{"title":"A NOTE CONCERNING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN “BUTCHER DING” AND “NOURISHING LIFE” IN THE TRADITIONAL ZHUANGZI COMMENTARIES","authors":"John Williams","doi":"10.1017/eac.2023.5","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>The present discussion aims to help corroborate recent claims that the link between nourishing life 養生 and the Butcher Ding 庖丁 vignette from chapter 3 of the Zhuangzi 莊子 (c. fourth to third century <span>bce</span>) might be taken seriously, while at the same time falsifying recent claims that it is nonetheless uncommon for the connection to be taken seriously. This is achieved by supplying several pieces of textual evidence from leading figures from throughout the history of Zhuangzi studies who all explicitly make the connection and take it seriously. Beyond corroborating one claim and falsifying the other, the present discussion provides renderings of much hitherto untranslated work so as to prevent future scholars from underestimating just how common it is to take the link between the Butcher Ding story and nourishing life seriously.</p>","PeriodicalId":11463,"journal":{"name":"Early China","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3000,"publicationDate":"2024-01-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Early China","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1017/eac.2023.5","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"ASIAN STUDIES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
The present discussion aims to help corroborate recent claims that the link between nourishing life 養生 and the Butcher Ding 庖丁 vignette from chapter 3 of the Zhuangzi 莊子 (c. fourth to third century bce) might be taken seriously, while at the same time falsifying recent claims that it is nonetheless uncommon for the connection to be taken seriously. This is achieved by supplying several pieces of textual evidence from leading figures from throughout the history of Zhuangzi studies who all explicitly make the connection and take it seriously. Beyond corroborating one claim and falsifying the other, the present discussion provides renderings of much hitherto untranslated work so as to prevent future scholars from underestimating just how common it is to take the link between the Butcher Ding story and nourishing life seriously.
期刊介绍:
Early China publishes original research on all aspects of the culture and civilization of China from earliest times through the Han dynasty period (CE 220). The journal is interdisciplinary in scope, including articles on Chinese archaeology, history, philosophy, religion, literature, and paleography. It is the only English-language journal to publish solely on early China, and to include information on all relevant publications in all languages. The journal is of interest to scholars of archaeology and of other ancient cultures as well as sinologists.