Work
Tao Te Ching
DOW deh JING
Also Known As Dao De Jing
Metaphysics
A foundational text of Chinese philosophy traditionally attributed to Laozi, composed of roughly eighty short chapters in terse, aphoristic verse addressing the Tao, an ultimate way or pattern underlying and moving through all things that cannot be fully captured in language, and te, the virtue or power by which a person or ruler aligns with it. The text commends wu wei, action without forcing, and the strength found in yielding and softness rather than rigidity, illustrated by images such as water, which overcomes the hard and strong by yielding to it, and it addresses statecraft as much as personal cultivation, counseling rulers to govern with a light hand. Alongside the later Zhuangzi, it is one of the two founding texts of philosophical Daoism, and it is also treasured as scripture within the separate but related tradition of religious Daoism, a distinction this atlas keeps as two facets of one text rather than one reading collapsed into the other.
Facts
Disputed
Publication Year400 BCE
Dating estimates for the text's compilation range from the sixth to the fourth century BCE depending on whether a single early author or a later, multi-hand compilation is accepted; see the open question recorded on Laozi. Classification
Genre / Form Original Language Connections
Authored By
Why this is disputed. Attribution rests on tradition; most modern textual scholarship reads the work as a compilation from multiple hands rather than a single author's composition.
In Branch
In the Other Atlases
Sources
1. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Stanford University, Center for the Study of Language and Informations.v. LaoziQuote, s.v. Laozi
The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.
2. Wikipedia: Tao Te Ching
WikipediaLead, opening sentenceQuote, Lead, opening sentence
also known simply as the Laozi, is an ancient Chinese classic text traditionally credited to the sage Laozi, regarded as the foundational Taoist text.
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