Old Texts

In Chinese philology, the Old Texts (Chinese: 古文經; pinyin: Gǔwén Jīng; Wade–Giles: Kuwen Ching) refer to some versions of the Five Classics discovered during the Han Dynasty, written in archaic characters and supposedly produced before the burning of the books, as opposed to the Modern Texts or New Texts (今文經) in the new orthography.

The last half of the 2nd century BC was the period when new versions of the Confucian classics were discovered. Most of these new versions were found in the walls of Confucius’s old residence in Qufu, the old capital of State of Lu, when Prince Liu Yu (d. 127 BC) attempted to expand it into a palace upon taking the throne there. In the course of taking the old wall apart, the restorers found old versions of the Classic of History, Rites of Zhou, Yili, Analects of Confucius and Classic of Filial Piety, all written in the old orthography used prior to the reforms of the Clerical script. Hence they were called “old texts”. These newly discovered editions had an effect on later Confucianism.

By the time of 1st century, a new controversy had begun between these two texts. The "new texts" are those that had been transliterated into the new orthography back in the beginning of 2nd century BC, either from oral transmissions or from texts that had survived the Qin Dynasty’s burning of the books or were rescued by the Han Dynasty in the provinces. Surviving scholars in the direct line of transmission of these books got hold of surviving copies and transliterated them into the new orthography.

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