Illuminating Chinese Classics

In this episode on the Three Character Classic (三字经) we cover the six main cereals in traditional Chinese agriculture, and tell the story of a mythical figure called Shennong (神农), “the Divine Farmer”. According to legend, he led a group of followers up a moutain, tasting hundreds of plants to find out what was safe to eat, and which herbs could be used as medicines. The oral history of his discoveries became the Han Dynasty (漢朝) text “Shennong’s Compendium of Medicine” (神农本草经). The三字经 was written by the Song Dynasty (宋朝) scholar Wang Yinglin (王应麟). This 1,134 character text was one of the first textbooks used by students, and provided lessons on education, morality and ethics, science, literature, and history.