Groaning Words

Enter the restless, searching mind of one of the late Ming dynasty's most independent thinkers. Groaning Words (Shenyin Yu) is the masterwork of the scholar-official Lü Kun (1536–1618): reflections, maxims and hard-won observations gathered over nearly thirty years of public service, study, and personal suffering.

The ritual codes, philosophical discourses, educational primers and religious classics that shaped Chinese civilization for over two millennia. Where the narrative classics tell China’s stories, these texts encode its institutions, its ethics and its inner life.