Guo Xiang

Who was Guo Xiang?

Guo Xiang, is credited with the first and most important revision of the text known as the Zhuangzi which, along with the Laozi, forms the textual and philosophical basis of the Taoist school of thought. He was also a scholar of xuanxue.

The Guo Xiang redaction of the text revised a fifty-two chapter original by removing material he thought was superstitious and generally not of philosophical interest to his literati sensibilities, resulting in a thirty-three chapter total. He appended a philosophical commentary to the text that became famous, and within four centuries his shorter and snappier expurgated recension became the only one known.

This Zhuangzi recension is traditionally divided into three sections: ‘Inner Chapters’, ‘Outer Chapters’, ‘Miscellaneous Chapters’. This division is quite old and is likely to have been part of the original recension.

Guo's redaction focuses on his understanding of Zhuangzi's philosophy of spontaneity. This practiced spontaneity is demonstrated by the story of Cook Ding, rendered as Cook Ting in the Burton Watson translation: