DAODE JING (TAO TE CHING)

Russell Kirkland, "The Book of the Way." Copyright: Ian P. McGreal, ed., Great Literature of the
Eastern World (New York: HarperCollins, 1996), 24-29. Used by permission

Alternate Title: Laozi (Lao-tzu)

Date: ca. 300 BCE
Major Themes:
There is an enduring natural reality known as the Tao, which gives life to all things.
The Tao exemplifies wu-wei ("non-action"), a behavior characterizable as benign noninvolvement, illustrated through images of unassuming life-giving forces like
water and the mother.
Humans have digressed from the Tao, and need to return to it, thereby attaining
individual success and socio-cosmic harmony.
One returns to the Tao by foregoing foolish interventional schemes (like those of the
Confucians), practicing instead the behaviors exemplified by the Tao.

The Daode jing is an ancient Chinese example of wisdom literature. It is the most well-known
work of Chinese literature, and possibly the most well-known work of any non-Western civilization. It
is known throughout the world, for it has been translated into every major language on earth, and into
many minor ones. There are over a hundred versions in English alone. In fact, the Daode jing has been
translated more often into more languages than any other work in history except the Bible. And like the
Bible, it was the product of a complex compositional process, the unravelling of which is still ongoing
among scholars.

The Nature of the Daode jing

The Daode jing is a relatively brief text, just over five thousand characters long. Its form is part
poetry, part prose. At the opening of the Han dynasty at the end of the third century BCE, the text was
commonly circulated in two sections, one labelled Dao and the other labelled De; some scholars believe
that those divisions were just a matter of convenience in storage. In the Mawangdui manuscripts
(discovered by archaeologists in the 1970s), the De chapters precede the Dao chapters; in the more
familiar edition of Wang Bi (a commentator of the 3rd century CE), the two sections are reversed
(chapters 1-37 being Dao and 38-81 being De). Since the first century BCE, the text has generally been
divided into eighty-one chapters. Today's readers should bear in mind that these divisions may not have
been present in the "original" text, and it is by no means clear that any real meaning should be read into
them.
At first glance, the Daode jing is a jumble of unrelated sayings. Some have concluded that the
unknown person(s) who collected the sayings imposed no structure upon the resulting text. Others have
argued that no one would have been likely to have composed so formless a text, so we should conclude
that it did in fact once possess a coherent structure, which was subsequently lost. A few scholars have
speculated that the text once became deranged when the strings binding the ancient bamboo strips came
undone, but such imaginings do not withstand critical analysis. A number of twentieth-century scholars,
Chinese and Western alike, have taken the peculiar liberty of reorganizing the text itself. Such
rearrangements are often little more than an arbitrary imposition of the interpreter's own perspective
onto the text, and they sometimes destroy subtle vestiges of meaningful order already present within it.
Much more misleading to readers, however, is the unending flow of pseudo-translations by fatuous
dilettantes, who delude themselves and the public into a false belief that they have a true understanding
of the text.

The "Authorship" of the Daode jing

Until recent centuries, the Daode jing was almost universally accepted as the creation of an ancient
Chinese wise man known as Laozi (whence the other name by which it is commonly known). That
attribution gradually came to be challenged by Chinese scholars, and in the 20th century it became
subjected to increasing criticism by Chinese, Japanese, and Western scholars alike. The traditional
attribution rests ultimately upon the reports of the historian Sima Qian (Ssu-ma Ch'ien) in his Shiji (Shihchi), composed ca. 100 BCE. By ancient standards, Sima was a conscientious historian, and his annals are
generally trustworthy. But when he attempted to sketch the lives of the great thinkers of ancient China,
he ran across a problem: there was no trustworthy data in his day regarding the identity of the author of
the Daode jing. Consequently, he provided several conflicting identifications, admitting ultimately that he
had no way to decide among them. According to the most famous account, "Laozi" had been a man named
Lao Dan, an archivist for the Zhou ruling house from whom Confucius had sought advice about propriety
(li). Other sources indicate that Confucius may indeed have met someone named Lao Dan, but the
evidence suggests that that person had nothing to do with "Taoist thought," much less with the Daode
jing itself. The most recent scholarship suggests that someone of the 3rd century concocted the fiction of
Lao Dan as the Daode jing's "author" in an effort to lend it the lustre of a learned man in royal service,
whom even Confucius had respected and sought to learn from. Yet, the mistaken belief that the Daode
jing was written by a wise man named "Laozi" endures. Readers should bear firmly in mind that in reality
such notions rank with the attribution of the Pentateuch to Moses or the book of Proverbs to Solomon.
It is possible that some of the ideas found in the Daode jing may have begun to take form
sometime during the general period in which Confucius lived. But scholars today, in the West and in Asia
alike, generally agree that the actual text of the Daode jing is a much later product. In actuality, the Daode
jing first appeared sometime during the early 3rd century BCE. In fact, it was certainly later than the
writings of Zhuang Zhou (Chuang Chou), the 4th-century author of the earliest sections of the "Taoist"
work named for him, the Zhuangzi (Chuang-tzu).

