Zhuangzi (book)

The Zhuangzi is presented as the collected works of a man named Zhuang Zhou, who is customarily known by the title "Zhuangzi" (莊子; "Master Zhuang"). Almost nothing is concretely known of Zhuangzi's life. He is usually said to have been born around 369 BC in the state of Song, in a place called Meng (蒙) near present-day Shangqiu, Henan, and is supposed to have died around either 301, 295, or 286 BC.[1] He is thought to have spent time in the southern state of Chu, as well as in the Qi capital of Linzi.[2] The Han-era Records of the Grand Historian includes a biography of Zhuangzi, but it seems to have been sourced mostly from the Zhuangzi itself.[3] The American scholar Burton Watson concluded: "Whoever Zhuang Zhou was, the writings attributed to him bear the stamp of a brilliant and original mind."[4]

The work's first seven chapters, known traditionally as the 內篇; nèi piān; 'inner chapters', have historically been considered to be Zhuangzi's actual work; most modern scholarship agrees with this view.[5] 26 other chapters survive in the received text, with their original authorship having long been the subject of debate.[6] They are divided into 16 外篇; wài piān; 'outer chapters' and 10 雜篇; zá piān; 'miscellaneous chapters'. As early as the Song dynasty (960 – 1279), scholars have recognized that some parts of the book could not have been written by the historical Zhuangzi.[5] Today, it is generally accepted that the outer and miscellaneous chapters were the result of a process of "accretion and redaction", whereby numerous authors "[responded] to the scintillating brilliance" of the original inner chapters.[7] Despite these uncertainties, modern scholars universally accept all 33 surviving chapters of the Zhuangzi as being compositions dating from the 4th to 2nd centuries BC.[8]

Prior to the Han dynasty (206 BC – 220 AD), details regarding the textual history of the Zhuangzi are largely unknown. Traces of its philosophical influence in texts written during the late Warring States period, such as the Guanzi, Han Feizi, Huainanzi, and Spring and Autumn Annals, suggest that Zhuang Zhou's intellectual lineage had already been fairly influential in the states of Qi and Chu by the 3rd century BC.[9] In the Records of the Grand Historian, Sima Qian refers to the Zhuangzi as a 100,000-word work, and references several chapters present in the received text.[10] Many scholars consider a Zhuangzi composed of 52 chapters, as attested by the Book of Han in 111 AD, as being the original form of the text.[11] Several different versions of the text survived into the Tang dynasty, but all copies still extant ultimately derive from a shorter, more popular collection of 33 chapters as prepared by the Jin-era scholar Guo Xiang c. 300 AD.[11]

In 742, an imperial proclamation from Emperor Xuanzong of Tang canonized the Zhuangzi as one of the Chinese classics, awarding it the honorific title 南華真經; Nánhuá zhēnjīng; 'True Scripture of Southern Florescence'.[2] Nevertheless, most scholars throughout Chinese history did not consider it as being a "classic" per se, due to its non-Confucian nature.[12]

A Tang dynasty manuscript of the "Tian Yun" volume of Zhuangzi (replica published in 1932 in Tokyo)

Portions of the Zhuangzi have been discovered among bamboo slip texts from Warring States period and Han dynasty tombs, particularly at the Shuanggudui and Zhangjiashan Han bamboo texts sites.[6] One of the slips from the Guodian bamboo texts, which date to around 300 BC, contains what appears to be a short fragment from the "Ransacking Coffers" ("Qū qiè" 胠篋) chapter.[6]

Many Zhuangzi fragments dating from the early Tang dynasty were discovered among the Dunhuang manuscripts in the early 20th century by the expeditions of Hungarian-British explorer Aurel Stein and French Sinologist Paul Pelliot.[13] They collectively form about twelve chapters of Guo Xiang's version of the Zhuangzi, and are preserved mostly at the British Library and the Bibliothèque nationale de France.[14]

Among the Japanese national treasures preserved in the Kōzan-ji temple in Kyoto is a Zhuangzi manuscript from the Muromachi period (1338–1573).[14] The manuscript has seven complete chapters from the "outer" and "miscellaneous" chapters, and is believed to be a close copy of an annotated edition written in the 7th century by the Chinese Daoist master Cheng Xuanying.[14]

The most famous of all Zhuangzi stories—"Zhuang Zhou Dreams of Being a Butterfly"—appears at the end of the second chapter, "On the Equality of Things".

