Four Books and Five Classics

The Four Books and Five Classics, sometimes just shortened to The Five Classics, are the core works that comprise the philosophy of Confucianism. They are as follows:

The Four Books

These comprise the main body of the Confucianist philosophy and teachings.


 * Great Learning: A combination of a text directly attributed to Confucius and a commentary on it by Zengzi, one of his students. Considered an introduction to many of Confucius' basic teachings.
 * Doctrine of the Mean: A text attributed to Zisi, the grandson of Confucius. Describes "The Way", or the path to a life of virtue, for both the ruler and the ruled.
 * Analects: Selected quotes of conversations between Confucius and many of his original students.
 * Mencius: Series of writings by Mencius, a 4th-generation student of Confucius. Mencius further fleshed out many aspects of his forbearers philosophy, the compiled texts are the conversations he had with various rulers in the process of doing so.

Five Classics

These are not specific to the works of Confucius, though it's believed Confucius edited and tweaked many of these in some greater or lesser way. By the time of the Han dynasty, they were made part of the state-sponsored education system alongside the Four Books.


 * Classic of Poetry: A collection of folk songs, court hymns, and epics dedicated to Chinese mythical figures.
 * Book of Documents: A collection of writings dating back to the Zhou period of China, considered some of the oldest written Chinese prose.
 * Book of Rites: A book on court customs, rituals, and formal etiquette.
 * Book of Changes: A book on divination and prophecy.
 * Spring and Autumn Annals: Historic account of the State of Lu, the province of Confucius' birth.


 * Broad Strokes: The canon importance of some of the Five Classics is of questionable importance to some of the content of the Four Books. Regardless, due to their being part of the Chinese educational curriculum from the Han and later dynasties that practiced Confucianism, they are still commonly considered related.
 * Cincinnatus: Study of these texts was state-mandated in China since the Han Dynasty so that their scholar-bureaucrats would, in theory, become Chinese equivalents of this form of a political leader.
 * Doorstopper: Oddly averted for some of the Books and Classics. Analects in particular is a very brief work even in English translation.
 * Exiled From Continuity: The Classic of Music was to be included early on as the sixth Classic, but due to the original source being lost due to being burned and any surviving copies being suspect or incomplete, it is not part of the main Classic canon.
 * God Never Said That: Outside of the Four Books, exactly how much Confucius had an impact on the Classics has to be taken with a grain of salt, as accounts on that vary depending on who you ask, even within the Chinese scholarly community. It's a general consensus of opinion many of the works that form the Classics were edited by Confucius, but getting most scholars to agree on exactly WHAT edits were made by Confucius (and thus can be attributed to him directly) and when is an up in air debate to this day.
 * The Last of These Is Not Like the Others: The Book of Changes focuses on divination and prophecy, while Confucius' teachings were not meant to have a religious or spiritual context. All the other books and classics focus on political, ethical, or social topics that are to some greater or lesser extent actually relevant to Confucianism.
 * Literary Agent Hypothesis: Despite the exact impact, if any, Confucius himself had on all the above-mentioned writings, almost all classic students of Confucianist thought attribute to Confucius either significant editing or influence over the canon of all the Books and Classics. How true this really is remains hotly debated even among modern scholars.
 * Serious Business: The study of these works formed the basis of Chinese educational, political, and sociological system for millennia, and were for all intents and purposes the core of all political and social mores and customs.
 * Word of God: Great Learning and Analects are the only two of the nine included works that form the Books/Classics that can absolutely traced back to Confucius' own words and deeds directly.