The Teachings of the Daode jing

The focus of the Daode jing is something called "the Tao (or Dao)," a term that cannot
adequately be translated. The text says that the Tao is "vague and subtle," and it never provides
definitions. Instead, it employs metaphors to suggest the nature of the Tao, and to describe behaviors
that are similar to its way of working. Most basically, the term Tao seems to denote a natural force that
runs through all things and guides them through their natural course of development. It is an
inexhaustible source of life and power, and is constantly at work in the world in subtle and imperceptible
ways. Both its reality and its nature can be perceived by observing the world around us. However,
most people have lost sight of the Tao, and have given way to unnatural behaviors that go contrary to it.
The goal of the Daode jing is to persuade the reader to abandon those behaviors, and to learn once again
how to live in accord with the true course of life. One can achieve those goals by appreciating the true
nature of life, and modifying one's behavior to be more like that of the Tao.
Specifically, the Tao is humble, yielding, and non-assertive. Like a mother, it benefits others
selflessly: it gives us all life and guides us safely through it, asking nothing in return. This altruistic
emphasis of the Daode jing has seldom been noticed, but it is one of the most important lessons that it
draws from the observation of the natural world. Water, for instance, is the gentlest and most yielding of
all things, yet it can overcome the strongest substances, and cannot itself be destroyed. More
importantly, however, water lives for others: it provides the basis of life for all things, and asks nothing
in return. If we learn to live like water does, we will be living in accord with the Tao, and its Power (De)
will carry us safely through life. Such a way of life is called wuwei, usually translated as "non-action."
Wuwei means foregoing all activity intended to effect desired ends. Instead, one should follow one's
natural course and allow all other things to do likewise, lest our willful interference disrupt things' proper
flow. Few modern readers have ever grasped the full radicality of the ideal of wuwei. Many of us today
(like the ancient Chinese Confucians and Mohists) look at the world and see things that we think need
correcting. The Daode jing would actually have us do nothing whatsoever about them. The repeated
phrase "do nothing, and nothing will be undone" admonishes us to trust the Tao -- the natural working of
things -- and never to do anything about anything. Actually, such is the most that anyone can do,
because the Tao -- as imperceptible as it is -- is the most powerful force in existence, and nothing can
thwart its unceasing operation.

The Origins of the Daode jing

Probably the most common mistake people make when trying to understand the Daode jing is
that of assuming that it represents a uniform system of thought that evolved in the mind of a single
person. In reality, the Daode jing is unquestionably the result of a long process of development, the
contours of which can be reasonably deduced by combining analysis of the work's form and contents
with a knowledge of the social and intellectual history of ancient China. Only by understanding how the
Daode jing evolved can one truly understand its contents. The Daode jing can best be compared to
works of "wisdom literature" like the Biblical book of Proverbs. In other words, its primary purpose is
to provide the reader with profound advice about how to live his life. Oddly, this simple fact is seldom
appreciated. Many have misinterpreted the Daode jing as a philosophical treatise, or as just another
manifestation of a universal mystical wisdom. Such interpretations misconstrue the fundamental nature
of the work. The key to understanding the Daode jing is that it had a unique textual history: current
research suggests that it originated in the real-life oral wisdom teachings of a local community, and was
then transformed by anonymous editors into an expression of sociopolitical principles designed to
compete with those of the Confucians and Legalists.
Some scholars today continue to read the Daode jing as the product of ancient Chinese
intellectuals, members of the same social elite that produced the Confucians and many of the leading
spokesmen for other schools of thought. Just as texts like the Mozi, for instance, show dissatisfaction
with the Confucian perspective, so does the Daode jing. So, the reasoning of some scholars goes, it too
must have been the work of "alienated idealists" trying to critique existing social and political conditions.
But such sociopolitical positions, though clearly present in the Daode jing, really seem to have little to
do with its most basic themes, such as the reality of the force called "the Tao." Nor does the text's
sociopolitical slant seem to harmonize well with its most emphasized lesson for human life -- that one
should emulate the Tao by playing no active role in human affairs. If one were really to practice wuwei,
as the Daode jing says a true Sage does, wouldn't one just live one's own life, in accord with the natural
order, completely ignoring the social and political "issues" of the day? Yet, the Daode jing contains

