Study On The Text Of Liezi

This essay focuses on the text of Liezi, conducting a discussion over the relationship between the text and the notebook, the text and the writer, which is divided into four chapters.The first chapter is the introduction. By review of study it is found that beyond the debate over the authenticity of Liezi, exploring the ideological value of Liezi and the relationship between Liezi and Liezi Note written by Zhang Zhan is actually a weak field to be filled. They are also the main objectives of this paper.The second chapter introduces the author and the text, elaborating relationship between Liezi and the text of Liezi. Taking references from other books, especially from real examples mentioned in Liezi, Liezi appeared to be a Taoist without any greed and desire. On this basis, this part discusses ideological adaptation and divergence of Liezi text to individual image of Liezi.The third chapter is the essential part of the thesis. Based upon Liezi Jishi written by Yang Bojun, by comparing Liezi text and other documents published during dynasty of Qin, Han, Wei and Jin,156 overlaps were found from eight articles of Leizi. Accordingly, taking each of the eight articles as a single research unit, most materials existed during or before Han Dynasty, even before the Western Han Dynasty, among which some are relatively early, i.e. Shuo Fu, while some are relatively late, i.e. Zhou Mu Wang, Yang Zhu. However, even if Liezi has experienced several rounds of processing and involved various literature characteristics of different historical periods, as Mr. Yu Jiaxi mentioned, Liezi should still be regarded as true reflection of Liezi ideology.Chapter Four elaborates the relationship between Liezi and Liezi Note by Zhang Zhan. In this part, based on historical documents and results of existing studies, the writer researches Zhang Zhan’s family and history background and under this context, how Zhang Zhan corrected the errors from the original book, pointed out the repeated part and made the notes for Liezi by citing from other books and notations. On one hand, he was trying to improve the unity of Liezi Text. On the other hand, through those notes, he was also expressing his own philosophy, from Taoist philosophy, Confucianism, Metaphysics and Buddhist culture these four aspects. The paper lastly summarized the value of Liezi Note in terms of keeping the original book, elaborating notes and meaningful ideology.