Four Books: Confucian Classics

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 iPad. This Classic deserves to be both scholarly and good reading, just as the native text is.

Optimized Multi-platform • iPhone features intuitive tab bar design for one-handed navigation, while iPad leverages a powerful sidebar for efficient browsing through verses. Designed for iOS 26. Also runs on Apple Silicon Macs.

Apple Native UI • Pure Apple native tech throughout: SwiftUI, FTS5 search, and 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 support@daoxue.academy, 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.