In order to solve the problem posed by the relationship between the extant version of Wenzi 文子 to a number of pre-Han and Han texts, we must first try to come to some conclusions concerning the date of compilation of the Wenzi. Scholars working on the Wenzi know that the extant version of the Wenzi is closely related to the Huainanzi 淮南子 for there are various parallel passages in both texts. A substantial quantity of bamboo manuscripts was excavated in Han tomb No. 40 at Ding county 定縣 in Hebei 河北 in 1973. Amongst these was a copy of the Wenzi. Since some scholars have discovered that parts of the Wenzi also appeared in the Lüshi Chunqiu 呂氏春秋,they are of the opinion that the Lüshi chunqiu had used the Wenzi in its compilation. This assertion is by no means beyond dispute and still leaves room for further investigation.
This paper seeks to prove that there are matching passages between the excavated Wenzi and the Huainanzi. Since the excavated Wenzi is likely to have been composed at a date after the Huainanzi, the so-called matching between the Wenzi and the Lüshi chunqiu may just be that the Wenzi had incorporated parts of the Huainanzi which in turn had copied parts of the Lüshi chunqiu. By the same token, we cannot be assured of the notion that the Lüshi chunqiu had used the Wenzi texts. This paper has carefully collected all the parallel passages found in both the excavated and extant versions of the Wenzi and the Lüshi chunqiu and has thoroughly investigated their relationship. It is hoped that this will throw light on the complicated problem underlying the relationship between the three works, the Lüshi chunqiu, the excavated version as well as the extant version of the Wenzi and the Huainanzi.