Four Books and Five Classics

The Four Books and Five Classics (Chinese: 四書五經; pinyin: Sìshū wǔjīng) are the authoritative books of Confucianism in China written before 300 BC.

Four Books

The Four Books (Chinese: 四書; pinyin: Sìshū) are Chinese classic texts illustrating the core value and belief systems in Confucianism. They were selected by Zhu Xi in the Song dynasty to serve as general introduction to Confucian thought, and they were, in the Ming and Qing dynasties, made the core of the official curriculum for the civil service examinations. They are:

Five Classics

The Five Classics (simplified Chinese: 五经; traditional Chinese: 五經; pinyin: Wǔ Jīng) are five pre-Qin Chinese books that form part of the traditional Confucian canon. Several of the texts were already prominent by the Warring States period. 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. During the Western Han dynasty, which adopted Confucianism as its official ideology, these texts became part of the state-sponsored curriculum. It was during this period that the texts first began to be considered together as a set collection, and to be called collectively the "Five Classics".