Why was the Yongle dadian important to Chinese literature?

The Yongle dadian (The Great Canon of the Yongle Era) is significant to Chinese literature because it served as the world’s largest known encyclopedia, functioning as a monumental repository of knowledge.12

Compiled by thousands of scholars under the direction of the Yongle emperor and completed in 1408, the work comprised 22,937 manuscript rolls across 11,095 volumes. Its primary importance lies in its role as a vast collection of excerpts and entire works covering the Confucian canon, history, philosophy, and the arts and sciences. By consolidating this massive body of writing, the Yongle dadian preserved numerous literary and intellectual works that would otherwise have been lost to history.12

Although the emperor himself viewed the project as a form of busywork for scholars, the compendium remains a vital record of the Ming dynasty’s commitment to documenting the breadth of Chinese literature. Today, only a small fraction of the original manuscript copies survive.12