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道德真經

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Text ID
KR5c0045
Date
-400–-300
Dynasty
戰國

Dàodé zhēn jīng 道德真經

True Scripture of the Way and Its Virtue

attributed to 老子 (Lǎozǐ; traditional dates 6th cent. BCE; received text 4th cent. BCE)

The Dàodé zhēn jīng is the canonical Dàozàng edition of the Lǎozǐ 老子 or Dàodé jīng 道德經 without commentary — the foundational scripture of both philosophical and religious Daoism, attributed in tradition to Lǎozǐ and preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng (DZ 664 / CT 664, 洞神部本文類) in two juàn of eighty-one zhāng jù 章句 (chapters). The text is known as Dàodé jīng, Lǎozǐ, Dàodé zhēn jīng (the honorific title acquired in the Táng), and in Sìkù cataloguing as Lǎozǐ Dàodé jīng. The two juàn consist of the Dào piān 道篇 (chs. 1–37) and the Dé piān 德篇 (chs. 38–81); each chapter in the present edition bears a three-character title (tǐ dào zhāng dì yī 體道章第一 “Chapter 1, Embodying the Dao”; yǎng shēn zhāng dì èr 養身章第二 “Chapter 2, Nourishing the Self”; etc.) aligned with the Héshàng gōng 河上公 commentary tradition.

About the work

The Dàodé jīng is a collection of short, rhythmic, axiomatically paradoxical texts totalling about 5,000 characters. Its doctrinal ambit embraces, among much else:

  • The dào 道 as unnameable origin beyond being and non-being (dào kě dào, fēi cháng dào 道可道、非常道; ch. 1);
  • The dialectic of yǒu 有 and wú 無 (being and non-being; chs. 1, 2, 11);
  • The paradigm of wúwéi 無為 (non-action) and the shèngrén 聖人 (sage-ruler; chs. 2, 3, 47, 57);
  • The cosmogonic sequence yī shēng èr, èr shēng sān, sān shēng wàn wù 一生二、二生三、三生萬物 (ch. 42);
  • The shuǐ 水 (water) metaphor (shàng shàn ruò shuǐ 上善若水; ch. 8);
  • The yīng’ér 嬰兒 (infant) and pǔ 朴 (unhewn block) as images of the realised being (chs. 10, 20, 28, 32, 37, 55);
  • The xuánpìn 玄牝 (Mysterious Female) as the cosmogonic matrix (ch. 6);
  • The xuán dé 玄德 (mysterious virtue; chs. 10, 51, 65);
  • The rejection of rén yì 仁義 as a fallen substitute for lost dào (chs. 18, 19, 38);
  • The small-state utopia (xiǎo guó guǎ mín 小國寡民; ch. 80);
  • The aphoristic ending on the sage’s selfless service (ch. 81).

The received text reproduces, in the present Daozang edition, the eighty-one-chapter arrangement associated with the He-Shang Gōng commentary tradition (DZ 682 Dàodé zhēn jīng zhù 道德真經注). Schipper notes in his TC entry that part of the original text (at DZ 664 1.8b–10b) has been lost in transmission, and that the missing passages have been replaced with the corresponding ones of DZ 665 Dàodé jīng gǔběn piān 道德經古本篇 (edited by Fù Yì 傅奕; see KR5c0046). The present Daozang edition is thus in part a mediated text conflating the received Héshàng gōng recension with Fù Yì’s 古本 (Ancient Recension).

Prefaces

No preface. The Daozang edition gives the bare scriptural text without commentarial apparatus, preface, or postface. (The preface-and-commentary counterparts of the Daozang Dàodé jīng tradition are collected as separate titles: the Héshàng gōng commentary in DZ 682, the Wáng Bì 王弼 commentary in DZ 690 Dàodé zhēn jīng zhù 道德真經注 by Wáng Bì, the Yù zhù 御注 commentary of Táng Xuánzōng in DZ 677–680, and so forth.)

