Written by the disciples or posterity of Confucius and completed around 475BC during the early Warring States Period (475-221BC), Lunyu (The Analects of Confucius) recorded Confucius' words and deeds. It recorded Confucius' thoughts of society, politics, philosophy, ethic, education and so on, even his habits and minutia of his life. The book was mostly written by the disciples or posterity of Confucius, and it offered the essential materials to study Confucius.

Among the stack of books written for research on Lunyu in past dynasties, the extant He Yan's Lunyu Jijie (Interpretation of the Analects) and Zhu Xi's Lunyu Jishi (Annotation to the Analects of Confucius) are representative works about Lunyu from the Confucian school. He Yan lived in the Three Kingdoms Period (220-280), and Zhu Xi lived in the Song Dynasty (960-1279).

In the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), Liu Baonan wrote Lunyu Zhenyi (The Right Meaning of the Analects), adopted the viewpoint from the Han Dynasty (206BC-220AD), the Song Dynasty and the Qing Dynasty, and further expounded on He Yan's book. Cheng Shude, a scholar of modern times, compiled Lunyu Jishi (Annotation to the Analects) by combining more than two hundred books, which has a high reference value.