     昔者莊周夢為胡蝶，栩栩然胡蝶也，自喻適志與。不知周也。
     Once, Zhuang Zhou dreamed he was a butterfly, a butterfly flitting and fluttering about, happy with himself and doing as he pleased. He didn't know that he was Zhuang Zhou.

     俄然覺，則蘧蘧然周也。不知周之夢為胡蝶與，胡蝶之夢為周與。周與胡蝶，則必有分矣。此之謂物化。
     Suddenly he woke up and there he was, solid and unmistakable Zhuang Zhou. But he didn't know if he was Zhuang Zhou who had dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming that he was Zhuang Zhou. Between Zhuang Zhou and the butterfly there must be some distinction! This is called the Transformation of Things.

— Zhuangzi, chapter 2 (Watson translation)[18]

The image of Zhuangzi 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.[19] In the passage, Zhuangzi "[plays] with the theme of transformation",[19] 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?"[20]

Another well known Zhuangzi story—"The Death of Wonton"—illustrates the dangers Zhuangzi saw in going against the innate nature of things.[21]

     南海之帝為儵，北海之帝為忽，中央之帝為渾沌。儵與忽時相與遇於渾沌之地，渾沌待之甚善。儵與忽謀報渾沌之德，曰：人皆有七竅，以視聽食息，此獨無有，嘗試鑿之。日鑿一竅，七日而渾沌死。
     The emperor of the Southern Seas was Lickety, the emperor of the Northern Sea was Split, and the emperor of the Centre was Wonton. Lickety and Split often met each other in the land of Wonton, and Wonton treated them very well. Wanting to repay Wonton's kindness, Lickety and Split said, "All people have seven holes for seeing, hearing, eating, and breathing. Wonton alone lacks them. Let's try boring some holes for him." So every day they bored one hole [in him], and on the seventh day Wonton died.

— Zhuangzi, chapter 7 (Mair translation)[22]

Zhuangzi 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.[19] In this anecdote, Zhuangzi humorously and absurdly uses "Wonton", a name for the Chinese conception of primordial chaos, to demonstrate what he believed were the disastrous consequences of going against things' innate natures.

The story of "The Debate on the Joy of Fish" is a well-known anecdote that has been compared to the Socratic dialogue tradition of ancient Greece.[17]

     莊子與惠子遊於濠梁之上。莊子曰：儵魚出遊從容，是魚樂也。
     Zhuangzi and Huizi were enjoying themselves on the bridge over the Hao River. Zhuangzi said, "The minnows are darting about free and easy! This is how fish are happy."

     惠子曰：子非魚，安知魚之樂。莊子曰：子非我，安知我不知魚之樂。
     Huizi replied, "You are not a fish. How do you know that the fish are happy?" Zhuangzi said, "You are not I. How do you know that I do not know that the fish are happy?"

     惠子曰：我非子，固不知子矣；子固非魚也，子之不知魚之樂全矣。
     Huizi said, "I am not you, to be sure, so of course I don't know about you. But you obviously are not a fish; so the case is complete that you do not know that the fish are happy."

     莊子曰：請循其本。子曰汝安知魚樂云者，既已知吾知之而問我，我知之濠上也。
     Zhuangzi said, "Let's go back to the beginning of this. You said, How do you know that the fish are happy; but in asking me this, you already knew that I know it. I know it right here above the Hao."

