The Tao Te Qing
The Tao and Its Characteristics
Published on 11. February 2024
Book
Hardback
46 pages
978-1-77945-022-7 (ISBN)
Description
The Tao Te Ching AKA Dao De Jing, is a Chinese classic text traditionally credited to the 6th-century BC sage Laozi. The text's authorship, date of composition and date of compilation are debated. The oldest excavated portion dates back to the late 4th century BC, but modern scholarship dates other parts of the text as having been written-or at least compiled-later than the earliest portions of the Zhuangzi.
The Tao Te Ching, along with the Zhuangzi, is a fundamental text for both philosophical and religious Taoism. It also strongly influenced other schools of Chinese philosophy and religion, including Legalism, Confucianism, and Buddhism, which was largely interpreted through the use of Taoist words and concepts when it was originally introduced to China. Many artists, including poets, painters, calligraphers, and gardeners, have used the Tao Te Ching as a source of inspiration. Its influence has spread widely outside East Asia and it is among the most translated works in world literature.
More details
Language
English
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 157 mm
Thickness: 7 mm
Weight
233 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-77945-022-7 (9781779450227)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
Laozi,also romanized as Lao Tzu and various other ways, was a semi-legendary ancient Chinese philosopher, author of the Tao Te Ching, the foundational text of Taoism along with the Zhuangzi. Laozi is a Chinese honorific, typically translated as "the Old Master". Modern scholarship generally regards his biographical details as invented, and his opus a collaboration. Traditional accounts say he was born as Li Er in the state of Chu in the 6th century BC during China's Spring and Autumn period, served as the royal archivist for the Zhou court at Wangcheng (in modern Luoyang), met and impressed Confucius on one occasion, and composed the Tao Te Ching in a single session before retiring into the western wilderness.A central figure in Chinese culture, Laozi is generally considered the founder of Taoism. He was claimed and revered as the ancestor of the 7th-10th century Tang dynasty and is similarly honored in modern China as the progenitor of the popular surname Li. In some sects of Taoism, Chinese Buddhism, Confucianism, and Chinese folk religion, it is held that he then became an immortal hermit, or that the Tao Te Ching was the avatar - embodied as a book - of the god Laojun, one of the Three Pure Ones of the celestial bureaucracy.[citation needed] The Tao Te Ching had a profound influence on Chinese religious movements and on subsequent Chinese philosophers, who annotated, commended, and criticized his work extensively. In the 20th century, textual criticism by modern historians led to theories questioning Laozi's timing or even existence, positing that the received text of the Tao Te Ching was not composed until the 4th century BC Warring States period, and was the product of multiple authors.