Chuang tzu butterfly

He is credited with writing—in part or in whole—a work known by his name, the Zhuangzi , which is one of two foundational texts of Taoism , alongside the Tao Te Ching. The only account of the life of Zhuangzi is a brief sketch in chapter 63 of Sima Qian 's Records of the Grand Historian , [ 3 ] and most of the information it contains seems to have simply been drawn from anecdotes in the Zhuangzi itself.

His existence has been questioned by Russell Kirkland, who asserts that "there is no reliable historical data at all" for Zhuang Zhou, and that most of the available information on the Zhuangzi comes from its third-century commentator, Guo Xiang. Zhuangzi is traditionally credited as the author of at least part of the work bearing his name, the Zhuangzi.

The meaning of these three names is disputed: according to Guo Xiang, the "Inner Chapters" were written by Zhuangzi, the "Outer Chapters" written by his disciples, and the "Mixed Chapters" by other hands; the other interpretation is that the names refer to the origin of the titles of the chapters—the "Inner Chapters" take their titles from phrases inside the chapter, the "Outer Chapters" from the opening words of the chapters, and the "Mixed Chapters" from a mixture of these two sources.

Zhuangzi text

Further study of the text does not provide a clear choice between these alternatives. On the one side, as Martin Palmer points out in the introduction to his translation, two of the three chapters Sima Qian cited in his biography of Zhuangzi, come from the "Outer Chapters" and the third from the "Mixed Chapters". On the other hand, chapter 33 has been often considered as intrusive, being a survey of the major movements during the "Hundred Schools of Thought" with an emphasis on the philosophy of Hui Shi.

Further, A. Graham and other critics have subjected the text to a stylistic analysis and identified four strains of thought in the book: a the ideas of Zhuangzi or his disciples; b a "primitivist" strain of thinking similar to Laozi in chapters and the first half of chapter 11; c a strain very strongly represented in chapters which is attributed to the philosophy of Yang Zhu ; and d a fourth strain which may be related to the philosophical school of Huang-Lao.

The text is a collection, not a developing argument. His critiques of Confucian society and historical figures are humorous and at times ironic. Contents move to sidebar hide.

Chuang tzu quotes

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