- Category
- Philosophical Scripture
- Claimed author
- Confucius and his disciple Zengzi (traditional attribution)
- Likely origin
- Unknown; compiled by early Confucian school, traditionally linked to Zengzi
- Date
- c. 5th–3rd century BCE; Legge translation 1861
- Language
- Classical Chinese
- Manuscripts
- Well-preserved; continuous textual tradition as a chapter of the Li Ji, elevated to independent canonical status by Zhu Xi in the 12th century
- Accepted by
- One of the Four Books (Si Shu) of the Confucian canon; originally a chapter of the Book of Rites
The Great Learning is the shortest of the Confucian Four Books, setting out the program of self-cultivation that proceeds from the investigation of things to the ordering of family, state, and world. Legge's edition presents the brief Text attributed to Confucius with the traditional ten chapters of commentary ascribed to Zengzi.