— Zhuangzi, chapter 17 (Watson translation)[23]

The exact point made by Zhuangzi in this debate is not entirely clear.[24] The story seems to make the point that "knowing" a thing is simply a state of mind, and that it is not possible to determine if that "knowing" has any objective validity.[25] This story has been cited as an example of Zhuangzi's linguistic mastery, as he subtly uses reason to make an anti-rationalist point.[25]

Another well-known Zhuangzi story—"Drumming On a Tub and Singing"—describes how Zhuangzi did not view death as something to be feared.

     莊子妻死，惠子弔之，莊子則方箕踞鼓盆而歌。惠子曰：與人居長子，老身死，不哭亦足矣，又鼓盆而歌，不亦甚乎。
     Zhuangzi's wife died. When Huizi went to convey his condolences, he found Zhuangzi sitting with his legs sprawled out, pounding on a tub and singing. "You lived with her, she brought up your children and grew old," said Huizi. "It should be enough simply not to weep at her death. But pounding on a tub and singing—this is going too far, isn't it?"

     莊子曰：不然。是其始死也，我獨何能無概然。察其始而本無生，非徒無生也，而本無形，非徒無形也，而本無氣。雜乎芒芴之間，變而有氣，氣變而有形，形變而有生，今又變而之死，是相與為春秋冬夏四時行也。
     Zhuangzi said, "You're wrong. When she first died, do you think I didn't grieve like anyone else? But I looked back to her beginning and the time before she was born. Not only the time before she was born, but the time before she had a body. Not only the time before she had a body, but the time before she had a spirit. In the midst of the jumble of wonder and mystery a change took place and she had a spirit. Another change and she had a body. Another change and she was born. Now there's been another change and she's dead. It's just like the progression of the four seasons, spring, summer, fall, winter."

     人且偃然寢於巨室，而我噭噭然隨而哭之，自以為不通乎命，故止也。
     "Now she's going to lie down peacefully in a vast room. If I were to follow after her bawling and sobbing, it would show that I don't understand anything about fate. So I stopped."

— Zhuangzi, chapter 18 (Watson translation)[26]

Zhuangzi seems to have viewed death as a natural process or transformation, where one gives up one form of existence and assumes another.[27] In the second chapter, he 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?"[28] His writings teach that "the wise man or woman accepts death with equanimity and thereby achieves absolute happiness."[27]

The story of Zhuangzi's death, contained in chapter 32 of the text, exemplifies the colorful lore that grew up around Zhuangzi in the decades after his death, as well as the elaboration of the core philosophical ideas contained in the "inner chapters" that appears in the "outer" and "miscellaneous chapters".[8]

     莊子將死，弟子欲厚葬之。莊子曰：吾以天地為棺槨，以日月為連璧，星辰為珠璣，萬物為齎送。吾葬具豈不備邪。何以加此。
     When Master Zhuang was about to die, his disciples wanted to give him a lavish funeral. Master Zhuang said: "I take heaven and earth as my inner and outer coffins, the sun and moon as my pair of jade disks, the stars and constellations as my pearls and beads, the ten thousand things as my funerary gifts. With my burial complete, how is there anything left unprepared? What shall be added to it?"

     弟子曰：吾恐烏鳶之食夫子也。莊子曰：在上為烏鳶食，在下為螻蟻食，奪彼與此，何其偏也。
     The disciples said: "We are afraid that the crows and kites will eat you, Master!" Master Zhuang said: "Above ground I'd be eaten by crows and kites, below ground I'd be eaten by mole crickets and ants. You rob the one and give to the other—how skewed would that be?"

