Early life

Lie Yukou was born in the State of Zheng, near today's Zhengzhou, Henan Province.

History

There is little historical evidence of Lie Yukou as a Hundred Schools of Thought philosopher during the Warring States period. This could be due to the burning of books and burying of scholars which occurred during the reign of Qin Shi Huang. However, some scholars believe that the Zhuangzi invented him as a Daoist exemplar. Frederic H. Balfour, who translated several Taoist texts, called Liezi "a philosopher who never lived" (1887:?) Lionel Giles expresses doubt in his Introduction: Very little is known of our author beyond what he tells us himself. His full name was Lieh Yü-k'ou, and it appears that he was living in the Chêng State not long before the year 398 BC, when the Prime Minister Tzu Yang was killed in a revolution. He figures prominently in the pages of Chuang Tzu, from whom we learn that he could 'ride upon the wind'. On the insufficient ground that he is not mentioned by the historian Ssu-ma Ch'ien, a certain critic of the Sung dynasty was led to declare that Lieh Tzu was only a fictitious personage invented by Chuang Tzu, and that the treatise which passes under his name was a forgery of later times. This theory is rejected by the compilers of the great Catalogue of Ch『ien Lung's Library, who represent the cream of Chinese scholarship in the eighteenth century.

In the above quote Mr. Lionel Giles may have been refuting his father Herbert Allen Giles, who wrote of Lie Yukou or Lieh-Tzu in his translation of Chuang Tzu. Here is his quote which runs as follows:

The extent of the actual mischief done by this " Burning of the Books " has been greatly exaggerated. Still, the mere attempt at such a holocaust gave a fine chance to the scholars of the later Han dynasty (A.D. 25-221), who seem to have enjoyed nothing so much as forging, if not the whole, at any rate portions, of the works of ancient authors. Some one even produced a treatise under the name of Lieh Tzu, a philosopher mentioned by Chuang Tzu, not seeing that the individual in question was a creation of Chuang Tzu's brain!

生平

列子於《史記》無傳，其名散見於《莊子》、《管子》、《晏子》、《墨子》、《韓非子》、《尸子》、《呂氏春秋》等書。列禦寇成名于《列子》一書，有章以其名為章名，主旨在于宣揚不可炫智于外而應養神于心，達到「天而不人」順從自然，達到無用之用的境界。

列子是鄭國人，先於莊子，與鄭繆公同時。其學本于黃帝老子，主張清靜無為。相傳他曾向關尹喜問道，拜壺丘子為師，壺子對列子說：「鄉吾示之以未始出吾宗。吾與之虛而委蛇，不知其誰何，因以為弟靡，因以為波流，故逃也。」後來又先後師事老商氏和支伯高子，修道九年之後，他就能御風而行。唐玄宗天寶年間詔封為「衝虛真人」，宋徽宗宣和年間封為「衝虛觀妙真君」。

列子故里

列子故里位于河南鄭州市東區的圃田一帶。2009年6月，位于鄭州市管城區圃田鄉的列子祠成為市級文保單位。

注釋

外部鏈接