many chapters dedicated to demonstrating how a Sage can rule a nation or even fight a war. That irony
actually gives us clear indication of the Daode jing's textual history: once a collection of teachings for
personal life in accord with the deepest order of reality, the collection was transformed into a tract
designed to have a sociopolitical relevance.
The best explanation for those facts seems to be as follows. At some point prior to 300 BCE
there was a community somewhere in ancient China (quite possibly in the southern state of Chu) that
passed down a tradition of homespun wisdom. Originally, that wisdom consisted of such "real-life"
advice as parents and other elders in any culture normally provide orally to young people: behave in a
wise and healthy way, and you'll have a full and comfortable life, free from conflict or unexpected
suffering. Here we can appreciate why neither Sima Qian nor anyone else in 3rd-2nd century China
could identify the wise man supposedly designated by the term laozi. Far from having been a personal
name, the term lao here has its usual, everyday meaning of "aged." It was a Japanese scholar, Kimura
Eiichi, who first argued that laozi was not originally a title for some wise "Master Lao," but rather a
generic reference to "the old ones" from whom anyone in any culture receives one's earliest and most
important lessons in life. What set this particular tradition apart from the normal wisdom of any other
community was that some of its participants had evidently meditated upon the world's workings to the
point of perceiving a universal force, which could be experienced by deep introspection. Thus, the key
to the oral tradition that constituted the wisdom of "the old ones" (laozi) was that we should learn to
perceive that reality and, by focussing upon it, to return to our "natural" behaviors, living a quiet life of
humble beneficence, giving selflessly to others, as a mother does. This tradition, one should note, was
not the product of any social or intellectual elite: it was the accumulated wisdom of generations of old
folk (probably women and men alike), passed down to each generation in a small-scale rural community .
For convenience, we may refer to that tradition as the teachings of "the Laoist community."
But ancient China had been undergoing radical sociocultural changes since the 7th century BCE,
and by the 4th century those changes were accelerating ever more rapidly: political disintegration was
accompanied by rapid economic change and the decay of certain social values and traditions. In certain
locales, especially around political centers in the north, members of the emerging shi class began
formulating new analyses of what was going wrong with society, and recommendations for rectifying the

wretched state of affairs. That class included such 5th-century teachers as Confucius and his critic Mozi
(Mo-tzu), and Confucius' 4th-century defender Mencius (Mengzi). Each of those men argued that the
state of the world could be rectified by the activity of a self-selecting elite of wise and dedicated
individuals: they would learn to exemplify a proper set of virtues, to lead the world back to the
sociopolitical harmony that it had supposedly enjoyed in the days of the ancient sage-kings.
Circumstantial evidence suggests toward the end of the 4th century, young people from the
Laoist community arrived in one of the newly emerging political centers, and became interested in the
debates that were raging among the shi intellectuals around the rulers' courts. They compared the
intellectuals' sociopolitical arguments with the teachings of their own traditional heritage, and developed
the radical idea that the "old folks'" teachings about wuwei and the natural order could be applied to the
problems with which the intellectuals were so concerned. They then wrote down the memorable lessons
of the "old ones" and added passages to explain how wuwei could enable a ruler to bring peace and order
to his land. Other passages were added to address other issues current among the "intellectual elite" of
the day, such as warfare. The resulting text -- a combination of traditional oral wisdom and
unprecedented sociopolitical doctrines -- was then promulgated among intellectuals, identified only as
the teachings of laozi -- "the venerable elders." The intellectuals failed to understand that term, and
assumed that the text must have been the name of some thinker, just like Mozi or Mengzi. By the middle
of the 3rd century, the ideas found in it came to fascinate a large segment of the intelligentsia, and
thinkers of every stripe, including Confucians and even Legalists, began to incorporate those ideas into
their own teachings.
Later, in Han times, librarians who faced the need to catalogue the multifarious pre-Han texts
grouped together certain works that seemed to share similar themes. Thus the text called Laozi came to
be classed together with writings like those of Zhuang Zhou and his followers under the rubric of daojia.
Later generations reified that library classification into a "school of thought," now familiar to Asians and
Westerners alike as "the Taoists." Admiring Han emperors dignified the text then known as Laozi with
the honorific title jing, "classic," which in earlier times had been reserved for the early Zhou texts that the
Confucians promoted. Since the text in those days was kept in two sections, Dao and De, the resulting
"classic" was denominated Daode jing (or, in the Mawangdui versions, Dedao jing).

