Four Books: Confucian Classics

Daoxue Academy

In-app purchases

About this app

The Four Books App is a book reader and scholarly utility which presents the traditional Confucian curriculum: the Great Learning, the Discourses of Confucius (the Analects), the Book of Mengzi (Mencius), and the Doctrine of the Mean. A six-year translation project in progress. New verses arrive in the app around the first of each month.

-- Ancient Teachings, Correct Transmission, Modern Tech --

Traditional Interpretation
• A public benefit project to translate Zhu Xi’s “Four Books with Collected Commentaries” 四書章句集注: the classic that defined orthodox Confucianism and served as the basis of the imperial examinations from 1313 to 1905.

Established Lexicon
• Builds upon the translation lexicon perfected by Wing-tsit Chan (A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy), with roots going back to James Legge (The Chinese Classics). Honoring lineage—with conservative refinements. Uses modern pinyin, of course.

Learn Classical Chinese
• Study Classical and Middle Chinese with literal glosses for grammar and per-character meaning. Highly configurable dual-language presentation parsable by sentence.

Reading Experience
• Meticulous attention to readability: translation, typography, and a full-screen reader for tablets. This Classic deserves to be both scholarly and good reading, just as the native text is.

Optimized Multi-platform
• Phones feature an intuitive tab bar design for one-handed navigation, while tablets leverage a powerful sidebar for efficient browsing through verses. Designed for Android 16; runs on Android 10 and newer.

Android Native UI
• Pure Android native tech throughout: Kotlin and Jetpack Compose, with an embedded SQLite Confucian database for lightning-fast location of verses, key terms, named persons and named texts.

-- Basic App & Scholar Pack In-app Purchase --

Basic App:
• Core Ancient Verses: 284 most influential
• Language: English translation only
• Search: Basic, English-only
• Encyclopedia: Ancient figures only

Scholar Pack:
• All Ancient Verses: 804 complete
• Traditional Commentary
• Language: English & Classical Chinese
• Tap Character for Literal Gloss
• Full-Verse Literal Gloss Sheets
• Sentence-Level Parsing Tool
• Search: English & Chinese
• Encyclopedia: Ancient and medieval figures
• Book 5: Explanation of Terms

• No ads, no account creation, no data collection
• Small offline app, low battery usage

Scholar Pack is a single in-app purchase that includes everything above. It has a final target price, but is currently priced lower based on the percentage completion of the translation. One-time purchase, with all future content delivered free.

-- Reach Out --

Please contact us at [e-mail], or using the in-app contact tools in settings, with questions or requests. We are committed to continual refinement and making this the optimal Confucian Classics app for both scholars and readers.

What’s new

• Book 2, Chapter 6: Our selections include the eleven most influential verses, among them the famous “A Cornered Vessel” and “On Spiritual Beings,” plus new encyclopedia entries.

• New Supplement: Read “How to Use This App” for advice on studying the classics and learning Classical Chinese, plus an explanation of every tool in the app. (More: Supplements)

• Daily Classic: A quote from the Four Books arrives each day as a notification, at the time you choose. (Settings: Quotes)