Tao Te Ching
Page 8
49.9—The expression “hear much” in Chinese means “to be learned.”
50—The best analysis of this short but very important chapter is by Conrady (1932).
50.6—insubstantial The manuscripts read simply “seem to exist.”
51.3—they do not live for themselves Literally, “not self live,” which could also mean “are not born of themselves” (self-generated).
53.1—See note to 42.1.
53.3—temper Literally, “to test [by running the finger over the edge of the blade].”
54.1—While The character that I have translated as “while” has caused so much consternation among translators and commentators that one famous modern scholar interpreted it as meaning “carrying [one’s perplexed bodily soul] on one’s head,” and the renowned T’ang emperor, Hsüan-tsung, shifted it to the end of the previous chapter as a sort of exclamation point (!)! The majority of less daring scholars have simply pretended that it does not exist. Without here going into all of the painstaking philological proof that would be necessary to demonstrate it fully, the function of this particle standing at the head of the chapter is to serve as what may technically be called an initial aspectual auxiliary, or a particle for beginning a dependent clause.
54.2—soul The male and female / yang and yin / light and dark / spiritual and physical souls.
54.4—Focus your vital breath This phrase serves well as a translation of Prāāyāma (see Appendix, this page).
54.6—mirror The heart. Ample justification for this interpretation may be found in the commentary of Ch’en Ku-ying (1984), p. 99 n. 6. See also the brilliant and learned article by Paul Demiéville on the spiritual mirror. Compare Katha Upaniad, II.iii.5.
54.7—make it free of blemish See the Afterword, this page.
54.9—cunning Literally “knowledge”; compare 28.5, 7. It is curious that “cunning” and “know[ing]” are cognate, both deriving from the Indo-European root gno. The equivalent Sinitic word (modern standard Mandarin chih) usually means “to know,” but occasionally in the Tao Te Ching (see also 62.4) is better translated as “cunning.”
54.10—gate of heaven There is a tremendous variety of opinion among the commentators over the signification of this expression. Some hold that it refers to the sense organs (ear, mouth, eyes, nose [cf. the note to 15.10 above]), others that it stands for the institutions of government, the processes of nature, the place where the soul goes in and comes out, the place in the Polar Star where the Lord of Heaven sits, a particular trigram of the Book of Changes, and so on. Still others see in this passage a sexual metaphor or a description of Taoist Yoga. In truth, several levels of interpretation are possible. The ambiguity may well have been intentional.
54.11—Remain passive. Literally, “can be female (bird)?”
54.15–17—Compare chapter 14.16–19, which ascribe the same attributes to the Way.
55.1—This celebrated metaphor of thirty spokes converging on a single hub was almost certainly inspired by the Indian fondness for using wheel images to demonstrate philosophical concepts. See, for example, śvetāśvatara Upaniad, 1.4; Praśna Upaniad, VI.6; Muaka Upaniad, II.ii.6; and especially Praśna Upaniad, II.6, which puts prāa at the center of the hub.
55.4—pot Compare Chāndogya Upaniad, VI.i.4.
56.1—five This chapter has three pentads (items listed in groups of five), but later Chinese authors elaborated many more. They are all ultimately based on the notion of Five Phases / Elements / Agents (water, fire, wood, metal, earth) that became popular in China about the same time as the Tao Te Ching was taking shape. It is noteworthy that the notion of Five Elements also occupies a prominent place in Indian metaphysics. Indeed, there were two sets (or, perhaps more accurately, two aspects) of the Five Elements in India, a greater and a lesser. The lesser are the five rudimentary, or subtle, elements (pañca-tanmātrāi): śabda (sound), sparśa (touch), rūpa (color), rasa (flavor), and gandha (smell). Three of these are represented in this chapter of Tao Te Ching. The greater are the five gross elements (pañca-mahābhūtāni): pthivī (earth), ap or āpas (water), tejas (fire), vāyu (wind), and ākśa (ether). In rare Indian enumerations, the same Five [Gross] Elements occur as in the standard Chinese list (metal, wood, water, fire, earth). A similar conception existed in ancient Greek and Iranian philosophy and probably reflects an underlying pan-Eurasian system of thought.
56.1—five colors Sanskrit pañca-vara or pañca-kāma-gunā. These are the five primary colors: nīla (blue), pīta (yellow), lohita (red), avadāta (white), and ka (black). They are the same as the five colors in China. Note that the Brahman wears over his shoulder a cord made up of threads of these five colors.
56.7—five flavors Salty, bitter, sour, acrid, sweet. Compare Sanskrit pañca-rasa.
56.9—five tones Traditional Chinese scales have five notes (do, re, mi, sol, la). Compare Sanskrit pañca-tūrya.
56.13—This formulation obliquely recalls our saying about a man’s eyes (appetite) being bigger than his stomach (real needs). In other words, the sage understands human psychology with regard to desires.
57.1–2—These two enigmatic sayings have never before been interpreted in such a fashion that they both make some sense and fit with the following sentences. More literally, “favor is a disgrace comparable to being startled; honor is a great disaster comparable to the body.” I suspect that these are very old sayings that were far from transparent even to the contemporaries of the Tao Te Ching author or compiler. That explains why he makes such an obvious effort (not altogether successful) in this chapter to explain them.
