Book of Documents

The Book of Documents was compiled before the Qin dynasty, and is a surviving record of words and deeds set down by the historians of high antiquity. It is said to have been arranged and edited by Confucius himself. The full work is divided into three parts: the Records of Yu and Xia, the Records of Shang, and the Records of Zhou, comprising fifty-eight pieces in total, written across six forms: Canon, Counsel, Instruction, Proclamation, Oath, and Command. Its subjects encompass statecraft, deliberations between ruler and minister, battle oaths, edicts and ordinances, as well as dedicated chapters on geography and the Five Phases. After the burning of books under the Qin, the Han scholar Fu Sheng transmitted twenty-eight chapters in clerical script as the New Text; in the Eastern Jin, Mei Ze presented fifty-eight chapters as the Old Text, which spread widely and was established in the Tang dynasty as the foundation of the official examinations. Yet the authenticity of the Old Text presented by Mei Ze had already been called into question by scholars of the late Tang and the Five Dynasties. From the Han onward, every age has extolled it as "the forefather of political writings." It stands among the Five Classics of Han Confucianism, and is the earliest compilation of historical documents in China.