Abstract

Schipper’s notice in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004, 1:58–59, DZ 664) classifies the text in section 1.A.1 “Philosophy” and reads:

“The True Scripture of the Way and Its Virtue. This is the book of Lǎozǐ as Fundamental Scripture (běnwén 本文), without commentary. Sīmǎ Qiān, in his biography of Lǎozǐ, speaks already of Lǎozǐ’s book ‘in two parts, expounding the meaning of the Way and Its Virtue, in some five thousand words’ (Shǐ jì 63.2141). Thanks to the manuscripts found at Mǎwángduī 馬王堆 (see DZ 665 Dàodé jīng gǔběn piān), we know that the present division into two parts and the title of The Book of the Way and Its Virtue was already current at the beginning of the Hàn dynasty (206 BCE – 220 CE). The present version is, moreover, divided in zhāng jù 章句 chapters amounting to the symbolic number of eighty-one, an arrangement that probably dates from the Later Hàn period (25–220 CE). The titles of these chapters correspond to those of the Héshàng gōng commentary (see DZ 682 Dàodé zhēn jīng zhù). The word zhēn 真 (true) in the title of the present version became current in Táng times (618–907). Part of the original text (1.8b–10b) has been lost, and the missing passages have been replaced with the corresponding ones of DZ 665 Dàodé jīng gǔběn piān. Recent research places the date of Lǎozǐ’s book in the fourth century BCE, during the Warring States period, but some parts of the text may well be older, considering the vocabulary and the rhymes used. The Mǎwángduī versions show already displaced and corrupt passages. The division of the book into two parts, on Tao and De, on ontology and strategy, is not clearly evident in the respective contents, while the division into eighty-one chapters makes the text appear as a series of separate axiomatic statements. Doing away with this division, and reading the text as a continuous discourse, allows one to determine a few instances where formerly separated parts might be linked. The book as a whole, however, does not read as a systematically developed argument. It must have been from the beginning a collection of short axiomatically paradoxical texts, compiled without particular order. The original number of these texts is difficult to assess. There may have been fifty-five (see DZ 1177 Hán Léizǐ 韓雷子) or seventy-two (see DZ 693 Dàodé zhēn jīng zhǐ guī 道德真經指歸, preface, 4b) before the present division into eighty-one. Although the exact place of Lǎozǐ’s book in Taoist tradition has been, and will continue to be, a much debated issue, its dominant position since antiquity is clear. Indeed, the book deals with the major topics of Taoism with a depth and insight that have earned it the place of the religion’s foremost scripture.”

The dating in the frontmatter reflects the modern scholarly consensus on the 4th century BCE Warring-States composition of the received text; notBefore: -400 and notAfter: -300 represent the tightest bracket defensible on philological evidence, with the acknowledgement that some individual segments may be earlier in oral tradition, and the 5,274-character edition preserved in the Héshàng gōng commentary shows signs of Later-Hàn redactional crystallisation. The catalog meta’s dynasty-marker “戰國” (Warring States) corresponds to this bracket. The traditional 6th-century-BCE attribution to Lǎozǐ, as historical figure, is preserved as persons: ["[[老子]] (attributed)"].

The textual history is as follows:

  • Mǎwángduī 馬王堆 (Hàn tomb no. 3, Chángshā 長沙, Húnán, dated 168 BCE): two silk-manuscript witnesses (甲本, 乙本), in the reversed order Dépiān first, Dàopiān second; c. 5,467 characters (Jiǎ) and c. 5,444 characters (Yǐ).
  • Guōdiàn 郭店 (Chǔ 楚-state tomb, Jīngmén 荊門, Húběi, dated c. 300 BCE): three bundles of bamboo slips containing excerpts from about 31 of the 81 chapters, in an order different from the received text; partial text only (c. 2,000 characters total).
  • Běidà Hàn jiǎn 北大漢簡 (Peking University Hàn-period bamboo slips, dated early Western Hàn): substantially complete bamboo-slip Lǎozǐ in reversed (DéDào) order.
  • Hànfénlóu / Héshàng gōng tradition: the 81-chapter received-text edition that stabilised in the Later Hàn and became the standard.
  • Wáng Bì 王弼 (226–249) commentary: the received-text edition in philosophical-commentarial form.
  • Fù Yì Gǔběn (d. 639; see KR5c0046): the Ancient-Recension edition derived from the 574 tomb-discovery at Péngchéng 彭城.

