What is Zuo Zhuan (左传)?

A chronicle of the history of the Spring and Autumn Period in China. It explains the Spring and Autumn Annals with facts, and is one of the most important classics of Confucianism. During the Western Han Dynasty, it was called Zuo's Spring and Autumn Annals, and after the Eastern Han Dynasty, it was renamed Chunqiu Zuo's Biography, or Zuo Zhuan for short. According to Sima Qian, a historian of the Western Han Dynasty, the author was Zuo Qiu Ming of the State of Lu. However, Zuo Qiu Ming was a man of the late Spring and Autumn period, but Zuo Zhuan mentioned certain historical facts of the early Warring States period, so many scholars think this statement is not credible. At the end of the Qing Dynasty, Kang Youwei asserted that it was forged by Liu Xin at the end of the Western Han Dynasty. But before Liu Xin "Zuo Zhuan" has been copied and summarized or quoted by many people, so Kang's statement is also difficult to establish. Contemporary scholars mostly believe that it was made in the early years of the Warring States period. According to Yang Bojun, it was written between 403 and 386 BC.

Zuo Zhuan is an important text that records the social conditions of the Spring and Autumn period. It preserves many valuable philosophical materials, reflecting the further disintegration of the religious concept of heaven, which had begun to falter at the end of the Western Zhou Dynasty, and recording the development of the materialist theory of yin and yang, atheism and the idea of plain dialectics. For example, Shuxing, the Zhou Neishi, believed that phenomena such as "meteorites" were "yin and yang matters", not ghosts or gods to foretell good or bad luck; "good or bad luck comes from people". The Qin state doctors and believe that the disease is not the ghosts and gods, but the yin, yang, wind, rain, darkness, bright "six qi" effect of the results. Zishen and Shusun Zhaozi of Lu believed that eclipses, floods and droughts were caused by the interplay of yin and yang. Shimo of Jin believed that "there are five elements in the earth". Zihan of Song believed that "there are five elements in nature" and regarded the natural world composed of five elements as the material basis for human survival. Zi Chan of Zheng believed that "the way of heaven is far away and the way of man is far away", and that sacrificing treasures to the gods was not enough to avoid fires. Yan Ying of the State of Qi, when discussing the difference between "and" and "the same", expressed the idea that things that are different and opposite can "become each other" and "help each other". The simple dialectical idea of "mutual success" and "mutual help" was expressed by Shi Mo of Jin. Jin Shimo also put forward the idea of change that "there is no constant worship of the gods and grain, and there is no constant position of the ruler and ministers".