The Zhuangzi (historically romanized ) is an ancient Chinese text that is one of the two foundational texts of Taoism, alongside the Tao Te Ching. It was written during the late Warring States period (476–221 BC) and is named for its traditional author, Zhuang Zhou, who is customarily known as "Zhuangzi" ("Master Zhuang").
The Zhuangzi consists of stories and maxims that exemplify the nature of the ideal Taoist sage. It recounts many anecdotes, allegories, parables, and fables, often expressed with irreverence or humor. Recurring themes include embracing spontaneity and achieving freedom from the human world and its conventions. The text aims to illustrate the arbitrariness and ultimate falsity of dichotomies normally embraced by human societies, such as those between good and bad, large and small, life and death, or human and nature. In contrast with the focus on good morals and personal duty expressed by many Chinese philosophers of the period, Zhuang Zhou promoted carefree wandering and following nature, through which one would ultimately become one with the "Way" (Tao).
Though appreciation for the work often focuses on its philosophy, the Zhuangzi is also regarded as one of the greatest works of literature in the Classical Chinese canon. It has significantly influenced major Chinese writers and poets across more than two millennia, with the first attested commentary on the work written during the Han dynasty (202 BC220 AD). It has been called "the most important pre-Qin text for the study of Chinese literature".
History Zhuang Zhou
The Zhuangzi is presented as the collected works of a man named Zhuang Zhou, traditionally referred to as "Zhuangzi" (; "Master Zhuang"), using the ancient Chinese honorific -zi (). Almost nothing is concretely known of Zhuang Zhou's life. Most of what is known comes from the Zhuangzi itself, which was subject to changes in later centuries. Most historians place his birth around 369 BC in a place called Meng () in the historical state of Song, near present-day Shangqiu, Henan. His death is variously placed at 301, 295, or 286 BC.
Sima Qian included a biography of Zhuang Zhou in the Han-era Shiji, saying that Zhuang Zhou is thought to have spent time in the southern state of Chu, as well as in the Qi capital of Linzi.(). However, the biography seems to have been sourced mostly from the Zhuangzi itself. The American sinologist Burton Watson concluded: "Whoever Zhuang Zhou was, the writings attributed to him bear the stamp of a brilliant and original mind". University of Sydney lecturer Esther Klein observes: "In the perception of the vast majority of readers, whoever authored the core Zhuangzi text was Master Zhuang."
Textual history The only version of the Zhuangzi known to exist in its entirety consists of 33 chapters originally prepared around AD 300 by the Jin-era scholar Guo Xiang (252–312), who reduced the text from an earlier form of 52 chapters. The first 7 of these, referred to as the , were considered even before Guo to have been wholly authored by Zhuang Zhou himself. This attribution has been traditionally accepted since, and is still assumed by many modern scholars. The original authorship of the remaining 26 chapters has been the subject of perennial debate: they were divided by Guo into 15 and 11 .
Today, it is generally accepted that the outer and miscellaneous chapters were the result of a process of "accretion and redaction" in which later authors "[responded] to the scintillating brilliance" of the original inner chapters, although close intertextual analysis does not support the inner chapters comprising the earliest stratum. Multiple authorship over time was a typical feature of Warring States texts of this genre. A limited consensus has been established regarding five distinct "schools" of authorship, each responsible for their own layers of substance within the text. Despite the lack of traceable attribution, modern scholars generally accept that the surviving chapters were originally composed between the 4th and 2nd centuries BC.
Excepting textual analysis, details of the text's history prior to the Han dynasty (202 BC220 AD) are largely unknown. Traces of its influence on the philosophy of texts written during the late Warring States period, such as the Guanzi, Han Feizi and Huainanzi, suggest that the Zhuangzi intellectual lineage had already been fairly influential in the states of Qi and Chu by the 3rd century BC. Sima Qian refers to the Zhuangzi as a 100,000-character work in the Shiji, and references several chapters present in the received text.
Many scholars consider a Zhuangzi composed of 52 chapters, as attested by the Book of Han in 111 AD, to have been the original form of the text. During the late 1st century BC, the entire Han imperial library—including its edition of the Zhuangzi—was subject to considerable redaction and standardization by the polymath Liu Xiang (77–6 BC) and his son Liu Xin (AD 23). All extant copies of the Zhuangzi ultimately derive from a version that was further edited and redacted to 33 chapters by Guo Xiang , who worked from the material previously edited by Liu. Guo stated that he had made considerable edits to the outer and miscellaneous chapters in an attempt to preserve Zhuang Zhou's original ideas from later distortions, in a way that "did not hesitate to impose his personal understanding and philosophical preferences on the text". The received text as edited by Guo is approximately 63,000 characters long—around two-thirds the attested length of the Han-era manuscript. While none are known to exist in full, versions of the text unaffected by both the Guo and Liu revisions survived into the Tang dynasty (618–907), with the existing fragments hinting at the folkloric nature of the material removed by Guo.
