Daodejing (Tao Te Ching)道德经

Also known as

Laozi, Daode zhenjing (Perfect Scripture of the Dao and De), Laozi's Five Thousand Characters (Wuqian wen), The Five Thousand Words

Author / transmission

Laozi

Period

Pre-Qin · Traditionally composed by Lao Dan at the end of the Spring and Autumn period; the received text is thought to have taken its current form between the mid-to-late Warring States period and the early Han. The Guodian bamboo-slip text was copied around 300 BCE, and the Mawangdui silk manuscripts A and B were copied in the early Han.

Canon division

Dongshen Section, Original Texts (Benwen) category

Collected in

Zhengtong Daozang, Dongshen Section, Benwen category (Daode zhenjing); commentaries are concentrated in the Yujue category of the Dongshen Section.

Category

Daoist Philosophy

Fascicles

Two parts (Dao and De), 81 chapters in the received text, some five thousand characters in all

Synopsis

The Daodejing is the most fundamental classic of Daoist philosophy and religion, traditionally attributed to Lao Dan, Historian-Archivist of the Zhou royal library. The work takes the Dao as the primordial origin of the cosmos and the overarching law governing the operation of all things, and De as the manifestation of the Dao in people and things. It advocates that 'the Dao models itself on what is so of itself (ziran)', 'governing through non-action (wuwei)', 'the soft and weak overcome the hard and strong', and 'knowing sufficiency brings no disgrace', opposing rule by cleverness, penal codes, and military conquest. Its language is spare and largely rhymed, and it has attracted over a thousand commentaries across the ages. The Han-dynasty Heshanggong Commentary and the Wei-dynasty Wang Bi Commentary are the two most influential traditions, while the Xiang'er Commentary of the Way of the Celestial Masters at the end of the Eastern Han transformed it into a religious scripture. In the Tang, Laozi was honored as the Mysterious Primordial Emperor, and the Daodejing was made the foremost text Daoist priests were required to recite; Emperor Xuanzong of Tang, Emperor Huizong of Song, the Hongwu Emperor of Ming, and the Shunzhi Emperor of Qing all produced imperial commentaries on it. The 1973 discovery of the Mawangdui silk manuscripts (with the De chapters preceding the Dao chapters) and the 1993 discovery of the Guodian bamboo-slip text provided important evidence for its early textual forms. It is also among the Chinese classics translated into the largest number of languages.

Key Ideas

• The Dao is the ancestor of the myriad things, born before Heaven and Earth, beyond description
• The Dao models itself on what is so of itself (ziran); it does nothing (wuwei), yet nothing is left undone
• The soft and weak overcome the hard and strong; the highest good is like water
• Reversal is the movement of the Dao; fortune and misfortune lean upon each other
• The political ideal of a small state with a sparse population, and of abandoning sagacity and discarding wisdom
• The cultivational discipline of attaining utmost emptiness and guarding steadfast stillness

Structure

The received text is divided into the Dao Classic (chapters 1–37) and the De Classic (chapters 38–81); in the silk-manuscript text the De chapters precede the Dao chapters; the bamboo-slip text preserves only about two thousand characters, divided into three groups (A, B, C), whose chapter sequence differs considerably from the received text.

Editions

• Guodian bamboo-slip text (mid Warring States period, excavated 1993)
• Mawangdui silk manuscripts A and B (early Han, excavated 1973)
• Peking University Han bamboo-slip text (Western Han)
• Heshanggong zhangju edition
• Wang Bi commentary edition (basis of the received text)
• Fu Yi's collated ancient edition
• Tang Jinglong stele edition and Kaiyuan imperial-commentary stele edition
• Dunhuang manuscripts (including the fragmentary Xiang'er Commentary, S.6825)

Commentaries

• Heshanggong, Laozi zhangju
• Yan Zun, Laozi zhigui
• Wang Bi, Commentary on the Laozi
• Xiang'er Commentary on the Laozi
• Cheng Xuanying, Daodejing yishu
• Emperor Xuanzong of Tang, Imperial Commentary on the True Scripture of the Daodejing and Imperial Subcommentary
• Du Guangting, Daode zhenjing guangshengyi
• Emperor Huizong of Song's imperial exegesis
• Su Zhe, Laozi jie
• Lin Xiyi, Laozi juanzhai koyi
• Wu Cheng, Daode zhenjing zhu
• Jiao Hong, Laozi yi
• Wang Fuzhi, Laozi yan
• Wei Yuan, Laozi benyi
• Huang Yuanji, Daodejing jiangyi

Translations

• James Legge (1891)
• Arthur Waley, The Way and Its Power (1934)
• D. C. Lau (1963)
• Robert Henricks, English translation of the silk-manuscript text (1989)
• Richard John Lynn, English translation of the Wang Bi commentary (1999)
• Roger Ames & David Hall (2003)

Full Text & Online Resources

• CTEXT: Daodejing
• CTEXT: Daode zhenjing zhu (Wang Bi)
• CTEXT: Heshanggong zhangju
• CTEXT: Guodian Chu Slips
• CTEXT: Mawangdui Silk Manuscripts
• Wikisource: Daodejing
• Wikipedia: Daodejing

Related scriptures

Related figures