Humor in Chinese Traditions of Thought, Part Two: Chan Buddhism, Han Confucianism, Legalism, the School of Names, and the <i>Annals of</i> <i>Lü Buwei</i>

Abstract I argue that most of the premodern Chinese schools of thought contain elements of humor that can be analyzed in a differentiated and systematic way. This article is the second of two parts of this investigation. The first part outlined the foundations of humor in the thought of Confucius and Zhuangzi. After an introduction that summarizes some of the systematic foundations which were already presented in more detail in the introduction to the first part, this part of the investigation complements the former by directing the attention to the field of Chan Buddhism. Here, I refer to a humorous anecdote about Deng Yinfeng. To further complete the overall picture, I discuss examples of humor in other ancient schools of Chinese thought, namely in various texts of Han dynasty Confucianism, in Legalism (which also has a Daoist dimension to it), in surviving text fragments of the School of Names (which is implicitly related to Mohist thought), and in The Annals of Lü Buwei (Syncretism). The present article should be read in conjunction with the first part, which was published in last year’s issue of this yearbook.