Oracle boneOracle bones () are pieces of ox scapula and turtle plastron, which were used for pyromancy – a form of divination – in ancient China, mainly during the late Shang dynasty. Scapulimancy is the specific term if ox scapulae were used for the divination, plastromancy if turtle plastrons were used. A recent count estimated that there were about 13,000 bones with a total of a little over 130,000 inscriptions in collections in China and some fourteen other countries.
Oracle bone scriptOracle bone script () is an ancient form of Chinese characters that were engraved on oracle bonesanimal bones or turtle plastrons used in pyromantic divination. Oracle bone script was used in the late 2nd millennium BC, and is the earliest known form of Chinese writing. The vast majority of oracle bone inscriptions, of which about 150,000 pieces have been discovered, were found at the Yinxu site located in Xiaotun Village, Anyang, Henan Province.
Chu (state)Chu (, Hanyu Pinyin: Chǔ, Old Chinese: *s-r̥aʔ), or Ch'u in Wade–Giles romanization, was a Zhou dynasty vassal state. Their first ruler was King Wu of Chu in the early 8th century BCE. Chu was located in the south of the Zhou heartland and lasted during the Spring and Autumn period. At the end of the Warring States period it was destroyed by the Qin in 223 BCE during the Qin's wars of unification. Also known as Jing (荊) and Jingchu (荊楚), Chu included most of the present-day provinces of Hubei and Hunan, along with parts of Chongqing, Guizhou, Henan, Anhui, Jiangxi, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Shanghai.
Book of DocumentsThe Book of Documents (Shūjīng 書經, earlier romanization Shu King) or Classic of History, also known as the Shangshu ( "Venerated Documents"), 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 2,000 years. The Book of Documents was the subject of one of China's oldest literary controversies, between proponents of different versions of the text.
Zuo ZhuanThe Zuo Zhuan (zuo3-zhuan4; ), generally translated The Zuo Tradition or The Commentary of Zuo, is an ancient Chinese narrative history that is traditionally regarded as a commentary on the ancient Chinese chronicle Spring and Autumn Annals (). It comprises 30 chapters covering a period from 722 to 468 BC, and focuses mainly on political, diplomatic, and military affairs from that era. For many centuries, the Zuo Zhuan was the primary text through which educated Chinese gained an understanding of their ancient history.
I ChingThe I Ching or Yi Jing (, AUDYiJing.oggyi4-jing1), usually translated Book of Changes or Classic of Changes, is an ancient Chinese divination text that is among the oldest of the Chinese classics. Originally a divination manual in the Western Zhou period (1000750), the I Ching was transformed over the course of the Warring States and early imperial periods (500200) into a cosmological text with a series of philosophical commentaries known as the "Ten Wings".
Classical ChineseClassical Chinese, also known as Literary Chinese (; or , meaning "literary language/speech"; modern vernacular: , meaning "literary language writing"), is the language of the classic literature from the end of the Spring and Autumn period through to either the start of the Qin dynasty or the end of the Han dynasty, a written form of Old Chinese (). Classical Chinese is a traditional style of written Chinese that evolved from the classical language, making it different from any modern spoken form of Chinese.
Four Books and Five ClassicsThe Four Books and Five Classics () are the authoritative books of Confucianism, written in China before 300 BCE. The Four Books and the Five Classics are the most important classics of Chinese Confucianism. The Four Books () are Chinese classic texts illustrating the core value and belief systems in Confucianism. They were selected by intellectual 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.
Shuowen JieziShuowen Jiezi () is an ancient Chinese dictionary compiled by Xu Shen during the Eastern Han dynasty. Although not the first comprehensive Chinese character dictionary (the Erya predates it), it was the first to analyze the structure of the characters and to give the rationale behind them, as well as the first to use the principle of organization by sections with shared components called radicals (bùshǒu 部首, lit. "section headers"). Xu Shen, a Han Dynasty scholar of the Five Classics, compiled the Shuowen Jiezi.
Burning of books and burying of scholarsThe burning of books and burying of scholars (), also known as burning the books and executing the ru scholars, refers to the purported burning of texts in 213 BCE and live burial of 460 Confucian scholars in 212 BCE by the Chinese emperor Qin Shi Huang of the Qin dynasty. This was alleged to have destroyed philosophical treatises of the Hundred Schools of Thought, with the goal of strengthening the official Qin governing philosophy of Legalism.
