Wenzi文子

Style & Daoist names

Ji Ran (one account), Perfected of Comprehending the Mystery

Period

Warring States

Dates

? — ?

Role

Daoist Philosopher

Birthplace

Unknown

Life

Wenzi, traditionally a disciple of Laozi, was a Daoist figure of the Warring States period whose life is difficult to verify. The Bibliographic Treatise of the Han History records a Wenzi in nine chapters, on which Ban Gu himself notes: 'a disciple of Laozi, contemporary with Confucius.' One account holds that Wenzi was in fact Jiran, the teacher of Fan Li. The received Wenzi, in twelve chapters, largely overlaps in content with the Huainanzi and was long regarded as a forgery; the 1973 discovery of bamboo-slip fragments of the Wenzi in a Han-dynasty tomb at Bajiaolang, Dingxian, Hebei, proved that an authentic pre-Qin or early Han version of the text did exist, though the received text has since been altered and supplemented by later hands. Its thought takes the Dao as its foundation while incorporating benevolence, righteousness, ritual, and law, placing it within the Huang-Lao Daoist tradition. In the first year of the Tianbao era (742, Tang), Wenzi was honored as the 'Perfected Tongxuan,' and the Wenzi was venerated as the Tongxuan zhenjing, ranked alongside the Daodejing, the Nanhua zhenjing, and the Chongxu zhenjing.

Contributions & Influence

• The Wenzi is an important document of early Huang-Lao Daoism
• Honored as the Perfected Tongxuan, with the Wenzi admitted among the Four Perfected Scriptures of Daoism

Works

• Wenzi