for Confucian studies. According to legend, they were all edited or revised by Confucius, the founder of Confucianism.