Tao Te Ching
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The Tao Te Ching (道德經›), roughly translated as The Book of the Way and its Virtue (see chapter below on translating the title) is an ancient Chinese scripture originally named the Laozi. The work is traditionally said to have been written around 600 BCE by the famous sage called Lao Tzu (Lao Tse, Laozi, Lao Tze) (WG: Lao Tzu, "Old Master"). Lao Tzu is said to have been a record-keeper of the Emperor's Court of the Zhou Dynasty but the authenticity of these dates and details of authorship are still debated. This short and obscure book is one of the most important in Chinese philosophy and religion, especially in Taoism (Daoism) , but also in Buddhism, because the latter -- an Indian religion -- shared many Taoist words and concepts before developing into Chinese Buddhism. (Indeed, upon first encountering it, Chinese scholars regarded Buddhism as merely a foreign equivalent of Taoism.) Many Chinese artists, including poets, painters, calligraphers and even gardeners have used the book as a source of inspiration. Its influence has also spread widely outside the Far East, aided by many different translations of the text into western languages.
Translations of the titleThere are many possible translations of the book's title, as the meaning of the Chinese characters is somewhat wide.
Thus, 道德經 could be translated as "The Scripture of the Way and the Virtue", "The Great Book of the Way and its Power", "The Doctrine of The Path and its Virtues", etc.Though commonly referred to as the 道德經 , the title is probably a fusion of the two books of scriptures, namely 道經 and 德經. In fact, the latter book has been found in first place in some recent discoveries. It is likely that the combined name of both books has no real intended meaning, though this is at present impossible to ascertain given the numerous revisions of the scriptures.
Structure of the Tao Te ChingIn the form we have it now, the Tao Te Ching is in two sections (Tao, containing chapters 1--37; and Te, chapters 38--81), and uses around 5,000 Chinese characters. Each chapter is rather short, using few characters to express its often difficult ideas poetically.
Historical authenticity of the Tao Te ChingThe existence of Lao Tzu is mentioned in scrolls dating back to 400 BCE, but the details of his life were not contemporaneously recorded. The Chinese historian Sima Qian wrote a supposed biography of him in about 100 BCE, indicating that his birth name was Li Er. Studies on the language and the rhyme scheme of the work point to a date of composition after the Shi Jing or Book of Songs, yet before the writing of Chuang Tzu -- some time in the late fourth or early third centuries. Scholars debate the authorship of the current version of the Tao Te Ching. Sections of it in its current form have been found engraved on stone tablets dated to 300 BCE. The 1973 archeological discovery of more or less complete Chinese "scrolls" (actually silk rolls called the Ma-wang-tui Texts after the village where they were found: Text A, with more lacunae, thought to have been written sometime before Text B which has been dated to 200 BCE) reveals that our most common versions of the received text are substantially the same as that which was known in antiquity, thus limiting the time period during which the writings might have been substantially changed or contributed to. In 1993, the oldest known version of the text was discovered, printed on bamboo strips and dated to 300 BCE. This find unearthed 14 verses previously unknown, refered to as the Guodian text as they were discovered in a tomb in the town of Guodian, in the Hubei province. Many newer translations include these texts, and the verses of the book are often reordered to synthesize the new find. As early as the 1930s, ways to resolve disputes over authorship without declaring who is right or wrong (a Taoist solution) have been proposed. In an essay accompanying a translation by Wai-tao and Dwight Goddard, Dr. Kiang Kang-hu offers, "Three Taoist sages who lived two or three hundred or more years apart, according to history, are commonly believed to be the same man, who by his wisdom had attained longevity. The simpler and more probable solution of the confusion is to accept the historicity of all three but to give credit for the original writing to Lao Tse and consider the others as able disciples and possibly editors. The book in its present form might not have been written until the third century BC, for it was engraved on stone tablets soon after that time". Credit for some verses might be conditionally given to later Taoists "without detracting from the larger credit that belongs to Lao Tse".
Interpretation of the Tao Te ChingMany believe that the Tao Te Ching contains some universal truths which have since been independently recognized in other philosophies, both religious and secular. Each modern language interpretation (including even interpretation of the three-character title, of which there are dozens) differs at least slightly and occasionally profoundly from the next. Depending on how one reads them, some chapters could have three or more interpretations, ranging from practical wisdom for the common man to advice intended for kings to even the odd medical recipe. The following are some concepts and principles which may facilitate understanding of the text.
The Tao that can be spoken of...
These are the first words of the text in its present form (Waley translates "Tao" as "Way"). The Tao Te Ching does not specifically define what the Tao is. Lao Tzu himself reportedly said, "My words are very easy to understand [...] yet no one under heaven understands them." (chapter 70) However, we can point to some of the Tao's characteristics. Tao is the core topic of the book, supplemented by related themes such as Te ("virtue", or "power"), emptiness, return, detachment, and wu-wei ("non-action"). The Tao can be seen as all being, before and beyond all distinctions between different forms or essences of things. Everything comes from Tao and returns to Tao. The nameless and obscure source of everything, the Tao "is like an empty vessel / That yet may be drawn from / Without ever needing to be filled." (Chapter IV, tr. A. Waley)
The "Valley Spirit"
The Tao Te Ching can be seen as advocating mostly "feminine" (or Yin) values, emphasising the qualities of water ¨C fluidity and softness (instead of the solid and stable mountain), choosing the obscure and mysterious aspect of things, and controlling things without ruling them. In this respect, this book can be understood as challenging "male" (or Yang) values such as clarity, stability, positive action, and domination of nature; such values are often referred to as Confucian values. (See Yin Yang page.)
