Book of Documents

The Book of Documents (simplified Chinese: 书经; traditional Chinese: 書經; pinyin: Shūjīng; Wade–Giles: Shu-ching), one of the Five Classics, is a compilation of speeches of major figures and records of events in ancient China. It is also commonly known as the Shàngshū (simplified Chinese: 尚书; traditional Chinese: 尚書, literally: "Esteemed Documents"), or simply Shū (simplified Chinese: 书; traditional Chinese: 書, colloquially: "Documents"). The title is also translated in western texts variously as Classic of History, Classic of Documents, Book of History, or Book of Historical Documents, and it was formerly romanized as Shu-king.

The 58 chapters of the received text are divided into New Text and Old Text chapters based on their history. The entire work was accepted by most scholars until the 17th century, when Yan Ruoqu showed that the Old Text chapters had been forged in the 3rd or 4th centuries AD. In contrast, some of the New Text chapters are among the earliest examples of Chinese prose, recording speeches from the early years of the Zhou dynasty in the 11th century BC. Other chapters are of later composition, with those relating to the earliest periods being as recent as the 4th century BC.