The Relationship of Form and Contents in the Daode jing

The Daode jing as we have it today is not like any of the classical Chinese works with which
people are generally familiar. It is not a collection of dialogues and pronouncements, like Mencius or the
Analects of Confucius. Nor is it a set of reasoned arguments, like portions of the Mozi or Xunzi. The
text that it most resembles is a little-known work of the same period called the Neiyeh, a text of some
1600 characters. The Neiyeh teaches the individual how to attract and internalize spiritual forces -including forces called dao and de -- by means of a meditative process of quiescence and purification.
The Neiyeh was influential in early Han times, but lost its prominence when it was incorporated into a
collection called the Guanzi (Kuan-tzu) and ceased to circulate independently. The similarities of form
and content between the Neiyeh and the Daode jing lead scholars today to believe that the editors of the
Daode jing drew inspiration from the Neiyeh.
A notable feature of both texts is an absence of proper names and references to specific locations
or events, whether historic or fictitious. Most other classical Chinese texts contain at least some traces
of the compilers' own lives and the milieux in which they lived. Even the Zhuangzi, which shares a
similar understanding of life, is radically different in style and structure: it records the profound and
whimsical reflections of a brilliant mind upon problems of human life, but it also tells stories, in which
real or fictive characters wrestle with life's mysteries. The Daode jing tells no stories and mentions no
characters. It contains only vague references to "the Sage," "the ancients," or "the lord of ten thousand
chariots." It thus seems that its editors deliberately constructed a text that could never be connected to
any specific place or person, or to any identifiable intellectual tradition. One could infer that they
intended to obscure the origins of the collected material. But more likely, they were employing a literary
device to have a specific effect upon the reader: because one is confronted directly and immediately with
provocative and cryptic sayings, and never distracted by references to what anyone else has ever thought
or done, one's focus is always upon oneself, and upon the world in general. This focus induces the
reader not only to cultivate the desired values and behaviors, but to perceive his true reality to be
grounded in the natural order and in the cosmos as a whole, rather than in any historical particularities.

Clearly, part of the final editor's goal was very much like that of Zhuang Zhou's school -- to
force the reader to come to terms with a startling new perception of his own reality. For instance,
ancient proverbs (from the "Laoist" tradition and possibly elsewhere) were cast in an unexpected new
context, twisting the reader's frame of reference in order to stimulate a radically new perspective upon
reality. In part, this device was a deliberate exploitation of the fact that the reader of the text was
ignorant of the oral tradition of the ancient "Laoist" community: aphorisms the meaning of which may
have once been explained in person by local elders were now context-free. The editor sometimes
provided a new context by "explaining" the adage. But he often left meaningful gaps, juxtaposing
passages that had no readily apparent connection. He thus requires the reader to make leaps of
comprehension. The result is a text the "meaning" of which was designed to be a process: coming to
understand it takes many re-readings, in which one comes to perceive entire new levels of meaning. The
Daode jing's method of teaching thus parallels and reinforces its content, and understanding one sheds
light upon the other. In addition, by leaving the reader to make his own connection, the Daode jing
appeals to readers on different levels: no matter the reader's level of sensitivity or understanding, he is
drawn in, receiving a challenge that is suited to his present state of awareness, yet being led ever further
into new levels of understanding. It is these qualities as much as the Daode jing's ideas about life that
enthralled centuries of Chinese readers, and continues to have the same effect on readers throughout the
world today.

Further Reading
Boltz, Judith Magee, "Lao-tzu." In The Encyclopedia of Religion (New York: Macmillan, 1987), 8:45459. A thorough critical exploration of the figure "Laozi" throughout Chinese history, by a
reliable, well-informed specialist.

Chan, Wing-tsit, trans., The Way of Lao Tzu. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1963. A substantial
presentation of the text, with copious notes from both traditional commentaries and modern

studies by Asian and Western scholars. The translation is occasionally skewed by Chan's NeoConfucian bent, but his examination of the text's traditional attribution is of lasting value.

Graham, A. C., "The Origins of the Legend of Lao Tan." In his Studies in Chinese Philosophy and
Philosophical Literature (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990), 111-24.

Henricks, Robert G., trans., Lao-tzu Te-Tao Ching. New York: Ballantine Books, 1989. The new
standard by one of the West's foremost authorities on the Mawangdui editions of the text.

LaFargue, Michael, The Tao of the Tao te ching: A Translation and Commentary. Albany: State
University of New York Press, 1992. An intriguing analysis by a non-sinologist who specializes
in hermeneutic theory. While some of LaFargue's provocative ideas (like his rearrangement of the
text) are debatable, his interpretive models are a significant contribution to our understanding of
the text.

Lau, D. C., trans., Chinese Classics: Tao Te Ching. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1982. A
revised edition of the most sober and substantial study of the Daode jing in the English language.

Waley, Arthur, trans., The Way and Its Power: A Study of the Tao Te Ching and is Place in Chinese
Thought. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1934. A influential study that served as the
standard for thirty years.