Mozi - The Book of Master Mo

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Translation first published in a bilingual edition by The Chinese University Press 2010
This revised translation, with additional editorial material, first published in Great Britain by Penguin Classics 2013

Translation copyright Ian Johnston, 2010
Editorial material copyright Ian Johnston, 2013

Cover: By the Lake (Hubian), 1998, woodcut by Li Yitai (Photograph Bridgeman Art Library)

All rights reserved

The moral right of the translator and author of the editorial material has been asserted

Typeset by Jouve (UK), Milton Keynes

ISBN: 978-0-141-39211-0

PENGUIN CLASSICS

MASTER MO (Mo Zi, Mo Di) lived through the last three-quarters of the fifth century BCE and established a social philosophy which, if implemented, would, he thought, remedy the ills of the turbulent and chaotic times. This was the Warring States period, during which a number of independent states struggled in China either to maintain their independence or to gain control of other states. As was the common practice among itinerant philosophers of the time, he travelled from state to state, trying to find a ruler who would implement his policies. But, unlike other philosophers, he had a second string to his bow he was also an expert in defensive warfare. Although his school did not survive the Qin unification (221 BCE ), when Legalism became the dominant political philosophy, the book bearing his name has fortunately survived as an important document from the great flowering of Chinese philosophy.

IAN JOHNSTON has had a lifelong interest in ancient languages beginning in his days as a medical undergraduate at the University of St Andrews. Despite a busy medical career he found time to pursue his studies of language, obtaining a PhD in Chinese and an MA in Latin from the Sydney University and a PhD in Greek from the University of New England, New South Wales. On his retirement as Associate Professor of Neurosurgery at Sydney University in 1999, he moved to South Bruny Island off the southern coast of Tasmania and now devotes his time to reading and translation. He has published two books of translations of early Chinese poetry (Singing of Scented Grass and Waiting for the Owl), which include some poems of his own in response to his reading of early Chinese philosophy, and two translations of early Chinese philosophical works the Mozi and the Daxue and Zhongyong (the latter in collaboration with Wang Ping) both in bilingual form. His Greek studies have focused on the remarkable second-century- CE doctor Galen, who exerted a profound and long-lasting influence on both Western and Arabian medicine. He has published a translation of Galens four fundamental treatises on the nature of diseases and symptoms and the first complete English translation of one of his major works Method of Medicine, in a bilingual form for the Loeb Classical Library (in collaboration with Greg Horsley). In 2011 he was awarded the New South Wales Premiers Prize and the PEN medallion for translation.