Zhuangzi

"Zhuangzi" should have been written in the pre-Qin period. The thirty-three chapters of "Zhuangzi" we see today were edited and revised by Guo Xiang of the Western Jin Dynasty and handed down. "Zhuangzi" in the Han Dynasty has fifty-two chapters with more than 100,000 words. This fifty-two chapter version can still be seen in the Wei and Jin Dynasties. During the Wei and Jin Dynasties, Xuanfeng prevailed and Zhuangxue gradually emerged. There were dozens of annotators on Zhuangzi. However, these annotators often made certain deletions in the book "Zhuangzi" based on their own understanding of Zhuangzi and personal preferences, thus forming various versions of "Zhuangzi". Before Guo Xiang, the main versions of "Zhuangzi" were Cui Zhuan, Xiang Xiu, and Sima Biao. Among them, Cui Mo and Xiang Xiu's version has 27 chapters (Xiang Xiu's version has 26 chapters and the other has 28 chapters), and Sima Biao's version has 52 chapters. The thirty-three chapters of Guo Xiang that people see now are the deletions made by Guo Xiang after absorbing the results of various schools, especially Xiang Xiuzhuangzi, on the basis of the fifty-two chapters. It is the result of Guo Xiang "taking it based on his intention" from Sima Biao's fifty-two chapters and deleting "three out of ten". The "Zhuangzi" edited by Guo Xiang is purer in terms of chapters and words. Because he absorbed and learned from the notes of Xiang Xiu and other scholars at that time, and made a transformative and unique interpretation on this basis, it was highly praised by the past dynasties and gradually became the final version, which has been passed down to this day.