Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
social ills. Taoists often used the term tao (pronounced “dow” or “dau”)
in speaking or writing about their ideas. The primary meaning of tao is
“way,” while some of its secondary meanings include “path” or “road.”
As a verb, it can mean “to walk” or, interestingly enough, “to talk.”
Taoism is a fairly diverse school of thought in Chinese intellectual his-
tory, but its most important and authoritative work is the Tao-te ching.
(Daode Jing is the spelling system now preferred in mainland China;
the title means “The Text on the Power of the Ta o” or, as Arthur Waley
has translated it, “The Classic of the Way and Its Power.”) A small
gem of a topic written a few centuries B.C., it delivers its ideas in a terse
and epigrammatic but utterly profound style. (The best translations are
not wordy but preserve and reflect the compactness and tremendous
expressiveness of the original.) The relative simplicity of the topic's
language can be deceptive because it makes a few words go a long
way and because some of its passages are amenable to more than one
interpretation. The Tao-te ching is easy to read but hard to understand.
The historical origins of the Ta o - t e c h i ng are somewhat murky. The
traditional account attributes its authorship to a philosopher with the
title of Lao-tzu (Laozi in the spelling system currently preferred in
mainland China), which means something like “old master” or
“venerable philosopher.” According to this account, Lao-tzu (whose
surname was Li) worked as an archivist for the Zhou government
sometime during Eastern Zhou times. As he grew older he concluded
that China had lost its way, and upon his retirement from public life he
determined to leave China forever and depart for the great white north
to live in the uncivilized natural grandeur of Central Asia. As he rode
out to the final frontier pass, a guardsman begged him to stay a while
and write down his wisdom for the benefit of future generations. This
he did, according to the account, and the result is the text of the Tao-te
ching as we have it today.
Modern textual critics question this account and instead attribute
the authorship of the Tao-te ching to several philosophers whose wise
and pithy sayings were eventually assembled into a compendium or
anthology that was later named Tao-te ching. Regardless of its author-
ship, it is the beauty and appeal of the topic itself that concern us here.
The Tao-te ching is, next only to the Bible, the most translated topic
in the world. This is at least in part because its simple, expressive
language and mysterious, paradoxical images are quite appealing and
engaging to many people. The topic is conventionally divided into two
main sections; the former contains some of the more mysterious
or paradoxical passages, and the latter details its indictments of the
chaotic present and its vision of a perfect society. One famous paradox