— Zhuangzi, chapter 32 (Kern translation)[8]

Traces of the Zhuangzi's influence in late Warring States period philosophical texts such as the Guanzi, Han Feizi, Huainanzi, and Lüshi Chunqiu suggest that Zhuangzi's intellectual lineage was already fairly influential in the states of Qi and Chu in the 3rd century BC.[9] During the Qin and Han dynasties—with their state-sponsored Legalist and Confucian ideologies, respectively—the Zhuangzi does not seem to have been highly regarded.[9] One exception is Han dynasty scholar Jia Yi's 170 BC work "Fu on the Owl" (鵩鳥賦; Fúniǎo fù), the earliest definitively known fu rhapsody, which does not reference the Zhuangzi by name but cites it for one-sixth of the poem.[39]

After the collapse of the Han dynasty in AD 207 and the subsequent chaos of the Three Kingdoms period, both the Zhuangzi and Zhuang Zhou began to rise in popularity and acclaim.[9] The 3rd century AD poets Ruan Ji and Xi Kang, both members of the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove, were ardent Zhuangzi admirers,[40] and one of Ruan's essays, entitled "Discourse on Summing Up the Zhuangzi" (達莊論; Dá Zhuāng lùn), is still extant.[15] This period saw Confucianism temporarily surpassed by a revival of Daoism and old divination texts, such as the Classic of Changes, and many early medieval Chinese poets, artists, and calligraphers were deeply influenced by the Zhuangzi.[40]

The Zhuangzi has been called "the most important of all the Daoist writings",[41] and its "inner chapters" embody the core ideas of philosophical Daoism.[8] In the 4th century AD, the Zhuangzi became a major source of imagery and terminology for a new form of Daoism known as the "Highest Clarity" school that was popular among the aristocracy of the Jin dynasty. Highest Clarity Daoism borrowed notable Zhuangzi terms, such as "perfected man" (真人; zhēn rén), "Great Clarity" (太清; Tài Qīng), and "fasting the mind" (心齋; xīn zhāi), and although they are used somewhat differently than in the Zhuangzi itself, they still show the important role the Zhuangzi played at the time.[40]

The Zhuangzi was very influential in the adaptation of Buddhism to Chinese culture after Buddhism was first brought to China from India in the 1st century AD.[40] Zhi Dun, China's first aristocratic Buddhist monk, wrote a prominent commentary to the Zhuangzi in the mid-4th century.[40] The Zhuangzi also played a significant role in the formation of Chan Buddhism (and therefore, of Zen in Japan), which grew out of "a fusion of Buddhist ideology and ancient Daoist thought."[40] Among the traits Chan Buddhism borrowed from the Zhuangzi are a distrust of language and logic, an insistence that the "Way" can be found in everything, even dung and urine, and a fondness for dialogues based on riddles or paradigm-challenging statements known as gōng'àn (公案; Japanese kōan).[40]

The Zhuangzi retained prominence throughout Chinese history as the preeminent example of core Daoist philosophical ideals. The 17th century scholar Gu Yanwu lamented his government's flippant use of the Zhuangzi on the imperial examination essays as representative of a decline in traditional morals at the end of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644).[42] In the famed Chinese novel Dream of the Red Chamber, the main protagonist, Jia Baoyu, often turns to the Zhuangzi for comfort amidst his despair over conflicting love interests and relationships.[43] The story of Zhuangzi drumming on a tub and singing after the death of his wife inspired an entire tradition of folk music called "funeral drumming" (喪鼓; sànggǔ) in central China's Hubei and Hunan Provinces that survived into the 18th and 19th centuries.[44]

Outside of China and the traditional "Sinosphere", the Zhuangzi lags far behind the Tao Te Ching in general popularity, and is rarely known by non-scholars.[35] A number of prominent scholars have attempted to bring the Zhuangzi to wider attention among Western readers. In 1939, the British translator and Sinologist Arthur Waley described the Zhuangzi as "one of the most entertaining as well as one of the profoundest books in the world."[45] In the introduction to his 1994 translation of the Zhuangzi, the American Sinologist Victor H. Mair wrote: "I feel a sense of injustice that the Dao De Jing is so well known to my fellow citizens while the Zhuangzi is so thoroughly ignored, because I firmly believe that the latter is in every respect a superior work."[36]

