Warring States Project
Classical Chinese Texts

The classical age of China is its period of early disunity, from the fall of Jou in 0771 to the reaching of its first Imperial equilibrium point under Han Wu-di in 0136. The vivid text-based argumentation which we regard as typical of the classical period is actually confined to its latter portion: the Warring States (0479-0222) and the Early Empire (0221-0136). This prepublication version of a forthcoming monograph surveys the Project's findings about the nature, date, and context of some of the major texts in which the record of those debates, conventionally called the Hundred Schools, is preserved.

We include entries for some important persons or details of material history, as part of the argument for the dating of texts. All are interfiled in one alphabetical sequence; see the Text Index page below. For a chronological arrangement of these findings, constituting in effect a brief history of early Chinese literature, see the Overview page in the Chronology section of this site..

• Introductory Considerations
  • Preface
  • Analytical Procedure
  • The Warring States Audience
  • Entry Format
• Methodological Summary
• Text Typology
• Main Entries (Detailed Table of Contents)
  • Text Index
    • Overview of Selected Texts (in the Chronology section)
• Apparatus
  • Text Abbreviations
  • Works Cited

Classical Chinese Texts is Copyright © 1993- by E Bruce and A Taeko Brooks

The Project's philological methods are universal in their applicability. In the next section, those methods have been applied to a problematic Indian statecraft text:

19 Dec 2007 / Contact The Project / Exit to Home Page