It is the beginning of China's ancient poems and the earliest collection of poems, which collected poems from the early years of the Western Zhou Dynasty to the middle of the Spring and Autumn Period (1 1 century to the 6th century). It reflects the social outlook of about 500 years from the beginning of the Zhou Dynasty to the end of the Zhou Dynasty.
Confucianism regarded it as a classic from the beginning of Emperor Wu of Han Dynasty, so it was called The Book of Songs. Mao Heng in Han Dynasty annotated The Book of Songs, so it was also called Mao Shi. Most of the authors of the poems in The Book of Songs cannot be verified.
Extraterritorial influence
Hanshu records that during the Western Han Dynasty, many aristocratic children from western countries came to Chang 'an to study China culture. 1959- 1979 Among the documents unearthed in Turpan in Xinjiang, there is a remnant of Shi Mao, Jian Zheng and Xiaoya, which proved to be a relic of the 5th century.
The old and new books of the Tang Dynasty also recorded that many Persians learned Chinese through the economic and cultural exchanges between China, West Asia and Rome along the Silk Road. In the second year of Tang Jianzhong (78 1), Jing Jing, the author of China Monument Popular with Nestorianism in Daqin, was Syrian. He quoted twenty or thirty places in the inscription, which proves that the Book of Songs has a long history from the Silk Road.