On the human body being an affliction, compare the following passage from the Buddhist text attributed to Nāgasena and entitled Milindapaha [Questions of Menander], 73.24:
The body, your majesty [Menander, an Indo-Greek king], has been likened to a wound by The Blessed One [the Buddha]; and, therefore, they who have retired from the world take care of their bodies as though they were wounds, without thereby becoming attached to them. And The Blessed One, your majesty, has spoken as follows:
“This monstrous wound hath outlets nine,
A damp, wet skin doth clothe it o’er;
At every point this unclean thing
Exudeth nasty, stinking smells.”
(Warren, p. 423)
57.6, 7—More literally, “To find it is, as it were, startling, / To lose it is, as it were, startling.” This entire chapter is fraught with awkward scholarly explanations. The original core of the chapter probably consists solely of the first two lines. All of the rest is commentary, much of it quite pedestrian.
57.19—then More literally, “[in] such [a case].…”
58.2,4, 6—“subtle,” “rare,” “serene” The Chinese syllables for the three imperceptible qualities of the One enunciated at the beginning of this chapter all rhyme. Their order in later editions (including the Fu I text) of the Tao Te Ching is “serene,” “rare,” “subtle.” The sounds of these syllables were approximately yuh-hsyuh-wuh in late Old Chinese. The yuh-hsyuh-wuh sequence led to the interesting (and provocative) speculation on the part of several distinguished nineteenth-century sinologists that Yahweh (Jehovah, the Tetragrammaton [YHWH] which seems to mean “the one who exists”) or Īśvara (the self-existent divine power of Hinduism) may have been the ultimate inspiration for the triune Chinese epithet. In fact, yuh-hsyuh-wuh sounds more like Joshua (from a Hebrew expression meaning “the Lord is salvation”) than it does like Yahweh. Be that as it may, the discovery of the Ma-wang-tui texts, which have the sequence wuh-hsyuh-yuh, casts doubt on this particular attempt to link Chinese conceptions of Unity with notions of ineffable godhead elsewhere in Asia. Nonetheless, the question of how to account for the arrangement yuh-hsyuh-wuh in the received tradition remains. Furthermore, this is a typical Chinese method of analyzing polysyllabic foreign w
ords: breaking what was originally a phonetic transcription into its component syllables and then assigning Chinese characters with superficially appropriate meanings to each of them. The same device has long been common in India as well for explicating technical terms. See Chāndogya Upaniad, I.iii.6–7; VIII.iii.5; Advaya-tārakopaniad, 16–17 (Ayyangār, p. 8); and the well-known but wholly false etymologizing of the two syllables of haha (literally “violence” or “force”) as “solar” and “lunar.” Finally, the Tao Te Ching itself says unmistakably just below in line 9 of this chapter that the three qualities are bound together as one unit. For all of these and other reasons which must be omitted because they are even more complex, the three syllables for “subtle,” “rare,” and “serene” should be thought of as constituting a single word whose identity has not yet been firmly established.
59.21—valley The word “broad” has been added to the translation both for cadence and to reflect the implied meaning of the Chinese line.
60.1—I view the final particles of this and the next line as emphatics, not as copulatives. Literally, “arrive empty limit indeed” and “maintain stillness thorough indeed.”
60.14—ducal impartiality The author is playing on the two meanings of kung (“duke” and “public, just, fair, equitable”).
61.11—Literally, “We [are] self-so.” The word for “self-so” in Chinese languages is tzu-jan (modern standard Mandarin pronunciation given). It is often translated as “nature.” See the Afterword, this page, for additional information.
62.1—Therefore See the Afterword, starting on this page.
62.6—six family relationships Those between father and son, elder and younger brother, husband and wife. These sentiments are exactly the opposite of Confucianism, which stressed that humaneness and righteousness, especially as applied to familial and other hierarchical relationships, were responsible for the preservation of the Way in society.
63.15–16—The last two lines of this chapter are attached to the beginning of the following chapter in the received text. Nonetheless, the rhyme scheme, the structure, the argument, and the wording all indicate that they belong here. If, however, we understand lines 1–4 of chapter 64 as an attack on pedantry (as Master Chuang seems to have done), it is conceivable that they should be placed ahead of them in that chapter. In any event, few of the chapter divisions in the received text of the Tao Te Ching have any validity (see pp. 151–152).
65.17—Compare the Upaniadic formula etad vai tat (this verily is that). Compare 25.12.
66.9–11—Compare 75.4–6.
68.13—There is a pun with “obtains” for “[awards] integrity,” both of which have the same sound.
69.24–25—Literally, “The Way [takes as its] law [being] self-so.” Compare note to 61.11.
70.4—Compare Kaha Upaniad, I.ii.21: “Sitting, he travels afar; lying, he goes everywhere.” Compare Tao Te Ching, 10.8.
72.21—infinity Literally “limitless[ness].”
72.23—“Implements [of government],” in other words, “tools” or “subordinates.”
72.27—The Chinese word for “carving” is a double pun in that the character used also means “to institute” and sounds like another word that means “to rule.”
