Four Books
| Four Books and Five Classics | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Simplified Chinese | 四书五经 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Transcriptions | |
|---|---|
| Standard Mandarin | |
| Hanyu Pinyin | Sìshū wǔjīng |
| Wade–Giles | Ssu-shu wu-ching |
| Wu | |
| Romanization | Si-sy ngo-king |
| Hakka | |
| Romanization | Si-su ng-gin |
| Yue: Cantonese | |
| Yale Romanization | Sei-sü ng-ging |
| Southern Min | |
| Hokkien POJ | Sù-su ngóo-king |
| Middle Chinese | |
| Middle Chinese | Sìj-sho ngú-keng |
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.
The Four Books (四書; 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:
The Five Classics (五經; 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".
The Five Classics are:
The Classic of Music is sometimes considered as the sixth classic but was lost in the Burning of the Books.
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Wikipedia