Wenzi文子

Also known as

Tongxuan Zhenjing (Perfect Scripture of Comprehending Mystery)

Author / transmission

Wenzi

Period

Pre-Qin to Han · Attributed to Wenzi, a disciple of Laozi; the Bibliographic Treatise of the History of the Han records it in nine chapters. In 1973, a bamboo-slip edition of the Wenzi was excavated from a Western Han tomb at Bajiaolang, Dingzhou, Hebei, proving that a prototype existed from the pre-Qin through early Han periods; the received twelve-chapter text overlaps extensively with the Huainanzi and may have been reworked by later Han-dynasty editors.

Canon division

Dongshen Section, Original Texts (Benwen) category

Collected in

Daoist Canon of the Zhengtong Era, Dongshen Section, Benwen Category (as the Tongxuan Scripture)

Category

Daoist Philosophy

Fascicles

Twelve scrolls

Synopsis

The Wenzi is a work of the Daoist Huang-Lao school, expounding the principles of the Dao and De, non-action, and self-cultivation and statecraft in the format of sayings beginning "Laozi said," while incorporating ideas from the School of Names and from Confucianism and Mohism; it represents an important link in the evolution of pre-Qin Daoist thought into Han-dynasty Huang-Lao learning. The received text, in twelve chapters (Dao Yuan, Jing Cheng, Nine Guardings, Fu Yan, Dao De, Shang De, Wei Ming, Zi Ran, Xia De, Shang Ren, Shang Yi and Shang Li), overlaps considerably in wording with the Huainanzi and was long suspected of being a forgery; following the excavation of a Han-dynasty bamboo-slip edition at Dingzhou, scholars have confirmed that it is a genuine pre-Qin text that was later tampered with. In the first year of Tianbao, Emperor Xuanzong of Tang enfeoffed Wenzi as the Perfected of Tongxuan, and the book was accordingly titled the Tongxuan Scripture; it received commentaries from Xu Lingfu in the Tang, Zhu Bian in the Song, and Du Daojian in the Yuan. Chapters such as "Nine Guardings" directly influenced Daoist theories of self-cultivation.

Key Ideas

• Dao Yuan: the Dao as the root of emptiness and nothingness
• Governing through non-action, following naturalness
• Nine Guardings: cultivation items such as guarding emptiness, guarding nothingness, guarding equanimity, guarding ease
• The value sequence of Dao–De–Ren–Yi–Li

Structure

Twelve chapters, most beginning with the words "Laozi said."

Editions

• Daoist Canon of the Zhengtong Era edition
• The Dingzhou Han bamboo-slip edition (transcription published in 1995)
• Wang Liqi, Subcommentary and Explanation of the Wenzi (Zhonghua Book Company, 2000)

Commentaries

• Xu Lingfu, Commentary on the Tongxuan Scripture
• Zhu Bian, Commentary on the Tongxuan Scripture
• Du Daojian, Continued Explanation of the Tongxuan Scripture

Translations

• English translation by Thomas Cleary (Wen-tzu, 1991)
• Studies and partial translations by Paul van Els

Full Text & Online Resources

• CTEXT: Wenzi
• Wikipedia: Wenzi

Related scriptures

Related figures