73.10—puffed up Compare the first line of chapter 66. “Shiveringly silent” is derived from a word whose most basic signification is “breath catches.”
73.11—meek More literally, “may be filed down.”
74.22—Compare the end of chapter 18.
75.4–6—Compare 66.9–11.
76.13—In dividing up the undifferentiated cosmos.
76.17–19—These lines offer but the barest glimpse of the magnificent parable recorded by Master Chuang at the beginning of his seventeenth chapter entitled “Autumn Waters” (Master Chuang). Compare 29.1–2. The image of many streams (individual entities) flowing into the ocean (Brahman) was a favorite of ancient Indian authors. See, for example, Chāndogya Upaniad, VI.x.1; Bhad-ārayaka, II.iv.11; IV.v.12; Praśna Upaniad, VI.5; Muaka Upaniad, III.ii.8; the Bhagavad Gītā, XI.28.1–2; and especially the Bhagavad Gītā, II.70 (Miller p. 38):
As the mountainous depths
of the ocean
are unmoved when waters
rush into it,
so the man unmoved
when desires enter him
attains a peace that eludes
the man of many desires.
77.8—To die but not be forgotten The received text reads this as “To die but not perish” where “perish” is homophonous and cognate with “forget” (still evident in modern standard Mandarin where both are pronounced wang). Here is a good example of the imposition of a religious interpretation on the Tao Te Ching that was not present in the original. Few commentators have questioned the absurdity and illogicality that result from the unwarranted emendation “He who dies but does not perish has longevity.”
79.12–15—Compare 58.1, 3.
AFTERWORD
Part I:
Did Lao Tzu Exist? The Tao Te Ching
and Its Oral Background
There is universal acceptance among both scholars and devotees of the Tao Te Ching that its author was Lao Tzu (pronounced lau dze in modern standard Mandarin). This is a rather peculiar name for the presumed author of one of the most influential books ever written, for it means no more than “Old Master.” Some have interpreted Lao Tzu as meaning “Old Boy” and have concocted weird tales of his having been born with a full head of white hair. However, there are so many precedents for Chinese thinkers being called master (tzu)—K’ung Tzu (Master K’ung, Confucius), Meng Tzu (Master Meng, Mencius), Mo Tzu (Master Mo, Mecius or Macius)—that there is little point in making other conjectures.
There is not a single shred of reliable biographical information concerning the identity of the Old Master. Despite frantic efforts to identify him with such shadowy figures as Lao P’eng, an archivist of the Chou dynasty, and others about whom next to nothing substantial other than their names is known, we simply do not know who Lao Tzu was, where or when he was born, what his occupation was, or anything else about him. All we have is a collection of sayings attributed to him that seems to have coalesced beginning sometime during the fourth century B.C. and was probably written down during the second half of the third century B.C.
There must have been a prototype for the Old Master. After all, someone did create a group of more or less coherent sayings that espouse a minimalist political strategy heavily laden with mystical overtones. Ultimately these sayings came to be written down in terse, codelike classical Chinese and were identified first as the book of the Old Master and much later as the Tao Te Ching.
But it is quite possible that more than one individual was responsible for formulating the sayings now attributed to the Old Master. Our philosopher may actually have been a composite personality. Many quotes attributed to an old master in books that predate the written versions of the Tao Te Ching do not appear in the latter text itself. Combined with other evidence that I will explore, this implies that the Tao Te Ching is a selection of proverbial wisdom from a larger body of sayings attributed to one or more old masters. However, because adherents of Taoist religion and philosophy think of the Old Master as an individual and since it would be awkward to make constant reference to “one or more old masters,” I shall use the singular throughout this Afterword. This is by no means to recognize the historicity of a given old master as the sole author of the Tao Te Ching or even as the sole originator of these sayings.
If the Tao Te Ching was not the product of an identifiable author, then how do we explain its existence? The answer to this question is fairly straightfo
rward: The Tao Te Ching is the result of a period of oral composition that lasted approximately three centuries (from circa 650–350 B.C.) During this period, it was common for philosophers to travel from state to state within the disintegrating Chinese empire, looking for a king who would put their ideas into practice. Initially their doctrines were formulated orally and transmitted in the same fashion from generation to generation among their followers. Finally, one of the adherents would take it upon himself to record the teachings of his master or school in short, pithy, classical Chinese statements. Still later, others might make additions or corrections. Thus the Tao Te Ching came about as a result of an editorial and commentarial process that is still going on today. But it was essentially completed by the end of the third century B.C. with some significant revisions and “improvements” some 500 years later.
Numerous vestiges of oral composition remain in the Tao Te Ching and fall into several different categories. One of the most striking features of the Tao Te Ching is that, in spite of its brevity, it includes a great deal of repetition. The reoccurrence of similar or identical passages might conceivably be the result of a conscious attempt to emphasize certain important doctrines, but textual analysis reveals that such repetitiousness is in fact endemic to oral recitations.
Sometimes the repetition is very close:
Diffuses the light,
Mingles with the dust,
Files away his sharp points,
Unravels his tangles.
(19.6–9)
files away sharp points,
unravels tangles,