Dao Companion to Daoist Philosophy by Xiaogan Liu

Author:Xiaogan Liu
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht

3 Daoist Thought

Leaving its textual complexities behind and probing the Heguanzi’s thought, one may again be discouraged, this time by its mixed content. The treatise combines wide interest in what we would distinguish as politics, military matters, personnel administration, and diplomacy. Moreover, analogies and occasional remarks indicate expertise in astronomy, calendar and divination, hygiene or meditation practices, and at least some knowledge of music, medicine, and various other technical matters.24 For late Warring States masters, political interest in ordering the world was the rule rather than the exception. Heguanzi’s military expertise is not only suggested by his pheasant-feather cap, a symbol of military valor,25 it is also confirmed by the content of at least five chapters (7, 12, 14, 17, and 19). The selection of political personnel, specifically for high positions and diplomatic missions, is also repeatedly discussed as a crucial aspect of bringing about order.

But this range of topics is not why Pheasant Cap Master’s thought is called ‘mixed’ (za 雜). The Tang scholar Han Yu remarked that Heguanzi “mixes [the ideas of] Huang-Lao and Forms-and-names” 雜黄老刑名 and its commentator, Lu Dian, concurs in his preface to the book that “his [Heguangzi’s] way is eclectic. The text he wrote is first rooted in Huang-Lao and branches out into Forms-and-names.” 其道踳駮. 著書初本黄老而末流迪於刑名. (Du Heguanzi 11.15b) This mixture of Huang-Lao and Forms-and-names did not particularly bother Han Yu and Lu Dian. Nor should it have, considering what Sima Tan had in mind when he described Daoism (Daojia), the category under which Ban Gu classified the Heguanzi. 26 The Daoist method, according to Sima Tan, chooses the best from other trends of thought (hence the text’s later characterization as “mixed”). The result is a specific syncretism: proceeding from non-action, responsiveness, and reliance (hence “rooted in Huang-Lao”) and applied to politics and administration (hence “branching out to Forms-and-names”). Below I will use these aspects of the oldest Daoist label to characterize Heguanzi’s complex but relatively coherent strands of thought.

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