Wang Bi's Commentary on the Laozi老子注（王弼）

Also known as

Commentary on the Daodejing, Commentary on the Laozi Daodejing, Wang Bi's commentary

Author / transmission

Wang Bi

Period

Wei (Three Kingdoms) · Composed by Wang Bi (226–249) during the Zhengshi reign period.

Canon division

Dongshen Section, Yujue Category

Collected in

Zhengtong Daozang, Dongshen Section, Yujue category (Daode zhenjing zhu).

Category

Daoist Philosophy

Fascicles

Two scrolls (with an appended Laozi zhilüe, General Points of the Laozi)

Synopsis

Wang Bi's Commentary on the Laozi is a foundational work of Wei–Jin Xuanxue (Learning of the Mysterious) and became the standard commentary on the Daodejing for later generations. Wang Bi interpreted Laozi through the thesis 'non-being (wu) as the foundation,' proposing 'honoring the root and stemming the branches' and 'forgetting words once the meaning is grasped.' He distilled the Laozi out of the Han-dynasty frameworks of cosmogony and life-nourishing technique into an ontological philosophy: the Dao is 'non-being,' that by which all beings are what they are; the sage embodies non-being, and so is able to follow the nature of things, accomplishing without acting. The commentary is concise and rigorously argued, and together with his Commentary on the Book of Changes forms the core of the Zhengshi-era Xuanxue movement. This commentary long circulated alongside the Heshanggong edition; from the Song onward it became the standard text for literati readers of the Laozi, and most current eighty-one-chapter editions are based on the Wang Bi recension. The modern scholar Lou Yulie's Wang Bi ji jiaoshi is the standard critical edition.

Key Ideas

• Non-being as the foundation; honoring the root and stemming the branches
• Moral teaching (mingjiao) arises from what is naturally so (ziran)
• Forgetting words once the meaning is grasped, forgetting the image once the idea is grasped
• The sage embodies non-being and follows the nature of things

Structure

Divided into upper and lower sections, with running commentary; also accompanied by the Laozi zhilüe, a summary of its central themes.

Editions

• Zhengtong Daozang edition
• Wuying Palace Assembled Treasures edition
• Lou Yulie, Wang Bi ji jiaoshi (Zhonghua Book Company, 1980)

Translations

• Richard John Lynn, The Classic of the Way and Virtue (1999)
• Rudolf Wagner, German and English studies and annotated translations

Full Text & Online Resources

• CTEXT: Daode zhenjing zhu
• Wikipedia: Wang Bi

Related scriptures

Related figures