Huainanzi

The Huainanzi is an ancient philosphical and governmental Chinese text made up of essays from scholarly debates held at the court of Liu An, Prince of Huainan, before 139 BCE. Compiled as a handbook for an enlightened sovereign and his court, the work attempts to define the conditions for a perfect socio-political order, derived mainly from a perfect ruler. With a notable Zhuangzi 'Taoist' influence, alongside Chinese folk theories of yin and yang and Wu Xing, the Huainanzi draws on Taoist, Legalist, Confucian, and Mohist concepts, but subverts the latter three in favor of a less active ruler, as prominent in the early Han dynasty before the Emperor Wu.
The early Han authors of the Huainanzi likely did not yet call themselves Taoist, and differ from Taoism as later understood. But K.C. Hsiao and the work's modern translators still considered it a 'principal' example of Han 'Taoism', retrospectively. Although the Confucians classified the text as Syncretist, its ideas theoretically contributed to the later founding of the Taoist church in 184 c.e. Sima Tan may have even had the "subversive 'syncretism'" of the Huainanzi in mind when he coined the term Daojia, claiming to "pick what is good among the Confucians and Mohists."

Dating

Said to have been compiled for presentation to the Emperor Wu of Han, while the modern translators of the Huainanzi did believe it had been compiled by a Liu An, they believed much of its material had earlier been written during the reign of Wu's father, Emperor Jing of Han, under whom debates on organization of the government had already begun. Liu An himself would have been around during Jing's reign, and the process of debate and organization were not quick; although increasing under Jing, they date back to the founding of the Han dynasty.

The work

Scholars are reasonably certain regarding the date of composition for the Huainanzi. Both the Book of Han and Records of the Grand Historian record that when Liu An paid a state visit to his nephew the Emperor Wu of Han in 139 BC, he presented a copy of his "recently completed" book in twenty-one chapters. Recent research shows that Chapters 1, 2, and 21 of the Huainanzi were performed at the imperial court.
The Huainanzi is an eclectic compilation of chapters or essays that range across topics of religion, history, astronomy, geography, philosophy, science, metaphysics, nature, and politics. It discusses many pre-Han schools of thought, especially the Huang–Lao form of religious Daoism, and contains more than 800 quotations from Chinese classics. The textual diversity is apparent from the chapter titles, listed under the table of contents.
Some passages are philosophically significant, with one example combining Five Phase and Daoist themes.

Major influences

Alongside the Tao Te Ching and Zhuangzi, the Huainanzi includes influences from such works as the Classic of Poetry, Book of Changes, Book of Documents, Han Feizi, Guanzi, Mozi, Lüshi Chunqiu, Chu Ci, and the Classic of Mountains and Seas. Although several of the prior mentioned works come to be considered Confucian classics, it is mainly chapter 12 which draws on a combination of Confucian texts, the Lunyu, Mencius, Xunzi, and Zisizi. Scattered anecdotes are comparable to Mencius, though sometimes differing.
The first, second and twelfth chapters of the work are based on the Laozi, with Chapter's 2 title "Activating the Genuine" referring to the Dao. But in the evaluation of the Huainanzi's modern translators, the work most strongly resonates with the Zhuangzi. All of Chapter 2's primary themes draw on the Zhuangzi, with one section drawing on such classic Inner Zhuangzi imagery as the "Great Clod" representing Earth and the Dao, and "The Butterfly Dream".
Quantitatively, the Huainanzi's most major influences are the Zhuangzi and encyclopedic Lüshi Chunqiu, with the Lüshi Chunqiu quoted in twenty of the Huainanzi's twenty one chapters. Most prominently influencing chapters 3-5, much of chapter five quotes directly from the Lushi Chunqiu's first twelve chapters. The Huainanzi's second most major influences are drawn from the Tao Te Ching and Han Feizi, or a bit less than half as much, including traces of the Han Feizi's predecessor Shen Buhai.
But the work disparages the Han Feizi's combination of Shang Yang and Shen Buhai, glossing them together as penal. One section briefly re-frames a story from the Han Feizi, adding Laozi, Confucius and Han Fei as characters. Confucius is portrayed as approving Laozi leniency, while Han Fei decries what he takes to be a failure to punish the officials as abandoning ritual.
Zhuangzi influences only existed as traces in the earlier, late Warring States period Han Feizi, and the Mawangdui silk texts Huangdi sijing, entombed in the early Han dynasty, still did not associate Laozi and Zhuangzi together. In these terms, the Huainanzi is notable as the main evidence of Zhuangzi influence in the Han dynasty.

Reformist conservatism

If Dong Zhongshu was familiar with the Huainanzi, its "syncretism" would likely have infuriated him, deciding for itself the relation between fundamental Confucian texts and relegating them to one quarter of the "fundamentals of rulership." Though positively receiving earlier reunification of the empire, the Huainanzi opposed a growing expansion of centralized government, with its upcoming class of attending scholar-officials.
Not believing decentralization would win out, the Huainanzi sought to forge a "third way" between centralization and decentralization - with the interest of the local kingdoms in mind. To this end, it places heavenly prognosticators above ritual specialists, and advocates ideas of wuwei nonaction, recommending the ruler put aside trivial matters to abide in Pure Unity as Empty Nothingness. Aiming to demonstrate how every text before it is part of its own integral unity, the Huainanzi posed a threat to the Han court.

Notable translations

Translations that focus on individual chapters include:

Television series
''The Legend of Huainanzi''