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Informationen zum Autor Robert G.Henricks Klappentext Lao-tzu's "Te-Tao Ching" has been treasured for thousands of years for its poetic statement of life's most profound and elusive truths. This new translation! based on the 1973 discovery of two copies of the manuscript more than five centuries older than any others known! corrects many defects of the later versions. In his extensive commentary! Professor Henricks reevaluates traditional interpretations. INTRODUCTION Specialists on Chinese religion and thought find it useful to distinguish, initially at least, between the Taoist religion on the one hand and philosophical Taoism on the other. We agree in dating the formal beginning of the Taoist religion to the establishment of the Celestial Master Sect, c. A.D. 150, by a man named Chang Taoling; philosophical Taoism is best represented for us in the thought of two texts written in early China, one called the Chuang-tzu, which preserves the ideas of the philosopher Chuang Chou (fl. 350-320 B.C.), the other an anonymous product known as the Lao-tzu (which means “the Old Master” or “Old Philosopher”) or the Tao-te ching (The Book of the Way and Its Power). The Lao-tzu, like the Chuang-tzu, probably represents currents of thought in China around 300 B.C., though by tradition the Lao-tzu was written by a contemporary of Confucius named Li Erh, Confucius’ dates being 551-479 B.C. There are many similar ideas in the texts of Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu; there are major differences between the two texts as well. For example, a good part of the Lao-tzu is addressed to the man who would be king and is concerned with the correct, Taoist way to rule; Chuang-tzu has no interest in social-political matters. Chuang-tzu’s message is addressed to the rugged individualist who turns his back on social commitment in his search for the fulfilled life. There are also major differences between the two books in style. The Chuang-tzu is composed of thirty-three chapters, each chapter a mixture of philosophic discourse, anecdote, fable, and tale, stories filled with delightful, unforgettable characters. The Lao-tzu, by contrast, has a total of eighty-one chapters, each one being more like a poem in form. I. THE MA-WANG-TUI TEXTS A number of extraordinary textual discoveries have been made by archaeologists in China in the last twenty years, those discoveries providing the reason, and the materials, for the present translation series. At Yin-ch’üeh-shan in Shantung, for example, portions of a number of early philosophical texts—including the Kuan-tzu, the Yen-tzu ch’un-ch’iu, and the militarist treatises Sun Pin ping-fa and Sun Wu ping-fa (i.e., Sun-tzu’s Art of War)—have been unearthed; while at Shui-hu-ti in Hupeh archaeologists found, among other things, materials relating to a Ch’in (221-207 B.C.) code of law. Of greatest significance to date, a tremendous discovery was made in the last months of 1973 in south-central China near Changsha (Hunan Province) in the small village of Ma-wang-tui. In Han Tomb No. 3 at Ma-wang-tui, the grave of the son of a man named Li Ts’ang, Li Ts’ang having been marquis of Tai and prime minister of Changsha in early Han dynasty times,* archaeologists discovered a rich cache of funerary goods including a large group of texts. An inventory slip in the tomb informs us that this man was buried on the equivalent in the Western calendar of April 4, 168 B.C., thus providing a terminus ante quem for these materials. But more precise dating is possible in some cases based on the style of the calligraphy used and the practice of taboo-name avoidance—the personal name of an emperor in ancient China was not to be used in texts copied during his reign (more on these matters below). A total of fifty-one items have been identified in the find by Chinese specialists working on the materials; most of these are written on silk, though a few are recor...