Translations and research

Given the vast Western and East Asian scholarship on the Dàodé jīng, the following are representative rather than exhaustive:

Principal critical editions and translations:

  • Henricks, Robert G. Lao-tzu Te-Tao ching: A New Translation Based on the Recently Discovered Ma-wang-tui Texts. New York: Ballantine, 1989.
  • Henricks, Robert G. Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching: A Translation of the Startling New Documents Found at Guodian. New York: Columbia University Press, 2000.
  • Lau, D. C. Tao Te Ching. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1963. (Revised bilingual edition: Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1989.)
  • Waley, Arthur. The Way and Its Power: A Study of the Tao Tê Ching and Its Place in Chinese Thought. London: Allen & Unwin, 1934.
  • Mair, Victor H. Tao Te Ching: The Classic Book of Integrity and the Way. New York: Bantam, 1990.
  • Ames, Roger T., and David L. Hall. Daodejing: A Philosophical Translation — “Making This Life Significant”. New York: Ballantine, 2003.
  • Chan, Wing-tsit. The Way of Lao Tzu. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1963.

Studies:

  • Graham, A. C. Disputers of the Tao: Philosophical Argument in Ancient China. La Salle: Open Court, 1989. Ch. 6 on Lǎozǐ.
  • LaFargue, Michael. The Tao of the Tao Te Ching: A Translation and Commentary. Albany: SUNY, 1992.
  • Csikszentmihályi, Mark, and Philip J. Ivanhoe, eds. Religious and Philosophical Aspects of the Laozi. Albany: SUNY, 1999.
  • Kohn, Livia, and Michael LaFargue, eds. Lao-tzu and the Tao-te-ching. Albany: SUNY, 1998.
  • Allan, Sarah, and Crispin Williams, eds. The Guodian Laozi: Proceedings of the International Conference, Dartmouth College, May 1998. Berkeley: Society for the Study of Early China, 2000.
  • Karlgren, Bernhard. “The Poetical Parts in Lao-tsi.” Göteborgs Högskolas Årsskrift 38 (1932): 1–45. For the phonological and metrical analysis.
  • Xǔ Fùguàn 徐復觀. “Bóshū Lǎozǐ” 帛書老子. In Xǔ Fùguàn zá wén jí 徐復觀雜文集. Tǎiběi: Xuéshēng shūjú, 1980.
  • Yán Língfēng 嚴靈峰. Zhōngwài Lǎozǐ zhùshù mùlù 中外老子著述目錄. Tǎiběi: Zhōnghuá Cóngshū Biānshěn Wěiyuánhuì, 1957. Catalogue of commentaries and studies.
  • Wáng Zhòngmín 王重民. Lǎozǐ kǎo 老子考. Shànghǎi: Shāngwù, 1932. Philological study.
  • Má Xùlún 馬敘倫. Lǎozǐ jiǎogǔ 老子校詁. Shànghǎi: Shāngwù, 1924. Text-critical study.
  • Luó Gēnzé 羅根澤, ed. Gǔshǐ biàn 古史辨 4. Běipíng: Pǔshè, 1933. Early-history critical studies including key Lǎozǐ pieces.

Other points of interest

The Dàodé jīng’s textual status as the root scripture of the entire Dàozàng corpus is evidenced by its position at the head of every major premodern Daoist catalogue and by the extraordinary volume of commentarial literature it generated — the Dàozàng itself contains dozens of commentaries (DZ 665 through DZ 738 are almost entirely devoted to Dàodé jīng commentaries and exegetical apparatus), testifying to the scripture’s centrality to every Daoist school from the Six Dynasties through the MíngQīng.

The Táng-era title-upgrade to Dàodé zhēn jīng (the addition of zhēn 真, “true/perfected”) is a significant historical marker. Under the Táng, Lǎozǐ was canonised as the imperial ancestor (the Táng imperial house claiming descent from Lǐ Ěr) and his book elevated to the rank of zhēn jīng 真經 (perfected scripture). Emperor Xuánzōng 玄宗 (r. 712–756) personally composed two of the most influential Táng commentaries (collected in DZ 677 Táng Xuánzōng yù zhù Dàodé zhēn jīng 唐玄宗御注道德真經 and DZ 679 Táng Xuánzōng yù zhì Dàodé zhēn jīng shū 唐玄宗御製道德真經疏), and the scripture became one of the texts candidates were required to master in the Táng examination system under the Kāiyuán reform.

The 5,000-character character-count tradition — wǔ qiān wén 五千文 — is an ancient epithet of the scripture. The character counts of the various witnesses vary: the received Héshàng gōng text has 5,274 characters (DZ 682); Fù Yì’s Ancient Recension (DZ 665) has 5,556 characters; the Wáng Bì edition has between 5,683 and 5,610; and Fù Yì reports a 574-Péngchéng tomb manuscript of 5,722 characters. The wǔ qiān round figure is therefore a symbolic, not arithmetical, count.

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