Zeng Shen, traditionally honored as "Zengzi," is an important figure in ancient Chinese Confucianism. Publicly available sources on his life are limited, and his dates of birth and death and his nationality are not clearly recorded in the existing materials. The Great Learning, attributed to Zeng Shen, was originally a chapter of the Book of Rites; from the Song dynasty onward it was extracted and included among the "Four Books," becoming a key Confucian classic on self-cultivation and learning. Moving from personal virtue to political order through the sequence of "cultivating the self, regulating the family, governing the state, and bringing peace to the world," the text is concise in language and clear in structure. This library holds two related works, The Great Learning and Guoxue Daxueyuan 02: The Great Learning, commonly classified under Eastern philosophy. These works are basic materials for studying early Confucian thought and have long influenced later education and moral practice. Given the limited historical records, excessive speculation about Zeng Shen himself should be avoided; readers may understand his thought and classic status through the texts themselves.
