Tao Te Ching
The Tao Te Ching or Dào Dé Jīng, often Laozi in Chinese and scholarship, is an ancient Chinese classic text, becoming a foundational work of Taoism. Traditionally credited to the sage Laozi, with several similar early versions recovered, the texts' authorship and dates of composition and compilation are debated. The oldest excavated portion dates to the late 4th century BCE. While tradition places Laozi earlier, a more conservative estimation would date modern versions of the text only as far back as the late Warring States period.
The Tao Te Ching is central to both philosophical and religious Taoism, and has been highly influential on Chinese philosophy and religious practice in general. It is generally taken as preceding the Zhuangzi, the other core Taoist text. Terminology originating within the text has been reinterpreted and elaborated upon by Legalist thinkers, Confucianists, and particularly Chinese Buddhists, introduced to China significantly after the initial solidification of Taoist thought. One of the most translated texts in world literature, the text is well known in the West.
Title
In English, the title is commonly rendered Tao Te Ching, following the Wade–Giles romanization, or as Daodejing, following pinyin. It can be translated as The Classic of the Way and its Power, The Book of the Tao and Its Virtue, The Book of the Way and of Virtue, The Tao and its Characteristics, The Canon of Reason and Virtue, The Classic Book of Integrity and the Way, or A Treatise on the Principle and Its Action.Ancient Chinese books were commonly referenced by the name of their real or supposed author, in this case the "Old Master", Laozi. As such, the Tao Te Ching is also sometimes called the Laozi, especially in Chinese sources. The term dao-de itself was not used in the time of Mencius; it emerges in the late Warring States period.
The title Tao Te Ching, designating the work's status as a classic, was first applied during the reign of Emperor Jing of Han. Other titles for the work include the honorific Sutra of the Way and Its Power and the descriptive Five Thousand Character Classic.
Authorship
The Tao Te Ching is traditionally ascribed to Laozi, whose historical existence has been a matter of scholarly debate. His name, which means "Old Master", has only fueled controversy on this issue. Legends claim variously that Laozi was "born old" and that he lived for 996 years, with 12 previous incarnations starting around the time of the Three Sovereigns before the 13th as Laozi. Some scholars have expressed doubts about Laozi's historicity.The first biographical reference to Laozi is in the Records of the Grand Historian, by Chinese historian Sima Qian, which combines three stories. In the first, Laozi was a contemporary of Confucius. His surname was Li, and his personal name was Er or Dan. He was an official in the imperial archives, and wrote a book in two parts before departing to the West; at the request of the keeper of the Han-ku Pass, Yinxi, Laozi composed the Tao Te Ching. In the second story, Laozi, also a contemporary of Confucius, was Lao Laizi, who wrote a book in 15 parts. Third, Laozi was the grand historian and astrologer Lao Dan, who lived during the reign of Duke Xian of Qin.
Feng Youlan believed the Tao te Ching was a late work, but did not consider it a significant issue for tradition if the Tao te Ching turned out to be a much later work than the traditional Laozi. He did not believe the traditional account required Laozi to personally write the book named for him, or that this would therefore void him having been a real person.
Textual history
Principal versions
Among the many transmitted editions of the Tao Te Ching text, the three primary ones are named after early commentaries. The "Yan Zun Version", which is only extant for the Te Ching, derives from a commentary attributed to Han dynasty scholar Yan Zun. The "Heshang Gong" version is named after the legendary Heshang Gong, who supposedly lived during the reign of Emperor Wen of Han. This commentary has a preface written by Ge Xuan, granduncle of Ge Hong, and scholarship dates this version to. The origins of the "Wang Bi" version have greater verification than either of the above. Wang Bi was a Three Kingdoms-period philosopher and commentator on the Tao Te Ching and I Ching.Archaeologically recovered manuscripts
Tao Te Ching scholarship has advanced from archaeological discoveries of manuscripts, some of which are older than any of the received texts. Beginning in the 1920s and 1930s, Marc Aurel Stein and others found thousands of scrolls in the Mogao Caves near Dunhuang. They included more than 50 partial and complete manuscripts. Another partial manuscript has the Xiang'er commentary, which had previously been lost.In 1973, archaeologists discovered copies of early Chinese books, known as the Mawangdui Silk Texts, in a tomb dated to 168 BCE. They included two nearly complete copies of the text, referred to as Text A and Text B, both of which reverse the traditional ordering and put the Te Ching section before the Tao Ching, which is why the Henricks translation of them is named "Te-Tao Ching". Based on calligraphic styles and imperial naming taboo avoidances, scholars believe that Text A can be dated to about the first decade and Text B to about the third decade of the 2nd century BCE.
