Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove

The Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove (also known as the Seven Worthies of the Bamboo Grove, traditional Chinese: 竹林七賢; simplified Chinese: 竹林七贤; pinyin: Zhúlín Qī Xián; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Tiok-lîm Chhit Hiân) were a group of Chinese scholars, writers, and musicians of the third century CE. Although the various individuals all existed, their interconnection is not entirely certain. Several of the seven were linked with the Qingtan school of Daoism as it existed in the state of Cao Wei.^[2]

The Seven Sages found their lives to be in danger when the avowedly "Confucian" Jin dynasty of the Sima clan came to power. Among other things, some of the seven wrote poems criticizing the court and the administration, and wrote Daoist-influenced literature. Not all seven sages had similar views. Some of the seven tried to negotiate their way through the difficult political positions by self-consciously adopting the roles of alcohol-fueled pranksters and eccentrics avoiding government control (for example, Liu Ling), yet some ended up joining the Jin dynasty (for example Wang Rong). However much they may or may not have been personally engaged in "witty conversation or debates" (qingtan), they became the subjects of it themselves in the A New Account of the Tales of the World (Chinese: 世說新語; pinyin: Shìshuō Xīnyǔ).