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郭店楚墓竹書‧老子丙

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Text ID
KR2p0149
Date
-400–-300
Dynasty
周

Guōdiàn Chǔmù Zhúshū‧Lǎozǐ Bǐng 郭店楚墓竹書‧老子丙

Chu Tomb Bamboo Books from Guōdiàn — Lǎozǐ Text C (Lǎozǐ bǐng běn 老子丙本)

(anonymous; early Daoist text)

About the work

The third of three separate Lǎozǐ 老子 bundles from Guōdiàn 郭店 Chu Tomb 1, Jīngmén, Húběi (excavated 1993, sealed ca. 300 BCE). Text C (Bǐng běn 丙本) is the smallest of the three bundles, containing passages corresponding to approximately five chapters of the received Lǎozǐ. Like Texts A and B (KR2p0148), it attests a pre-canonical stage of the Lǎozǐ tradition.

Abstract

Provenance. The same tomb and archaeological context as Guōdiàn Lǎozǐ B (KR2p0148): Guōdiàn Tomb 1, Jīngmén, Húběi, ca. 300 BCE. For full archaeological background see the entry for KR2p0148. The three Lǎozǐ bundles were written on physically distinct sets of slips (different lengths and ruling), confirming that they represent separate copying events, not a single interrupted manuscript.

Content. Text C opens with the passage corresponding to Chapter 17 of the received Lǎozǐ: “大上，下知有之” (“With the greatest rulers, the people below merely know they exist”). The digital text continues with passages corresponding to chapters 18, 35, 31, and 64 of the received text. As in Text B, the chapter order does not match the received sequence:

  • Chapter 17 (on the invisible ruler and natural self-transformation)
  • Chapter 18 (on the great Way being abandoned and the appearance of benevolence and righteousness — though this passage is notably absent from the more polemical anti-Confucian form of later received editions)
  • Chapter 35 (on the great image, the Tao that is flavorless yet inexhaustible)
  • Chapter 31 (on the use of weapons only as a last resort)
  • Chapter 64 (on acting before things deteriorate; a chapter known from the Mǎwángduī silk manuscripts in a form closer to the Guōdiàn text than to the Wang Bì recension)

Textual significance. Text C is particularly important for the debate over the “anti-Confucian” passages in the received Lǎozǐ. Chapter 18 in the received text contains the famous lines: “大道廢，有仁義；智慧出，有大偽…” (“When the great Way is abandoned, benevolence and righteousness appear; when cleverness emerges, great hypocrisy appears…”). The Guōdiàn version of this passage, while containing the first phrase “故大道廢，安有仁義” (“Thus when the great Way is abandoned, how could benevolence and righteousness exist?”), is notably shorter and less polemical, lacking the extended critique of moral concepts found in the received text. This observation, first made by scholars examining the editio princeps in 1998, has generated enormous debate about whether the anti-Confucian content of the received Lǎozǐ was added in a later editorial stage.

The passage on weapons in chapter 31 is also significant: it emphasizes treating military victory with funeral rites, a sentiment that fits comfortably in both early Confucian and Daoist ethical frameworks and that is rendered differently in the Wang Bì 王弼 and Mǎwángduī versions.

Dating. As for Text B: the manuscript was copied ca. 300 BCE; the composition of the underlying material is probably fourth–fifth century BCE. The bracket notBefore: −400, notAfter: −300 is applied consistently across all three Guōdiàn Lǎozǐ bundles.

Translations and research

  • 荊門市博物館, 《郭店楚墓竹書》, 文物出版社, 1998 — editio princeps.
  • Henricks, Robert G. Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching: A Translation of the Startling New Documents Found at Guodian. Columbia University Press, 2000 — translates all three bundles.
  • Cook, Scott. The Bamboo Texts of Guodian: A Study and Complete Translation. 2 vols. Cornell East Asia Series, 2012.
  • Allan, Sarah, and Crispin Williams, eds. The Guodian Laozi: Proceedings of the International Conference, Dartmouth College, May 1998. Society for the Study of Early China, 2000.
  • Shaughnessy, Edward L. “The Guodian Manuscripts and their Place in Twentieth-Century Historiography on the Laozi.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 65.2 (2005), pp. 417–457.
  • Csikszentmihalyi, Mark, and Philip J. Ivanhoe, eds. Religious and Philosophical Aspects of the Laozi. SUNY Press, 1999 — important context for the Guōdiàn debate.

Other points of interest

The division of the Lǎozǐ material into three physically distinct bundles (A, B, C) in the same tomb has led to debate over whether the bundles represent different recensions, different pedagogical selections, or simply different copies made at different times. The current scholarly consensus leans toward viewing them as distinct, purposive selections from a larger, still-fluid Lǎozǐ corpus, rather than as alternative complete versions of the text.

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