Huainanzi

About This Book

The Huainanzi is an ancient philosophical and governmental Chinese text made up of essays from scholarly debates held at the court of Liu An, Prince of Huainan, before 139 BCE. Compiled as a compendium for an enlightened sovereign and his court, the work attempts to define the conditions for a perfect socio-political order, derived mainly from a perfect ruler. With a notable Zhuangzi 'Taoist' influence, alongside Chinese folk theories of yin and yang and Wu Xing, the Huainanzi draws on Taoist, Legalist, Confucian, and Mohist concepts. But it subverts the latter three in favor of a less active ruler, as prominent in the early Han dynasty before the Emperor Wu.

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