During the 1st century BC, the text was extensively reworked by Dai De (Senior Dai) and his nephew Dai Sheng (Junior Dai). The version of Junior Dai, which was composed in forty-nine chapters, is what we regard as the work today. While the version of the Senior Dai are preserved only in fragments, modern scholars believe that the original title, Lijing ("Classic of Rites"), was dropped so that jing ("classic") would be reserved for works more directly connected with Confucius. By itself, the book includes the Classic of Music (chapter 19), however this version of the work is in a much dilapidated form from the original, which is now lost. In 1993, a chapter of the book, "Black Robes", was found in tombs of Guodian, in Hubei, dated to 300 BC.
The book also includes two other chapters, particularly the Great Learning (chapter 42), and the Doctrine of the Mean (chapter 31), the original text of which is believed to have been compiled by one of Confucius's disciples. Both of these "books" are considered part of another collection known as the Four Books.
The book is sometimes incorporated into the Three Rites with two other documents, the Rites of Zhou and the Etiquette and Ceremonials by the 2nd century AD.
