Concept

Book of Documents

Overview

The Book of Documents (Chinese: 書經; pinyin: Shūjīng; Wade–Giles: Shu King) or the Classic of History, is one of the Five Classics of ancient Chinese literature. It is a collection of rhetorical prose attributed to figures of ancient China, and served as the foundation of Chinese political philosophy for over two millennia.

The Book of Documents was the subject of one of China's oldest literary controversies, between proponents of different versions of the text. A version was preserved from Qin Shi Huang's burning of books and burying of scholars by scholar Fu Sheng, in 29 chapters (piān 篇). This group of texts were referred to as "Modern Texts" (or "Current Script"; jīnwén 今文), because they were written with the script in use at the beginning of the Western Han dynasty.

A longer version of the Documents was said to be discovered in the wall of Confucius's family estate in Qufu by his descendant Kong Anguo in the late 2nd century BC. The texts were referred to as "Old Texts" (gǔwén 古文), because they were written in the script that predated the standardization of Chinese script during the Qin. Compared to the Modern Texts, the "Old Texts" material had 16 more chapters. The Old Texts had been lost at the end of the Eastern Han dynasty, while the Modern Texts text enjoyed circulation, in particular in Ouyang Gao's study, called the Ouyang Shangshu (歐陽尚書). This was the basis of studies by Ma Rong and Zheng Xuan during the Eastern Han.

In 317 AD, Mei Ze presented to the Eastern Jin court a 58-chapter (59 if the preface is counted) Book of Documents as Kong Anguo's version of the text. This version was accepted, despite the doubts of a few scholars, and later was canonized as part of Kong Yingda's project. It was only in the 17th century that Qing dynasty scholar Yan Ruoqu proposed that the "Old Texts" were fabrications "reconstructed" in the 3rd or 4th centuries AD.

In the transmitted edition, texts are grouped into four sections representing different eras: the legendary reign of Yu the Great, and the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties. The Zhou section accounts for over half the text. Some of its modern-script chapters are among the earliest examples of Chinese prose, recording speeches from the early years of the Zhou dynasty in the late 11th century BC. Although the other three sections purport to record earlier material, most scholars believe that even the New Script chapters in these sections were composed later than those in the Zhou section, with chapters relating to the earliest periods being as recent as the 4th or 3rd centuries BC.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

Possible passages

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That which is done without any one's seeming to do it is from Heaven. That which comes to pass without any one's seeming to bring it about is from Heaven. "In the case of a private man's obtaining the empire, there must be in him virtue equal to that of Shun and Yu, and moreover there must be the presenting him to Heaven by the preceding emperor. It was on this latter account that Chung-ne did not obtain the…
Confucius, The Wisdom of Confucius with Critical and Biographical Sketches
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His mother was ill, and desired the delicacy of a soup made from bamboo shoots; but in dreary winter, Nature still concealed her fruits awaited. With anxious haste he goes to the cheerless forest, which he enters, seeking for them; but not finding the shoots, he entreats the bamboos with tears. One petition from his inmost heart ascended to the threshold of heaven, and the deities were delighted, laughing with…
Confucius, The book of filial duty
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Saadia Ibn Danan), and some MSS. of the Bodleian Library were consulted. In the notes which accompany the French translation, the various readings of the different MSS. are fully discussed. At the end of the third volume a list is added of “Variantes des Manuscrits Arabes et des deux Versions Hébraïques.” The library of the British Museum possesses two copies of the Arabic text; the one Or. 1423 is complete…
Moses Maimonides, The guide for the perplexed
Close in meaning to Book of Documents; the term itself is not named.
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Philosophers who discussed Book of Documents

Yin Wen

Related ideas

Place in the tradition

Part of Confucianism.

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