Zhuangzi's Original Restoration

"Zhuangzi" is not only a Chinese literary classic in the pre-Qin era, but also the peak of Chinese philosophy in the Axial Age. The Chinese have regarded individual spiritual freedom as the highest life value since Zhuangzi. The Chinese sublimated the spirit of freedom into a systematic ideological doctrine and then developed it into an independent school of thought, marked by the writing of Zhuangzi. "Zhuangzi" was first written in the Warring States Period, Han Dynasty, or Jin Dynasty? Is "Zhuangzi" written by Zhuangzi alone, or is it a collection of chapters written by Zhuangzi himself and compiled by his disciples? Was the classification of internal and external miscellaneous from the beginning, or was it gradually formed? Is the difference between the thirty-three chapters of Zhuangzi in the modern version and the fifty-two chapters recorded in historical records only the number of chapters? What is the main purpose and ideological essence of each chapter of "Zhuangzi", and who is the author? This is a series of mysteries that have been litigated for thousands of years in the history of Chinese culture. This book fully absorbs the research results of famous Zhuang scholars in the past dynasties, provides systematic annotations, difficult analysis, and full-text translation of "Zhuangzi" to fully reveal the free essence of "Zhuangzi". It has obscured the classification and overall overview of the original version of "Zhuangzi" during the Warring States Period and the complete version of "Zhuangzi" in the Western Han Dynasty for more than 1,700 years. It is determined that seven of the inner chapters were written by Zhuangzi himself, and none of the outer chapters were written by Zhuangzi. This clarifies many Zhuangxue problems that have been debated for generations in academic history.