DaozangThe Daozang () is a large canon of Taoist writings, consisting of around 1,400 texts that were seen as continuing traditions first embodied by the Daodejing, Zhuangzi, and Liezi. The canon was assembled by monks 400 CE in an attempt to bring together these disparate yet consonant teachings, and it included commentaries and expositions from various masters on material found in the aforementioned core texts of Taoism. The anthology consisted of three divisions (known as grottoes) based on what were seen at that time in Southern China as Taoism's primary focuses: meditation, ritual, and exorcism.
Xunzi (book)The Xunzi () is an ancient Chinese collection of philosophical writings attributed to and named after Xun Kuang, a 3rd-century BCE philosopher usually associated with the Confucian tradition. The Xunzi emphasizes education and propriety, and asserts that "human nature is detestable". The text is an important source of early theories of ritual, cosmology, and governance. The ideas within the Xunzi are thought to have exerted a strong influence on Legalist thinkers, such as Han Fei, and laid the groundwork for much of Han Dynasty political ideology.
HuahujingThe Huahujing (formerly written Hua Hu Ching) is a Taoist work, traditionally attributed to Laozi (formerly written Lao Tzu). Two unrelated versions are claimed to exist, a partial manuscript discovered in the Mogao Caves, Dunhuang, in China and a modern English rendering from oral tradition, while some scholars believe the whole work to be a later work from the 4th century CE. The work is honorifically known as the Taishang lingbao Laozi huahu miaojing (太上靈寶老子化胡妙經, "The Supreme Numinous Treasure's Sublime Classic on Laozi's Conversion of the Barbarians").
HundunHundun () is both a "legendary faceless being" in Chinese mythology and the "primordial and central chaos" in Chinese cosmogony, comparable with the world egg. Hundun was semantically extended from a mythic "primordial chaos; nebulous state of the universe before heaven and earth separated" to mean "unintelligible; chaotic; messy; mentally dense; innocent as a child". While hùndùn "primordial chaos" is usually written as in contemporary vernacular, it is also written as —as in the Daoist classic Zhuangzi—or —as in the Zuozhuan.