The Return"When he is born, man is soft and weak; in death he becomes stiff and hard... the hard and mighty are cast down; the soft and weak set on high." (chapter 76) This quote shows again Laozi's focus on softness, but in another pair of counterparts: the newborn baby and the old man. Rigidity is the attribute of death, while weakness is the attribute of life. When things or beings are at their beginning, everything is possible. When things have not yet developed, it is the right time to act on them with a better chance for good results. A kind of return to the beginning of things, or to one's own childhood, is required. This focus on the importance of beginnings also has social ramifications. As in the theory of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the Tao Te Ching assumes that ancient times were those of happiness, purity of intentions, and full communion with nature -- "the times when anyone could look inside the nests of all the birds." Problems arose when humanity "invented" culture and civilization. The Tao Te Ching proposes a return to the more natural state, for example in chapter 80, where the text argues the people should "come back to the usage of knotted ropes" in place of any other form of writing. However, the "Return" shouldn't be understood as a simple or reactionary way back to the past, but as a "contraction," a "reduction," a "withdrawal" or even a "retreat" in oneself. This is illustrated in the anti-Confucianist saying: Learning consists in adding to one's stock day by day; the practice of Tao consists in subtracting day by day (ch. 48) and in this strategic advice I dare not advance an inch but retreat a foot instead. (ch. 69) Diminishing one's ego, instead of "improving" it through studies, is the path to real wisdom. Letting the enemy take the first step (thus reducing his range of possiblities) is the way to gain the upper hand. Although this idea of a "Return" is close to some modern psychological practices such as introspection, what is to be reached through "Return" is not the self but emptiness. (Compare this concept to the idea of achieving Nirvana in Buddhism or the idea in Hinduism of realizing Brahman or of attaining moksha .)
The Sage has no heart on his own...The Search for Vacuity is a common concern for many different Asian wisdoms including Taoism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and some aspects of Confucianism. In the Tao Te Ching, emptiness is the theme of many chapters and one could see the entire book as a suite of variations on "the Powers of Emptiness". An explanation on how emptiness has power can be found in chapter 11:
Looking at a Chinese landscape painting, one can understand also how emptiness (the unpainted parts) has the power of giving life to the beings - the trees, mountains, and rivers - it surrounds. Being empty for a man means having no heart on his own, having no fixed preconceptions on how things should be, and having no intentions or agenda. For the ruler's point of view, emptiness is not far from the liberal laissez-faire approach ¨C letting things happen by themselves is the best way to help them grow.
PrinciplesMany variations of religious Taoism are replete with polytheism, ancestor worship, ceremony of various kinds, and alchemic efforts to achieve longevity. The obscureness of the book allows virtually anyone to find anything in its 81 concise and poetical chapters, but scholars often agree that its content focuses mainly on mystical, political, and practical wisdom. Many chapters advocate quietism, harmonious living, and unconditional love, similar to later systems of belief and faith. However, many of these things which are promoted as virtues throughout Taoism are said by Laozi to be lesser goods with their complementary evils (see Chapter 18) and they come because of man's deviation from the original 'Way' or Tao. Above all, the book celebrates simplicity as the way, the achievement of Tao. Whereas the structure and philosophy of the book mitigates against the very idea of principles, it can be argued that The Tao Te Ching demonstrates understanding of such principles as these:
Behind all this, the Tao Te Ching speaks of the ineffable Tao, or the "Way", which is described as the indivisible and indescribable unifying principle of the universe, from which all flows. It is without time, form or substance. The simpler one becomes, the greater hope one has of co-existing with the Tao, which is the only way it can be truly understood.
Translation of the Tao Te Ching
The difficulties of translating classical ChineseThe Tao Te Ching is written in classical Chinese, which is in itself difficult even for normally educated modern native speakers of Chinese to understand completely. Furthermore, many of the words used in the Tao Te Ching are deliberately vague and ambiguous. At the time the Tao Te Ching was written, educated Chinese who could read it would have memorized a large body of fairly standard Chinese literature, and when writing it was common to convey meaning by making allusions to other well-known works which now may have been lost. Few people today have the full command of the vast body of ancient Chinese literature that would have been common in Lao Tzu's day, and thus many levels of subtext are potentially lost on modern translators. There is no punctuation in classical Chinese, and thus often no way to conclusively determine where one sentence ends and the next begins. Moving a period 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 Chinese editors and some translators, indeed, argue that the text is so corrupted (as it was written on one-line bamboo tablets linked with a silk thread) that it's not possible to understand some chapters without moving sequences of characters from one place to another.
TranslationsThe Tao Te Ching is perhaps the most translated book written in the Chinese language, with over 100 different translations into English alone. The combination of being mystical and obscure means that sometimes different translations have nothing in common, suggesting that getting a deep understanding of the text requires reading more than one. A common way to do this is to pick two translations and read them side by side. Adapted with permission from Wikipedia. |
