Mozi (fifth century BC) was an important political and social thinker and formidable rival of the Confucianists. He advocated universal love - his most important doctrine, according to which all humankind should be loved and treated as one's kinfolk; honoring and making use of worthy men in government; and identifying with one's superior as a means of establishing uniform moral standards. He also believed in the will of Heaven and in ghosts. He firmly opposed offensive warfare, extravagance (including indulgence in music and allied pleasures), elaborate funerals and mourning, fatalistic beliefs and Confucianism.
Author Biography
Burton Watson is one of the world's best-known translators from the Chinese and Japanese. He received the PEN translation prize in 1981. His translations include The Lotus Sutra, The Vimalakirti Sutra, Ryokan: Zen Monk-Poet of Japan, Saigyo: Poems of a Mountain Home, and The Columbia Book of Chinese Poetry: From Early Times to the Thirteenth Century, all published by Columbia. This book presents Watson's renowned translation of a Chinese philosophy classic in pinyin romanization for the first time.
