The Mawangdui Silk Texts (traditional Chinese: 馬王堆帛書; simplified Chinese: 马王堆帛书; pinyin: Mǎwángduī Bóshū) are Chinese philosophical and medical works written on silk which were discovered at the Mawangdui site in Changsha, Hunan, in 1973. They include some of the earliest attested manuscripts of existing texts (such as the I Ching), two copies of the Tao Te Ching, a copy of Zhan Guo Ce, works by Gan De and Shi Shen, and previously unknown medical texts such as Wushi'er Bingfang (Prescriptions for Fifty-Two Ailments). Scholars arranged them into 28 types of silk books. Their approximately 120,000 words cover military strategy, mathematics, cartography, and the six classical arts: ritual, music, archery, horsemanship, writing, and arithmetic.
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Mawangdui Silk Texts in the context of Huangdi Sijing
The Huangdi Sijing (simplified Chinese: 黄帝四经; traditional Chinese: 黃帝四經; pinyin: Huángdì sìjīng; lit. "Yellow Emperor's Four Classics") are ancient Chinese texts thought to be long-lost, manuscripts of which however are generally thought to have been discovered among the Mawangdui Silk Texts in 1973. Also known as the Huang-Lao boshu (simplified Chinese: 黄老帛书; traditional Chinese: 黃老帛書; pinyin: Huáng-Lǎo bóshū; lit. 'Huang-Lao Silk Texts'), or Huangdi shu 黄帝書 (Yellow Thearch Manuscripts), they are thought by modern scholars to reflect a lost branch of early syncretist Daoism, referred to as the "Huang–Lao school of thought" named after the legendary Huangdi (黃帝; "Yellow Emperor") and Laozi (老子; "Master Lao"). One finds in it "technical jargon" derived of Taoism, Legalism, Confucianism and Mohism.
Mawangdui Silk Texts in the context of School of names
The School of Names, or School of Forms and Names, represents a school of thought in Chinese philosophy that grew out of Mohist logic. Sometimes termed Logicians, "dialecticians" or sophists modernly, Han scholars used it in reference to figures earlier termed Disputers or Debaters (bian ze) in the Zhuangzi, as a view dating back to the Warring States period (c. 479 – 221 BC). Sometimes treated together with the Later Mohists, rather than a unified movement like the Mohists it represents a social category of early linguistic debaters. Critical arguments in late Mohist texts, with their own logicians, would appear directed at their kind of debates, but likely respected them. Figures associated with it include Deng Xi, Yin Wen, Hui Shi, and Gongsun Long. A Three Kingdoms era figure, Xu Gan, is relevant for discussions of names and realities, but was more Confucian and less philosophically relativist.
Including figures referenced by the Zhuangzi, some likely served as a bridge between Mohism and the relativism of Zhuangzi Daoism, which, in contrast to the Daodejing, "clearly reveals exposure" to school of names thinkers. Contrary Mohism as seeking objective standards, Hui Shi is noted for relativism, but also "embracing the ten thousand things" (his tenth thesis). In the Mawangdui Silk Texts, the idea of universal love follows from Mozi and Laozi type ideas, transitioning towards Laozi.