Daoism in the Guanzi

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the Guanzi, a complex collection of texts generally attributed to the Jixia Academy of the state of Qi around the late fourth century BCE. Among those texts, four—Neiye (Inward Training), Xinshu Shang, Xia (Techniques of the Mind, I and II), and Baixin (The Purified Mind)—are classified as Daoist or Huang-Lao. After introducing various theories about their dating, authors, and features, Roth presents a clear and seminal analysis of the four texts. He asserts that their theories are grounded in a concept of Dao as a transcendent yet immanent, imperceptible yet graspable, universal force that shares many features of Dao in the Laozi. This is a reminder that Daoist scholars should still pay attention to these less central texts.