Laozi and the Tao Te Ching: Origins of Daoism in Ancient China

Laozi is the legendary sage traditionally credited with writing the Tao Te Ching (Daodejing), the founding text of Daoism. Whether he was a real person is uncertain, and modern scholars see the book as a work that took shape over time, probably during the 4th century BC. Ancient manuscripts found at Guodian and Mawangdui in the 20th century have transformed understanding of how the text developed, while the Tao Te Ching itself has become one of the most translated books in the world.

Background: philosophy in the Warring States

The Tao Te Ching emerged in the late Zhou dynasty, an age of political breakdown and constant war known as the Warring States period. As old ruling houses fell and states competed for survival, rulers welcomed advisers who offered ways to bring order. This produced an extraordinary range of thinkers, later called the Hundred Schools of Thought.

Followers of Confucius urged rulers to restore ritual and moral virtue. Mohists preached impartial care and opposed aggressive war. Later Legalists stressed strict laws and punishments. The Tao Te Ching offered something different: a vision of a world in which the best ruler does as little as possible and people return to simplicity.

The legend of Laozi

The earliest connected account of Laozi’s life is a short biography written by the historian Sima Qian around 100 BC, at least two centuries after the text existed. It says that Laozi’s surname was Li, his personal name Er, and that he was also called Lao Dan. He came from Ku county in the state of Chu, in what is now Henan province, and served as keeper of the archives at the Zhou royal court.

According to this account, Confucius visited Laozi to ask about ritual. Laozi told him to give up his pride and ambitions, and Confucius later compared him to a dragon riding the wind and clouds, beyond understanding. Stories of this meeting appear in several early texts, and a Han-dynasty stone relief in Shandong shows the scene.

Sima Qian then tells the most famous part of the legend. Seeing that the Zhou dynasty was in decline, Laozi left for the west. At the frontier pass the keeper, Yin Xi, asked him to write down his teachings before he disappeared. Laozi produced a book in two parts, of more than 5,000 characters, on the Way and its power. Then he left, and no one knew where he went.

Sima Qian himself was not sure of these details. He added that some identified Laozi with a man called Lao Laizi, also from Chu, and others with a Zhou historian named Dan who lived more than a century after Confucius. He also reported claims that Laozi lived for 160 or even 200 years. Many modern scholars think “Laozi”, meaning simply “Old Master”, was a name attached to a body of sayings rather than to one historical author.

How the text took shape

The received Tao Te Ching has 81 short chapters, about 5,000 Chinese characters in total. It is divided into two parts: the Dao Jing (chapters 1–37), about the Way, and the De Jing (chapters 38–81), about its power or virtue. The chapters are mostly short poems or aphorisms, often rhymed, with few names, places or events that might date them.

Until the 1970s, the oldest complete versions known were those used by commentators of the Han and Wei periods. Two great archaeological discoveries changed this picture.

Mawangdui. In 1973 Chinese archaeologists excavated Tomb 3 at Mawangdui near Changsha, Hunan, sealed in 168 BC. Among its silk manuscripts were two copies of the Laozi, known as texts A and B. They are close to the received version but place the De section before the Dao section, and they differ in many readings.

Guodian. In 1993 a tomb at Guodian, near Jingmen in Hubei, in the old heartland of Chu, yielded around 800 bamboo slips, most of them inscribed. The tomb is dated to around 300 BC. Among the texts were three bundles of Laozi material, totalling about 2,000 characters and corresponding to parts of around 31 chapters of the received text. The chapters are in a different order and some lines differ, notably passages that seem less hostile to Confucian virtues.

Scholars still debate what the Guodian slips mean. Some argue they are selections from an already complete book. Others think they show an early stage, before the text reached its final form. Either way, they prove that much of the Tao Te Ching existed in Chu by about 300 BC. An almost complete Western Han bamboo copy, acquired by Peking University in 2009, has added further evidence.

Key ideas

The book opens with the famous line usually translated as “The Way that can be spoken of is not the constant Way”. The Dao is the nameless source of everything, beyond words and ordinary understanding, yet present in all things and working without effort.

