LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Chuang Tzu
built 607 days ago
Although the Chuang Tzu has been revered as a classic of Taoist wisdom for over two thousand years, the question of the text’s origins have remained largely unexplored until recent times. The book was traditionally attributed to a figure named Chuang Chou who was active in the latter half of the fourth century BCE, though modern scholarship has demonstrated that Master Chuang himself wrote only the first seven (or "inner") chapters, the remaining material being written over a period of approximately two centuries. Particularly important in this regard is the work of A. C. Graham, who argues that the text can be divided into five strata with varying degrees of proximity to the philosophy of Chuang Tzu. According to Graham, the latest stratum was written by a group which he calls the Syncretists, whom he ... credits with compiling the earliest edition of the text. Since Graham finds no evidence of an organized school surviving Chuang Tzu’s death, he believes that the Syncretists compiled the text from a variety of different sources as "an anthology of writings with philosophies justifying withdrawal to private life, passing under the name of their greatest representative, and including a batch of chapters which are not Taoist at all but Yangist." [A.
Source:
Chuang Tzu (Chuang Chou, ca, 360 BC), along with Lao Tzu, is a defining figure in Chinese Taoism. Chuang Tzu probably authored only parts of the first 7 chapters of the present text, the so-called Inner Chapters. The others were written either by followers of thinkers of related but different theoretical orientations. They often expand on themes in the "inner" chapters. See SCHOOL OF CHUANG TZU for a more complete discussion of the "outer" chapters.
Source:
'Scholars who wear round hats', answered Chuang Tzu, 'know the seasons of Heaven. Scholars who wear square shoes know the shape of Earth. And scholars who loosely gird themselves are ready to decide whatever questions may arise. But scholars who have Tao do not necessarily wear robes; neither does the wearing of robes necessarily mean that a scholar has Tao. If your Highness does not think so, why not issue an order through the Middle Kingdom, making death the punishment for all who wear the robes without having the Tao?'
Source:
[B]eginning with total linguistic relativism, Chuang Tzu ends with a sort of metalinguistics. Spillover words do not ward and sector, They play. They contain more than they contain - therefore, like the famous cleaver which never needs sharpening because the Taoist butcher can pass it between all tendons and joints, the Spillover word "finds its proper channel." The sage does not become trapped in semantics, does not mistake map for territory, but rather "opens things up to the light of Heaven" by flowing with the words, by playing with the words. Once attuned to this flow, the sage need make no special effort to "illumine," for language does it by itself, spontaneously. Language spills over.
Source:
Along with Lao-tzu (604-531 B.C), Chuang Tzu is considered the primary source of Daoism, which is one of the principle forms of Chinese religion that accounts for the mystical, and perhaps the Romantic side of the Chinese tradition. Daoism outlined a natural philosophy to peace, harmony, and serenity. One of his gentle visions was to love "the ten thousand things." Unlike Confucious, Chuang Tzu's writing is not axiomatic, but poetic, and relentlessly metaphoric, thriving on paradox, the absurd, and infinitely open in his willingness to understand the magnitude of the unknown and the reality of relativity, althugh he seems to insist always on the futility of utitlity.
Source:
Chuang Tzu believed that life is transitory and that the pursuit of wealth and personal aggrandizement were vain follies, which distracted from seeing and understanding the world and contemplating its meaning. He strove to see nature with new eyes. For instance:
Source:
MORE ABOUT
Chuang Tzu