Thousand Character Classic in Cursive Script by Zhao Ji
1122 handscroll by Emperor Huizong
Thousand Character Classic in Cursive Script (赵佶草书千字文; Zhàojí cǎoshū qiān zì wén) is a notable calligraphy scroll purportedly crafted by Emperor Huizong Zhao Ji in the fourth year of the Xuanhe era of the Song dynasty (1122 AD). The scroll measures 31.5 centimeters in height and 1172 centimeters in width, crafted on an exclusively made palace paper known as "Yunlong Jinjian" (云龙金笺纸), distinguished by hand-drawn cloud and dragon patterns with gold powder on white hemp paper. The scroll stretches over 10 feet in length without any seams. The back of the calligraphy scroll bears the seal of "Imperial Calligraphy" (御书) and a monogram (花押) devised and utilized by Zhao Ji. Currently, it is housed in the Liaoning Provincial Museum.
The texts
The "Thousand Character Classic" (千字文), originally titled "The Thousand Character Rhymed Text in Wang Xizhi's Calligraphy (次韵王羲之书千字)," was composed during the Southern and Northern Dynasties period, by Liang dynasty cabinet minister Zhou Xingsi (470-521 AD) under the directive of Emperor Wu of Liang. The emperor tasked the extraction of 1,000 distinct characters from Wang Xizhi's calligraphy oeuvre to create a calligraphy primer for the royal progeny. However, finding these characters disordered and incoherent, he tasked Zhou Xingsi, known for his literary prowess, with composing a rhymed text. Accordingly to historical fiction Taiping Guangji, Zhou Xingsi crafted the verse in a single night and his hair turned grey the next morning. This overnight masterpiece exhibits coherent logic, elegant structure, and numerous references to classic scriptures and historical texts; the language is concise and easy to memorize, making it an exceptional educational aid for children.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q48896756. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1122 and 1172.
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This entry incorporates text from “Thousand Character Classic in Cursive Script by Zhao Ji” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.