Zhuangzi庄子

Style & Daoist names

Zhuang Zhou, Perfected of Nanhua, Old Immortal of Nanhua

Period

Warring States

Dates

c. 369 BCE — c. 286 BCE

Role

Daoist Philosopher

Birthplace

Meng, State of Song (present-day Shangqiu, Henan; alternatively Mengcheng, Anhui)

Life

Zhuangzi, personal name Zhou, was a native of Meng in the state of Song in the mid-Warring States period, who once served as an official in charge of the lacquer garden; he was a contemporary of King Hui of Liang and King Xuan of Qi, and a friend of Hui Shi. The Records of the Grand Historian says of him that 'there was nothing his learning did not touch upon, yet its essentials always returned to the words of Laozi.' He lived his whole life in poverty and declined an invitation to office from King Wei of Chu, advocating free wandering, the equality of things, the nourishing of life, sitting in oblivion, and the fasting of the mind, in pursuit of absolute spiritual freedom. The received text of the Zhuangzi, in thirty-three chapters (seven Inner Chapters, fifteen Outer Chapters, and eleven Miscellaneous Chapters), is the edition fixed by Guo Xiang; it is generally held that the Inner Chapters are largely the work of Zhuangzi himself, while the Outer and Miscellaneous Chapters were composed by his later followers. Zhuangzi's philosophy exerted a profound influence on Wei-Jin Xuanxue (Mysterious Learning), Sui-Tang Chongxuan thought, and Daoist theories of cultivation. In the first year of the Tianbao era (742), Emperor Xuanzong of Tang issued an edict honoring Zhuangzi as the 'Perfected Nanhua,' and the Zhuangzi was accordingly renamed the Nanhua zhenjing and admitted into the Daoist canon.

Contributions & Influence

• Expounded Daoist thought through parables, weighted words, and spontaneous words, ranked with Laozi as 'Lao-Zhuang'
• Proposed such concepts as the equality of things, free wandering, sitting in oblivion, and the fasting of the mind, which became major sources of Daoist theories of cultivation
• The Zhuangzi was honored as the Nanhua zhenjing, one of the Four Perfected Scriptures of Daoism

Works

• Zhuangzi

Legends

According to legend, Zhuang Zhou's dream of the butterfly and his drumming on a basin and singing at his wife's death are his most celebrated parables; later Daoism venerated him as the Perfected Nanhua and the Immortal Elder of Nanhua, holding that he attained the Dao and became an immortal.