Texts
The Phase 0 corpus is two Chinese classics. Korean and Japanese texts — and the commentary traditions that read them differently — arrive in later phases.
China
論語 The Analects
Sayings of Confucius (孔子) and his disciples, gathered by later followers. Twenty books (篇) of short, mostly unconnected passages (章). The foundational text of the Confucian tradition and, through the Four Books, of the civil-service curriculum across China, Korea, and Japan until the twentieth century.
道德經 Tao Te Ching
Eighty-one short chapters ascribed to Laozi (老子), the "Old Master." The root text of philosophical Daoism: the Way (道) that cannot be named, non-action (無為), and the power (德) of yielding.