• Goldin, Paul R. (2001). "The Thirteen Classics". In Mair, Victor H. (ed.). The Columbia History of Chinese Literature. New York: Columbia University Press. pp. 86-96. ISBN 0-231-10984-9.
• Graham, A. C. (1981). Chuang-tzu, The Seven Inner Chapters and Other Writings From the Book Chuang-tzu. London: George Allen and Unwin. ISBN 0-04-299013-0.
• Idema, Wilt; Haft, Lloyd (1997). A Guide to Chinese Literature. Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan. ISBN 0-89264-123-1.
• Idema, Wilt (2010). "Prosimetric and Verse Narrative". In Chang, Kang-i Sun (ed.). The Cambridge History of Chinese Literature, Volume II: From 1375. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 343–412. ISBN 978-0-521-85559-4.
• Kern, Martin (2010). "Early Chinese Literature, Beginnings through Western Han". In Owen, Stephen (ed.). The Cambridge History of Chinese Literature, Volume I: To 1375. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 1–115. ISBN 978-0-521-85558-7.
• Knechtges, David R. (2014). "Zhuangzi 莊子". In Knechtges, David R.; Chang, Taiping (eds.). Ancient and Early Medieval Chinese Literature: A Reference Guide, Part Four. Leiden: Brill. pp. 2314–23. ISBN 978-90-04-27217-0.
• Li, Wai-yee (2010). "Early Qing to 1723". In Chang, Kang-i Sun (ed.). The Cambridge History of Chinese Literature, Volume II: From 1375. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 152–244. ISBN 978-0-521-85559-4.
• Mair, Victor H. (1994). Wandering on the Way: Early Taoist Tales and Parables of Chuang Tzu. New York: Bantam Books. ISBN 0-553-37406-0. (Google Books)
• Mair, Victor H. (1998). "Chuang-tzu". In Nienhauser, William (ed.). The Indiana Companion to Traditional Chinese Literature, Volume 2. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. pp. 20–26. ISBN 0-253-33456-X. (Google Books)
• Mair, Victor H. (2000). "The Zhuangzi and its Impact". In Kohn, Livia (ed.). Daoism Handbook. Leiden: Brill. pp. 30–52. ISBN 978-90-04-11208-7.
• Nivison, David Shepherd (1999). "The Classical Philosophical Writings". In Loewe, Michael; Shaughnessy, Edward (eds.). The Cambridge History of Ancient China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 745-812. ISBN 0-521-47030-7.
• Puett, Michael (2001). "Philosophy and Literature in Early China". In Mair, Victor H. (ed.). The Columbia History of Chinese Literature. New York: Columbia University Press. pp. 70–85. ISBN 0-231-10984-9.
• Roth, H. D. (1993). "Chuang tzu 莊子". In Loewe, Michael (ed.). Early Chinese Texts: A Bibliographical Guide. Berkeley: Society for the Study of Early China; Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley. pp. 56–66. ISBN 1-55729-043-1.
• Shang, Wei (2010). "The Literati Era and Its Demise (1723–1840)". In Chang, Kang-i Sun (ed.). The Cambridge History of Chinese Literature, Volume II: From 1375. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 245–342. ISBN 978-0-521-85559-4.
• Watson, Burton; Graham, A. C. (1999). "The Way of Laozi and Zhuangzi — Transformation and Transcendence in the Zhuangzi". In de Bary, Wm. Theodore; Bloom, Irene (eds.). Sources of Chinese Tradition, Vol. 1: From Earliest Times to 1600 (2nd ed.). New York: Columbia University Press. pp. 95–111. ISBN 978-0-231-10939-0.
• Watson, Burton (2003). Zhuangzi: Basic Writings (3rd ed.). New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-231-12959-9.
• Wilkinson, Endymion (2015). Chinese History: A New Manual (4th ed.). Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Asia Center. ISBN 978-0-674-08846-7.