 As Xuanxue philosophy is seen to offer a fresh approach to understanding the nature and function of Dao, it has come to be called xin daojia (literally, new school of Daoist thought) in some modern Chinese studies, or “Neo-Daoism” in English translation. In the pages that follow, the terms Xuanxue and Neo-Daoism will be used interchangeably in a general sense, as a broad, dynamic intellectual front that flourished during early medieval China, as opposed to a homogeneous “school” with set doctrines. In modern Chinese, Xuanxue is also taken to refer to astrology, geomancy and other popular religious arts, which fall outside the scope of this discussion.