The Thousand-Character Classic was written by Emperor Wu of the Liang Dynasty during the Southern Dynasties in order to teach calligraphy to Yin Tieshi.
During the Southern Dynasties, in order to teach calligraphy to the kings of Liang Dynasty, Xiao Yan, Emperor Wu of Liang Dynasty, asked Yin Tieshi to draw out a thousand different characters from Wang Xizhi's works, each character on a piece of paper, and then put these in no order. The rubbings were given to Zhou Xingsi, who compiled them into rhymes with content. This is the "Thousand-Character Classic" that has been passed down to the 21st century for more than 1,400 years.
"The Thousand Character Essay" integrates all kinds of knowledge in content, and runs through the whole text with unified thoughts, clear context, and concise language. Its advantages were later absorbed by the Three Character Classic.
Appreciation of the content of The Thousand-Character Essay
The first part of "The Thousand-Character Essay" starts with the creation of the heaven and earth. With the heaven and earth, there are the sun, moon, stars, clouds and rain, frost and fog, and the changes in the four seasons of cold and heat; there are also the gold and jade, iron tools (swords), treasures, fruits, vegetables, and rivers, lakes and seas that were born from the earth. Birds fly and fish swim; there are changes in people and times between heaven and earth.
Here, "The Thousand Character Essay" tells the early history of mankind and the performance of the prosperous times of Shang Tang and Zhou Wu kings, that is, what the article says is "sitting in court and asking questions, hanging the bow to make a flat seal. Aiyu Li First, the ministers are united with Rong and Qiang, and they lead the guests back to the king. The phoenix sings in the tree, and the white horse transforms into vegetation, reaching all directions."