by Lao Tzu
diffuses light,
mingles with the dust.
(48.5–8)
At other times it is exact: “The Way is eternally nameless” (chapter 76, line 1 and chapter 81, line 1). Occasionally there is a replication of what is essentially the same metaphor, even when it is quite complicated:
Thirty spokes converge on a single hub,
but it is in the space where there is nothing
that the usefulness of the cart lies.
Clay is molded to make a pot,
but it is in the space where there is nothing
that the usefulness of the clay pot lies.
Cut out doors and windows to make a room,
but it is in the spaces where there is nothing
that the usefulness of the room lies.
(55.1–9)
Such modifications and variations are hallmarks of oral delivery, which relies upon them to assist the memory (additional instances of repetition are cited in the notes).
A detailed examination of the Ma-wang-tui silk manuscripts of the Tao Te Ching—which date from around the beginning of the second century B.C.—shows that they are full of obvious writing errors. This is further indication that they had only recently evolved from an oral tradition. The scribes who copied them were often simply not certain of how to write a given utterance, and many of the errors reveal plainly that they were still very much influenced by the sounds of the words they were trying to record instead of just the meanings. By the third century A.D., with the establishment of the received text, all of the miswritings are “corrected.” Unfortunately the “corrections” themselves are often wrong, causing much difficulty and confusion among later interpreters.
The Tao Te Ching is full of other examples that prove it to be a collection of proverbial wisdom which previously must have circulated orally. On the one hand we encounter completely isolated adages: “The soft and weak conquer the strong” (chapter 80, line 10). On the other hand we come across obvious quotations:
There is a series of epigrams that say:
“The bright Way seems dim.
The forward Way seems backward.
The level Way seems bumpy.…”
(3.10ff.)
In several instances, traces of editorial activity are obvious. chapter 67, for example, consists of two very different types of material: proverbial adages and editorial comments. The chapter begins: “If it is bent, it will be preserved intact.…” Lines 28–29 of the same chapter identify this statement as an “old saying” and declare that it is quite true. It is not always easy to identify editorial comments in other chapters because they are seldom so clearly marked. Nonetheless, evidence of editorial tampering abounds. Most often, it is displayed in the jarring juxtaposition of dull explanation and poetic wisdom.
In addition, frequent statements of definition—such as “This is called …”—betray the heavy hand of an editor or compiler who is afraid his reader will not comprehend the message of the poetry he has gathered. It is difficult to imagine the Old Master himself making such clumsy remarks. Moreover, the inclusion of explanatory comment (for example, “What is the reason for this? It is because …”) in the text is frequently obtrusive and can hardly be ascribed to a mystic or poet.
Further evidence of the oral origins of the Tao Te Ching is the use of mnemonic devices and formulaic language. They are relics of a stage when the sayings of the Old Master were handed down by word of mouth, rather than with brush and ink. Often the same grammatical pattern recurs over and over again in successive lines. Chain arguments are favored so that a whole series of propositions are linked together thus: if A then B, if B then C, if C … There is, in addition, extensive employment of parallel grammatical and syntactical structures. All of these devices helped people remember and retell the adages that were subsequently incorporated in the Tao Te Ching.
The Old Master is perhaps best represented in chapters such as 77, which consist entirely of a series of apothegms and maxims uncontaminated by any editorial insertions:
Understanding others is knowledge,
Understanding oneself is enlightenment;
Conquering others is power,
Conquering oneself is strength;
Contentment is wealth;
Forceful conduct is willfulness;
Not losing one’s rightful place is to endure,
To die but not be forgotten is longevity.
A few chapters are carefully crafted and appear to be integral poetic sketches. chapter 30, for example, is of deservedly high literary value. This chapter presents a simple, well-constructed picture of an imaginary primordial utopia with no discernible traces of oral composition. Chapters such as this were probably created expressly for the Tao Te Ching by the individual(s) responsible for the first written version(s) of the Old Master’s sayings. Some chapters, however, barely cohere.