In 1993, the oldest known version of the text, written on bamboo slips, was found in a tomb near the town of Guodian in Jingmen, Hubei, and dated prior to 300 BCE. The Guodian Chu Slips comprise around 800 slips of bamboo with a total of over 13,000 characters, about 2,000 of which correspond with the Tao Te Ching. Both the Mawangdui and Guodian versions are generally consistent with the received texts, excepting differences in chapter sequence and graphic variants. Several recent Tao Te Ching translations utilise these two versions, sometimes with the verses reordered to synthesize the new finds.
Contents
Themes
Structure and style
The Tao Te Ching is a text of around 5,162 to 5,450 Chinese characters in 81 brief chapters or sections. There is some evidence that the chapter divisions were later additions—for commentary, or as aids to rote memorisation—and that the original text was more fluidly organised. It has two parts, the Tao Ching and the Te Ching, which may have been edited together into the received text, possibly reversed from an original Te Tao Ching.Contrasting with Confucianism, its general statements are free of narration or reference to "any particular persons, times, or places." The written style is laconic, with few grammatical particles. While the ideas are singular, the style is poetic, combining two major strategies: short, declarative statements, and intentional contradictions, encouraging varied, contradictory interpretations. The first of these strategies creates memorable phrases, while the second forces the reader to reconcile supposed contradictions. With a partial reconstruction of the pronunciation of Old Chinese spoken during the Tao Te Chings composition, approximately three-quarters rhymed in the original language.
The Chinese characters in the earliest versions were written in seal script, while later versions were written in clerical script and regular script styles.
Chronological theories
Early scholarship
Although debated more in early scholarship, early modern scholars like Feng Youlan and Herrlee G. Creel still considered the work a compilation; Gu Jiegang believed it to have been written over three centuries. Most modern scholarship holds the text to be a compilation, as typical for long-form early Chinese texts.Discussing concepts of names and realities, the early scholarship of Feng Youlan theorized the school of names as preceding the work, and therefore, as opposed to the tradition of an early dating, believed it came after Gongsun Long or Hui Shi. But this theory is not as useful modernly, because the Tao te Ching does not demonstrate school of names influence the way the Zhuangzi does. Discussion of names and realities are common in early Chinese philosophy outside just the school of names.
Overview
Derived of Sima Qian's perspective in the mid-early Han dynasty, the term Daoist would typically bring Laozi and Zhuangzi to mind. Alongside the Han Feizi, the Tao Te Ching was likely becoming more influential than the Zhuangzi and Shen Buhai by Sima Qian's time, if they were not already influential going back to the late Warring States period. Sima Qian discusses them together, but names the chapter "Biographies of Laozi and Han Fei". Though influencing the Han Feizi and Huangdi Sijing, Shen Dao, associated with the Jixia Academy, does not appear to maintain the influence of Shang Yang and Shen Buhai going into the Han dynasty.Earlier more influential, based on Shen Dao there were at least some Laozi-like currents by the early mid Warring States period. Benjamin I. Schwartz viewed Shen Dao as still naturalist but less "primitivist" than Laozi, seeing high civilization as part of nature rather than rejecting it. But if Shen Dao was influenced by Laozi, much of his other beliefs are still more archaic; he has a view of human disposition as self-interested aligning more with Zhuangzi, but less developed views of Dao, and was more fatalist, including a belief that human disposition could not change. The Zhuangzi and Tao te Ching both come to believe human disposition can change.
Despite Shen Dao's early heyday, Guanzi currents would seem more theoretically dominant among late Warring States period nobles. The Huangdi Sijing has some few Shen Dao passages, but Guanzi passages are most dominant in it. It has an introduction resembling the Tao te Ching, but doesn't provide it as a source. While it is posible it goes farther back, it is easier to suggest a modern Tao te Ching, with a more marked increase in influence, closer to the end of Warring States period, with Laozi mentioned in the Lushi Chunqiu, and commentaries in the Han Feizi.
Though scholar Pei Wang primarily treats the similarities and differences of Laozi, the Huangdi Sijing and Han Feizi, at least in review with Pei Wang, Yuri Pines Dao Companion to China's fa tradition expresses openness to the "indebtedness" of early Warring States thinkers like Shen Buhai to Laozi.