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The sacred landscape of imperial China was dotted with Buddhist monasteries, Daoist temples, shrines to local deities, and the altars of the mandarinate. Prominent among the official shrines were the temples in every capital throughout the empire devoted to the veneration of Confucius. Twice a year members of the educated elite and officials in each area gathered to offer sacrifices to Confucius, his disciples, and the major scholars of the Confucian tradition.

By the Ming dynasty, one Confucian sect had come to dominate literati culture and the state. This book is a critique of the process by which claims to exclusive possession of the truth came to serve power. Wilson analyses how formation of the Confucian canon and the compilation of Confucian anthologies served to enshrine one lineage of Confucians as possessors of the truth. He draws on contemporary cultural and literary theory to situate Confucian anthologies in ritual, institutional, sectarian, and ideological contexts.