What is Si Shu Wu Jing？
3 min readSi Shu Wu Jing means The Four Books and The Five Classics.In the Confucian tradition，The Four Books and The Five Classics have been regarded as the cardinal texts which one must learn to understand the authentic thought of Confucianism.
The Four Books are as follows：
a.Great Learning（《daxue》）is originally a chapter in Classic of Rites（《liji》）.It is the first of The Four Books and gives a fundamental introduction to Confucianism.The way of great learning consists in manifesting one’s bright virtue，loving the people，remaining in perfect goodness（daxuezhidao，zaimingmingde，zaiqinmin，zaizhiyuzhishan）.
b.Doctrine of the Mean（《zhongyong》）is the name of another chapter in Classic of Rites.The purpose of this book is to demonstrate the usefulness of the golden means to gain perfect virtue.
c.Analects of Confucius（《lunyu》）is a book of concise sayings attributed to Confucius and recorded by his disciples.
d.Book of Mencius（《mengzi》）is a book of conversations between Mencius and some kings of his time，probably written by Mencius’disciples.
The Four Books were singled out，grouped together，and published in 1190 A.D.by Zhu Xi，a Neo-confucian philosopher.The Four Books remained especially important as the basis of study for all civil service examinations from about 1300 to 1900.
The Five Classics are as follows：
a.The Book of Odes（《shijing》）is made up of 305 ceremonial and folk verses written over a period of about 500 years during the Western Zhou Dynasty and the Spring and Autumn Period.These poems are actually songs based on musical types，and they have had a profound influence on the later development of poetry.
b.The Book of History（《shujing》）is a collection of documents and speeches alleged to have been written by rulers and officials of the early Zhou Dynasty and before.
c.The Book of Changes（《yijing》）is a book used for divination in the tradition of the oracle bones tradition.In one interrelated whole in symbolic form，it combines all of human life，fate and the physical elements of the cosmos.These are all represented by the Bagua Diagram（bagua）of whole and broken lines.The contentsof the book include ancient cosmological beliefs of the Chinese antedating the separate philosophical schools.
d.The Book of Rites（《liji》）describes ancient ceremonial usages，religious creeds and social institutions from the middle Zhou Dynasty down to the first part of the Han Dynasty.
e.Spring and Autumn Annals（《chunqiu》）is a historical record of the State of Lu，Confucius’native state，from 722 B.C.to 479 B.C.written（or edited）by Confucius.
Traditionally there are two divergent views about the relation of Confucius to The Five Classics.One maintains that Confucius himself wrote all of these works，while the other maintains that he was the author of Spring and Autumn Annals，the commentator of The Book of Changes，the reformer of The Book of Rites，and the editor of The Book of History and The Book of Odes.
