Wang Bi

Wang Bi (226–249) was a philosopher of the Three Kingdoms era and a founder of xuanxue ("the Learning of the Arcane"). His commentary "Laozi Daodejing zhu" (老子道德經注) laid the foundation of the philosophical reading of the Daodejing: Wang Bi reads the Dao as the non-being ground of all that is. It was Wang Bi's edition that became the "received text" (通行本): nearly all later editions and translations — from Song compilations to Julien and the first Russian versions — were made from it. Despite dying at twenty-four, Wang Bi also left a commentary on the Yijing.