Shiji Biographies of Laozi and Zhuang Zhou (c. 100 BCE)

Sima Qian's Records of the Grand Historian gives the oldest surviving accounts of Laozi and Zhuang Zhou — and candidly admits its own uncertainty about Laozi.

PRIMARY SOURCESCHOLARLY INTERPRETATION

Event: In the Shiji (Records of the Grand Historian, completed c. 100 BCE), Sima Qian recorded the first surviving biographies of Laozi and Zhuang Zhou: the archivist who departed west after writing “five thousand and some characters,” the dragon-praise of Confucius, and the lacquer-garden clerk who refused a Chu kingdom. The chapter itself flags the Laozi account as uncertain — “some say he was Lao Laizi… some say he was the historian Dan… the world does not know which is right.”

Evidence class: primary text (c. 100 BCE), recording traditions then already old. The biographical content is traditional, not verified.

Why it matters here: this is the documentary baseline for every later Laozi and Zhuangzi biography. See the Laozi and Zhuang Zhou pages.

Sources

• Shiji ch. 63, 'Laozi Han Fei liezhuan'. Wikisource: https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/史記/卷063