Ta Hsueh is slimmer and lighter (and my favorite of the two), Chugn Yung is deep. The two gained more importance from Han dynasty onwards, and are now among the four important Confucian texts, as I've said above. The two books were originally two sections of an anthology (which had total of 49 texts). The books themselves are quite slim (especially Ta Hsueh), so half of the books is just the two introductions, chronology (of dynasties), introduction to each (with explanations of title-choosing) with notes coming after (translation explanation and sources for books' quotes), plus three appendixes: basic concepts, used of proof-texts (flawed), and textural history of the books. The date and the authors of the books are uncertain, only fitting in a loose frame, time-wise, of 300-100 BC. This book is the last two of the '4 greats' in Confucian literature (I have read the Analects, but decided to skip Mencius).
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