Manuscripts
Portions of the Zhuangzi have been found among the bamboo slip texts discovered in tombs dating to the early Han dynasty, particularly at the Shuanggudui site near Fuyang in Anhui, and the Mount Zhangjia site near Jingzhou in Hubei. The earlier Guodian Chu Slips—unearthed near Jingmen, Hubei, and dating to the Warring States period —contain what appears to be a short fragment parallel to the "Ransacking Coffers" chapter ( of 33).
The Dunhuang manuscripts—discovered in the early 20th century by Wang Yuanlu, then obtained and analyzed by the Hungarian-British explorer Aurel Stein and the French sinologist Paul Pelliot—contain numerous Zhuangzi fragments dating to the early Tang dynasty. Stein and Pelliot took most of the manuscripts back to Europe; they are presently held at the British Library and the . The Zhuangzi fragments among the manuscripts constitute approximately twelve chapters of Guo Xiang's edition.
A Zhuangzi manuscript dating to the Muromachi period (1338–1573) is preserved in the Kōzan-ji temple in Kyoto; it is considered one of Japan's national treasures. The manuscript has seven complete selections from the outer and miscellaneous chapters, and is believed to be a close copy of a 7th-century annotated edition written by the Chinese Taoist master Cheng Xuanying.
Content
The Zhuangzi consists of anecdotes, allegories, parables, and fables that are often humorous or irreverent in nature. Most of these are fairly short and simple, such as the humans "Lickety" and "Split" drilling seven holes into the primordial "Wonton" (), or Zhuang Zhou being discovered sitting and drumming on a basin after his wife dies (). A few are longer and more complex, like the story of Lie Yukou and the magus, or the account of the Yellow Emperor's music (both ). Most of the stories within the Zhuangzi seem to have been invented by Zhuang Zhou himself. This distinguishes the text from other works of the period, where anecdotes generally only appear as occasional interjections, and were usually drawn from existing proverbs or legends.
Some stories are completely whimsical, such as the strange description of evolution from "misty spray" through a series of substances and insects to horses and humans (), while a few other passages seem to be "sheer playful nonsense" which read like Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky". The Zhuangzi is full of quirky and fantastic character archetypes, such as "Mad Stammerer", "Fancypants Scholar", "Sir Plow", and a man who fancies that his left arm will turn into a rooster, his right arm will turn into a crossbow, and his buttocks will become cartwheels.
A master of language, Zhuang Zhou sometimes engages in logic and reasoning, but then turns it upside down or carries the arguments to absurdity to demonstrate the limitations of human knowledge and the rational world. Sinologist Victor H. Mair compares Zhuang Zhou's process of reasoning to Socratic dialogue—exemplified by the debate between Zhuang Zhou and fellow philosopher Huizi regarding the "joy of fish" (). Mair additionally characterizes Huizi's paradoxes near the end of the book as being "strikingly like those of Zeno of Elea".
Notable passages
"The Butterfly Dream"
The most famous of all Zhuangzi stories appears at the end of the second chapter, "On the Equality of Things", and consists of a dream being briefly recalled.
The image of Zhuang Zhou wondering if he was a man who dreamed of being a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming of being a man became so well known that whole dramas have been written on its theme. In the passage, Zhuang Zhou "[plays] with the theme of transformation", illustrating that "the distinction between waking and dreaming is another false dichotomy. If [one] distinguishes them, how can [one] tell if [one] is now dreaming or awake?" "The Death of Wonton" Another well-known passage dubbed "The Death of Wonton" illustrates the dangers Zhuang Zhou saw in going against the innate nature of things.
Zhuang Zhou believed that the greatest of all human happiness could be achieved through a higher understanding of the nature of things, and that in order to develop oneself fully one needed to express one's innate ability.
"The Debate on the Joy of Fish" Chapter 17 contains a well-known exchange between Zhuang Zhou and Huizi, featuring a heavy use of wordplay; it has been compared to a Socratic dialogue.
The precise point Zhuang Zhou intends to make in the debate is not entirely clear. The text appears to stress that "knowing" a thing is simply a state of mind: moreover, that it is not possible to determine whether "knowing" has any objective meaning. This sequence has been cited as an example of Zhuang Zhou's mastery of language, with reason subtly employed in order to make an anti-rationalist point.
"Drumming on a Tub and Singing" A passage in chapter 18 describes Zhuang Zhou's reaction following the death of his wife, expressing a view of death as something not to be feared.
Zhuang Zhou seems to have viewed death as a natural process of transformation to be wholly accepted, where a person gives up one form of existence and assumes another. The Zhuangzi contains no pessimism, nihilism, or indifference regarding life, death, and the self. All its stories about with death show quiet contentment and joy. In the second chapter, Zhuang Zhou makes the point that, for all humans know, death may in fact be better than life: "How do I know that loving life is not a delusion? How do I know that in hating death I am not like a man who, having left home in his youth, has forgotten the way back?", cited in . His writings teach that "the wise man or woman accepts death with equanimity and thereby achieves absolute happiness."
Zhuang Zhou's death Zhuang Zhou's own death is depicted in chapter 32, pointing to the body of lore that grew up around him in the decades following his death. It serves to embody and reaffirm the ideas attributed to Zhuang Zhou throughout the previous chapters.
List of chapters