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Eastern Culture Nucleus: Chinese Rare Books in the USC Libraries

Subjects

Four Branches 四部 is a traditional Chinese bibliographic classification scheme to catalogue and organize books into four categories, namely jing 經 (Classics), shi 史 (History), zi 子 (Masters), and ji 集 (Literature). The fourfold classification scheme started to develop in the third century and became standardized in the sixth century.

Classics 經 comprises the Thirteen Classics of Confucianism (十三經), commentaries on the classics, music, and the "lesser learning" (小學).
History 史 contains historical works and documents, as well as works in geography, epigraphy (金石學), historiography, and bibliography.
Masters 子 includes a wide range of subject areas, such as masters and hundred schools of thought (諸子百家) of the late Warring States (475-221 BC), agriculture, medicine, fine arts, astronomy, math, encyclopedias (類書), and Buddhist and Daoist works.
Literature 集 primarily consists of literary works and anthologies, collected works of individual authors, and poems.

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