PHL237H1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Guanyin, Sima Qian, Cosmogony
Document Summary
3rd phase: huanglao daoism (4th - 2nd century bce) Not much was known about laozi as a historical figure. Historian of sima qian ( 145-86bc) said laozi was a curator in the royal. Archive of zhou court; confucius once paid him a visit to inquire him about li (rites); after retirement, laozi, when going abroad, as asked by the barrier keeper guan yin( ), wrote a work of about 5000 words. The term laozi also refers to a group of texts, the two most famous of which are wangbi"s (226-249ad) version and heshang gong"s (legendarily dated fl. 179-159ad, but more likely in the 3rd- 4th century ad) version. Also there are two versions of silk texts unearthed in 1973 and 3 groups of bamboo slips unearthed in 1993. Etymologically, dao means a way to walk on. Dao means also to say, but the function of saying was in negative sense, different from western philosophy.
