The Tao Te Ching is a wonderful inspiring book that can be used for meditation purposes, light or deeper reading, intense philosophical debate or Taoist teaching.
I personally try and read the Tao Te Ching every day and often recite a chapter at the end of my Qi Gong classes.
The Tao Te Ching has a long and complex textual history. There are translated versions and commentaries that date back two millennia and ancient bamboos, silk, and paper manuscripts that archaeologists discovered in the last century.
There are many possible translations of the book’s title:
- Dào/Tao can literally be translated as “way”, or one of its synonyms, but was extended to mean “the Way”. This term, which was variously used by other Chinese philosophers (including Confucius, Mencius, Mozi, and Hanfeizi), has special meaning within the context of Taoism, where it implies the essential, unnameable process of nature and the Universe.
- Dé/Te basically means “virtue” in the sense of “personal character”, “inner strength”, or “integrity.” The semantics of this Chinese word resemble English virtue, to the modern meaning of “moral excellence” or “goodness”.
- Jīng/Ching as it is used here means “canon”, “great book”, or “classic”.
Thus, the Tao Te Ching can be translated as “The Classic/Canon of the Way/Path and the Power/Virtue”, etc.
Structure of the book
The Tao Te Ching is a short text of 81 brief chapters or verses. There is some evidence that the chapter divisions were later additions and that the original text was more fluidly organized and read.
It has two parts: The Tao Ching (chaps. 1–37), and the Te Ching (chaps. 38–81), which may have been edited together into the text we know today, it is thought that this possibly reversed from an original “Te Tao Ching”.
The style of writing encourages varied, even contradictory interpretations. The ideas are complex; the style poetic.
The Chinese characters in the original versions were probably written in zhuànshū (seal script), while later versions were written in lìshū (clerical script) and kǎishū (regular script) styles.
Historical background
The Tao Te Ching is ascribed to Laozi, whose historical existence has been a matter of scholastic debate. His name, which means “Old Master” or “old masters” has only fuelled controversy.
The first reliable reference to Laozi is his “biography” by Chinese historian Sima Qian (ca. 145–86 BC), which combines three stories: First, Laozi was a contemporary of Confucius (551-479 BC). His surname was Li (“plum”), and his personal name was Er (“ear”) or Dan (“long ear”). He was an official in the imperial archives, and wrote a book in two parts before departing to the West. Second, Laozi was Lao Laizi (“Old Come Master”), also a contemporary of Confucius, who wrote a book in 15 parts. Third, Laozi was the Grand Historian and astrologer Lao Dan (“Old Long-ears”), who lived during the reign (384-362 BC) of Duke Xian Qin).
Generations of scholars have debated the historicity of Laozi and the dating of the Tao Te Ching. Linguistic studies of the text’s vocabulary and rhyme scheme point to a date of composition around the late 4th or early 3rd centuries BC.
Legends claim variously that Laozi was “born old”; that he lived for 996 years, with twelve previous incarnations starting around the time of the Three Sovereigns before the thirteen as Laozi. Some Western scholars have expressed doubts over Laozi’s historical existence, claiming that the Tao Te Ching is actually a collection of the work of various authors. Chinese scholars by and large accept Laozi as a historical figure, while dismissing exaggerated folkloric claims as superstitious legend.
Taoists venerate Laozi as Taotsu the founder of the school of Tao, the Taode Tianjun in the Three Pure Ones, one of the eight elders transformed from Taiji in the Chinese creation myth.
Principal versions
Tao Te Ching has lately advanced from archaeological discoveries of manuscripts and beginning in the 1920s and 1930s, Marc Aurel Stein and others found thousands of scrolls in the Mogao Caves near Dunhuang (a sample is shown opposite). They included more than 50 partial and complete Tao Te Ching manuscripts. In 1973, archaeologists discovered copies of early Chinese books, known as the ‘Mawangdui Silk Texts’, in a tomb dating from 168 BC. They included two nearly complete copies of the Laozi, 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. Based on calligraphic styles and imperial naming taboo avoidances, scholars believe that A and B can be dated, respectively, to about the first and third decades of the 2nd century BC.
In 1993, the oldest known version of the text, written on bamboo tablets, was found in a tomb near the town of Guodian in Jingmen, Hubei, and dated prior to 300 BC. The Guodian Chu Slips comprise about 800 slips of bamboo with a total of over 13,000 characters, about 2,000 of which correspond with the Tao Te Ching, including 14 previously unknown verses.
Translations
Most translations are written by people with a foundation in Chinese language and philosophy who are trying to render the original meaning of the text as faithfully as possible into English.
Some of the more popular translations are written from a less scholarly perspective, giving an individual author’s interpretation. Critics of these versions claim that translators like Stephen Mitchell produce readings of the Tao Te Ching that deviate from the text and are incompatible with the history of Chinese thought, and some even argue that such versions are based on Western Orientalist fantasies, and represent the colonial appropriation of Chinese culture. Others say that Laozi communicated colloquially and simply, and a true translation will do the same in its place and time. If Laozi attempted to communicate eternal truths, it is the translator’s work to do so as well.
The Tao Te Ching is written in classical Chinese, which can be difficult to understand completely, even for well-educated native speakers of modern Chinese. In fact, in learning classical Chinese, native speakers can be at a disadvantage relative to non-native speakers, as native speakers often have difficulty with Chinese characters whose older meaning differs from the modern language.
Furthermore, many of the words that the Tao Te Ching uses are deliberately vague and ambiguous and since there are no punctuation marks in classical Chinese, it can be difficult to conclusively determine where one sentence ends and the next begins. Moving a full-stop a few words forward or back or inserting a comma can profoundly alter the meaning of many passages, and such divisions and meanings must be determined by the translator.
Some editors and translators argue that the received text is so corrupted (from originally being written on one-line bamboo strips linked with silk threads) that it is impossible to understand some chapters without moving sequences of characters from one place to another. But whatever the difficulties that may surround the book, just try reading it over a few days and its wonderful insight can change your view of the world!
