千字文

The Thousand-Character Classic (《千字文》) is a text for elementary education, composed during the Liang Dynasty (梁代) of the Southern Dynasties (南朝, A.D. 502–557). The text consists of 1,000 unrepeated Chinese characters, arranged in four-character lines with precise parallelism, covering a wide range of topics including astronomy, geography, history, human relations, self-cultivation, and agriculture. In the traditional elementary education system, this text is often mentioned alongside the Three-Character Classic (《三字经》) and Hundred Family Surnames (《百家姓》). Due to its precise word choice and fluid rhyming prose, it has long served as a model for children learning to read and write, and is also well known among scholars.

Zhou Xingsi (周兴嗣), courtesy name Sizuan (思纂), was a native of Xiang (项人) in Chen Commandery during the Southern Liang Dynasty (南朝梁). He rose to the rank of Attendant to the Emperor (给事中). According to the Book of Liang (梁书) and the Taiping Guangji (太平广记), Emperor Wu of Liang, Xiao Yan (萧衍), ordered him to select one thousand unique characters from Wang Xizhi (王羲之)’s calligraphy rubbings and compile them into a text. Zhou Xingsi completed the compilation in a single night, after which his hair and beard turned white, thus bringing this work to fruition.