List of 25

Traditions	Genre				Total
Traditions	Religious/ Foundational Classics	History	Philosophy	Literature	Total
Greco-Roman		1. Herodotus	3. Plato		2
Buddhist	2. Samyutta Nikaya		11. Zhiyi		2
Chinese	7. Wang Bi	5. Sima Qian	18. Sishu Zhangju Jizhu	10. Wenxuan; 21. Tangshi Pinhui	5
Hindu			13. Sankara; 17. Ramanuja	4. Mahabharata; 8. Kalidasa	4
Christian	6. Bible		9. Augustine		2
Islamicate	12. Quran	14. al-Tabari	16. al-Ghazali	15. Shahnama; 20. Amir Khusrau	5
European		25. Gibbon	23. Descartes; 24. Kant	19. Dante; 22. Shakespeare	5
Total	4	4	9	8	25

The texts selected here are same as in the List of 150. As the list becomes so short, there are just forced trade-offs that may look surprising. E.g. I end up needing to give up all Classical literature and all Hindu Religious Classics. Besides continuing to leave Aristotle out (as in List of 50), I also needs to give up Nagarjuna (which Zhiyi surely himself would not agree); and Marx (in favor of the earlier Kant). Also, unavoidably, the 3 female authors in List of 150 (Sapphos, Murasaki Shikibu, Jane Austen) all fall off the list.

The other interesting aspect of this short list is that the classification naturally recombines towards the 7 traditions as in the List of 36. Therefore, while I cannot say I am happy with this list of 25 (have regrettable omissions as laid out in the above paragraph), I do feel that in a college introductory course of World Canonical Texts, division of the texts by 7 traditions does make sense.