THE TRANSCENDENT MASTER OF THE VOID

by Liezi, Derek Bryce (Translator)

Along with the famous Tao-te-ching of Lao-tzu and the book of Chuang-tzu this is one of the fundamental texts of Taoism or Daoism. Unlike many of his contemporary western scholars in China Leon Wieger used the traditional Chinese commentaries and he also concluded that although Tao or Dao generally means "the Way" in Chinese, in these works it mostly means "the Principle". This was confirmed by Lionel Giles, a British scholar. I have abridged this book slightly to remove a non-Daoist item, namely the Chapter on Master Yang who was an epicurean philosopher. He is of interest to scholars of Chinese history, but his ideas are far from those of the ancient Daoists. I have also not included a few anecdotes that are already in my Kindle book Daoist Tales and Anecdotes.

96 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 11, 2013

About the author

Lie Yukou (列圄寇/列禦寇, fl. ca. 400 BCE) is considered the author of the Daoist book Liezi, which uses his honorific name Liezi (列子; Lieh-tzu; literally: "Master Lie"). Lie Yukou was born in the State of Zheng, near today's Zhengzhou, Henan Province.

There is little historical evidence of Lie Yukou as a Hundred Schools of Thought philosopher during the Warring States period. This could be due to the burning of books and burying of scholars which occurred during the reign of Qin Shi Huang. However, some scholars believe that the Zhuangzi invented him as a Daoist exemplar.