Wenzi

The Wenzi (Chinese: 文子; pinyin: Wénzǐ; Wade–Giles: Wen-tzŭ; lit. '[Book of] Master Wen') is a Daoist classic allegedly written by a disciple of Laozi. The text was widely read and highly revered in the centuries following its creation, and even canonized as Tongxuan zhenjing (Chinese: 通玄真經; pinyin: Tōngxuán zhēnjīng; Wade–Giles: T‘ung-hsüan chên-ching; lit. 'True Scripture of Understanding the Mysteries') in the year 742 CE. However, soon afterwards scholars started questioning its authenticity and dismissing it as a forgery that was created between the Han dynasty and the Tang dynasty. The text's fate changed in 1973, when archeologists excavated a 55 BCE tomb and discovered remnants of a Wenzi copied on bamboo strips, which offer us a glimpse of what the text looked like prior to its drastic revision into the current text.


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