Heguanzi (Pheasant Cap Master)鹖冠子

Author / transmission

Heguanzi

Period

Late Warring States · Written by Heguanzi of Chu, roughly in the late Warring States period; the Daoist section of the Bibliographic Treatise of the History of the Han records it in one chapter, while the received text has nineteen. Liu Zongyuan of the Tang once suspected it of being spurious, but after the excavation of the Mawangdui silk manuscripts scholars have generally come to regard its main body as a genuine Warring States text.

Canon division

Dongshen Section, Original Texts (Benwen) category

Collected in

Daoist Canon of the Zhengtong Era, Dongshen Section, Benwen Category

Category

Daoist Philosophy

Fascicles

Three scrolls, nineteen chapters

Synopsis

The Heguanzi is a work combining Daoist and Military-School thought from the state of Chu in the late Warring States period; the author took his name from wearing a cap of pheasant feathers while living in reclusion in the deep mountains. The book, in nineteen chapters (Broad Selection, Manifesting Subtlety, Night Travel, Celestial Norms, Cyclical Flow, The Origin of the Dao, Recent Alternations, Measuring the Myriad, The Royal Axe, Grand Vastness, Grand Records, Worldly Warfare, Complete Knowledge, Military Governance, Learning and Inquiry, Worthies of the Age, Celestial Authority, Capable of Heaven, and King Wuling), takes the Dao as its root while also discussing the way of Heaven, the School of Names, statecraft, and the conduct of war; it belongs, together with the Four Classics of the Yellow Emperor, to the Huang-Lao system of thought, holding that "Heaven and Earth are formed from primordial qi, and the myriad things ride upon Heaven and Earth," and stressing "acting in accordance with the times" and "following names." Liu Zongyuan's Disputing the Heguanzi denounced it as a forgery, causing it to be long neglected; after the excavation of the Mawangdui silk manuscripts in 1973, the content of the chapters of the Canon of Law was found to correspond closely with it, prompting a reassessment of its value. Lu Dian of the Song wrote a commentary, and Huang Huaixin's Collected Collation and Commentary on the Heguanzi is the modern critical edition.

Key Ideas

• A cosmology based on primordial qi
• The union of Dao and law, holding names accountable to realities
• The sage acts in accordance with the times
• The unity of the way of war and the Dao

Structure

Nineteen chapters; the final chapter, King Wuling, records a dialogue between King Wuling of Zhao and Pang Xuan.

Editions

• Daoist Canon of the Zhengtong Era edition
• Lu Dian's annotated edition
• Huang Huaixin, Collected Collation and Commentary on the Heguanzi (Zhonghua Book Company, 2004)

Commentaries

• Lu Dian, Explanation of the Heguanzi

Translations

• Marnix Wells, The Pheasant Cap Master and the End of History (2013)

Full Text & Online Resources

• CTEXT: Heguanzi
• Wikipedia: Heguanzi

Related scriptures

Related figures