From this follows the ideal of wu wei, often translated as “non-action” or “effortless action”. It does not mean doing nothing, but acting without forcing, in tune with the natural course of things. Related is ziran, “so of itself” or naturalness, the spontaneous way things develop when left alone.

The text repeatedly praises softness, weakness and humility. Water is its favourite image: it benefits all things, settles in low places that others despise, and yet nothing is better at wearing away the hard and strong. Another image is pu, the “uncarved block”, standing for a simple, unspoiled state before people are shaped by desires and conventions.

Much of the book is advice to rulers. It warns against too many laws, heavy taxes, display of wealth and love of war, which only breed disorder. The best ruler, it says, is one whose people barely know he exists. One chapter describes an ideal small state with few people, where boats and carriages go unused and neighbours can hear each other’s dogs and cockerels yet never visit. A well-known line, “A journey of a thousand li begins beneath one’s feet”, comes from chapter 64.

Early Daoism, religion and translation

The term “Daoism” was coined later, by Han-dynasty historians who grouped the Tao Te Ching with the Zhuangzi and other works. In the early Han dynasty a related political philosophy called Huang-Lao, named after the Yellow Emperor and Laozi, was favoured at court, promoting light government after the harsh rule of Qin. Earlier still, the Legalist book Han Feizi contained two chapters explaining and illustrating the Laozi, the oldest surviving commentary on it.

Laozi also became a figure of worship. In AD 165–166 Emperor Huan of Han ordered official sacrifices to him. The Way of the Celestial Masters, founded by Zhang Daoling in the 2nd century AD and usually seen as the first organised Daoist religion, revered Laozi as a deity, Taishang Laojun, “Supreme Lord Lao”. Later Daoist texts claimed that after leaving China Laozi went west to convert foreigners and even became the Buddha, a claim that caused bitter disputes with Buddhists.

The emperors of the Tang dynasty (618–907), whose family name was Li, claimed descent from Laozi. In 666 Emperor Gaozong gave him the title Supreme Mysterious Primordial Emperor, and Emperor Xuanzong wrote his own commentary on the Tao Te Ching.

Two early commentaries shaped how the book was read in China. One is attributed to Heshang Gong, a legendary “Old Man by the River”, and reads the text partly as a guide to long life. The other, by the young philosopher Wang Bi (226–249), treats it as philosophy and became the standard version of the text.

In Europe, Jesuit missionaries made Latin versions in the 18th century. Stanislas Julien published a French translation in 1842, and James Legge’s English translation appeared in 1891. Since then the Tao Te Ching has been translated into English hundreds of times and into most of the world’s languages, making it one of the most translated texts ever written.

Myths and facts

• Myth: Laozi was definitely a real person who wrote the book in one sitting. Fact: Even Sima Qian reported competing stories, and the manuscripts suggest the text was assembled and revised over time.
• Myth: Laozi founded the Daoist religion. Fact: He is honoured as its founder, but organised Daoist religion began in the 2nd century AD.
• Myth: Wu wei means laziness. Fact: It means acting without strain or force, in harmony with circumstances.

Timeline

• 6th century BC: Traditional date of Laozi, as an older contemporary of Confucius.
• c. 300 BC: The Guodian tomb, containing the oldest known Laozi texts, is sealed.
• 168 BC: The Mawangdui tomb, with two silk copies of the Laozi, is sealed.
• c. 100 BC: Sima Qian writes his biography of Laozi.
• AD 165–166: Emperor Huan of Han orders sacrifices to Laozi.
• c. 240s: Wang Bi writes his commentary on the Tao Te Ching.
• 666: Tang Emperor Gaozong grants Laozi an imperial title.
• 1973: The Mawangdui silk manuscripts are excavated.
• 1993: The Guodian bamboo slips are excavated.

Why it matters

The Tao Te Ching gave Chinese civilisation one of its two great philosophical traditions, alongside Confucianism, and became the scripture of a major religion. Its short, open-ended verses on simplicity, humility and harmony with nature continue to influence thinkers, artists and readers across the world.