Chinese scholar Li Fang, a prime minister of the Song Dynasty, is known for leading the compilation of three of the Four Great Books of Song.

The term is coined after Cefu Yuangui completes the compilation of the final volume during the eleventh century.

The four encyclopedias, each published and intended to collect the whole knowledge of the new state, include:Imperial Readings of the Taiping Era, a general encyclopedia documenting various stories of Chinese myths and subjects of theology.

Extensive Records of the Taiping Era, a collection of gods, deities, fairies, ghost stories and theology.Finest Blossoms in the Garden of Literature, an anthology of poetry, odes, songs and writings.Prime Tortoise of the Record Bureau is an encyclopedia of political essays, autobiographies, memoirs and decrees.

Japanese poet and writer Sei Shonagon, a lady-in-waiting to the Empress Sadako and a contemporary of Lady Murasaki, publishes a diary of the years 991—1000.

Entitled “The Pillow-book of Sei Shonagon,” her journal is a miscellany of various witty epigrams, keen observations of people and events, and poetic notes on natural phenomena.

Her contemporary Murasaki Shikibu, a Japanese lady of the court in the time of the empress Akiko, writes what some have called the world’s first novel, the “Tale of Genji,” narrating the amorous adventures of a prince.

Her diary of the years 1007 to 1010 provides a window into Japanese court life and the history and mores of the period.

Indonesian court poet Mpu Kanwa composes the Kakawin Arjunawiwaha, which is adapted from the Mahabharata epic of North India.

This text tells the story of Arjuna, an incarnation of Indra, but is also an allegory for the life of the raja Airlangga, the founder of Kahuripan.Shao Yong edits the "Tai Hsuan Jing" by Yang Hsiung (CE 10).

Influenced by the Base Three number system found in the Tai Hsuan, Shao Yong then sets the Hexagrams of the I Ching into a binary order (the Fu Hsi Ordering).

This in turn will influence Leibniz and his thinking on binary arithmetic, and in turn the language of modern computers.

Also famous for his poetry and for his interest in the game of Go (wéiqí), Shao Yong writes a Great Ode to Watching Wéiqí, one of the longest surviving classical Chinese poems, as well as a Long Ode to Watching Wéiqí.The innovative Chinese painter Su Shi, who is also a major poet and essayist, rejects the prosodic conventions and limitations of the Tang poets, forming an influential literary circle that invents a new style of verse.

His own robust poetry is notable for its romantic expressionism.During the reign of Emperor Shenzong of Song, a group of scholars led by Sima Guang, a minister interested in the history of the previous one thousand years, compiles Zizhi Tongjian, ("A Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Government"), an enormous written universal history of China that records historical events from the Zhou Dynasty to the Song Dynasty.

Another notable literary achievement that occurs during Shenzong’s reign is the compilation of the Seven Military Classics.