In order to understand better the matter of editorial intervention, let us look in greater depth at the mock conclusions that permeate the Tao Te Ching. Chapter 5, for example, contains two “conclusions” that follow one another in immediate succession. Both begin with “therefore,” which implies a logical progression from what precedes. However, the first supposed conclusion does not seem to follow from the previous statements, and the second is even more fallacious. Chapter 62 even begins with the conclusional marker “therefore,” although it is unrelated to the preceding chapter. All later editors simply removed the marker, but such omissions seriously distort the true composition of the text.
Another extreme example of a mock conclusion may be found in chapter 36 where the statement “Thus, he has no defects” serves no other purpose than to give the appearance of deductive argumentation. Indeed, more often than not, markers such as “therefore,” “thus,” and “for this reason” in the Tao Te Ching do not really serve to connect an argument with its conclusion.
How then do we explain their common occurrence at what seem to be crucial junctures? The answer lies in the very nature of the text itself. The first compilers of the scattered bits of proverbial wisdom attributed to the Old Master used these and other devices to give the appearance of a coherent text. They undoubtedly hoped to produce an integral text that could serve as the basis for the emerging school of Taoist thought. In fact, a critical reading of the Tao Te Ching—even in the Ma-wang-tui versions—reveals that it is burgeoning with non sequiturs, repetitions, and other obvious signs of homiletic derivation.
Dedicated readers of the Tao Te Ching—particularly after the founding of Taoist religious sects from the late second century A.D. on—have always assumed that the classic was constructed from start to finish by a single guiding intelligence. As a result they have tried to interpret it as they would any other closely reasoned philosophical discourse. The results—while displaying valiant determination to make sense of the book as a whole and of its constituent parts—are often sheer gibberish. The very frustration of th
e exegetes at not being able to make everything in the Tao Te Ching fit together snugly has only served to fuel further obscurity. For instance, no one is absolutely certain whether the following line should come at the end of chapter 63 or the beginning of chapter 64: “Abolish learning and you will be without worries.” Nevertheless, partisans of both placements construct elaborate arguments defending their own preference. Indeed, a substantial measure of the fascination this small scripture has harbored for adherents of Taoism for more than two millennia stems from their inability to comprehend its overall structure.
It has been commonly thought that the Old Master lived from about 580–500 B.C. The main foundation for these dates is a pious legend of an encounter between him and Confucius, the founder of Confucianism, which was the orthodox system of Chinese thought until the first part of this century (naturally the Old Master comes out on top). Yet neither the Old Master nor his book is ever mentioned in the Analects of Confucius (551–479 B.C.). The same is true of the Chronicle of Tso (completed in 463 B.C. or later), which was a commentary on Confucius’ Spring and Autumn Annals. Likewise we find no mention of the Old Master or his book in the work attributed to Mencius (372–289 B.C.), the second great Confucian sage. There is also no sign of the Old Master in the Mecius (Master Mo), the canons of a noteworthy populist philosopher who lived (480–400? B.C.) between the times of Confucius and Mencius. We would expect that Master Chuang (355?—275? B.C.)—who was roughly contemporary with Mencius—might have mentioned a book by the Old Master should one have existed during his lifetime, since he is generally considered to have been a follower of the Way of the Old Master. Although he fails to do so, he does refer to the Old Master in the last chapter (33) of his book entitled “All Under Heaven,” which is a survey of the major thinkers in China up to and including Master Chuang himself.
If the sayings of the Old Master had already been committed to writing by the time of Master Chuang, one would expect that he (or his successors) would have taken especial care to record their wording accurately. Yet in his exposition of the Old Master’s thought, there is only one instance where Master Chuang comes close to quoting his presumed predecessor exactly (insofar as the Old Master is represented in the Tao Te Ching). All of Master Chuang’s other quotations from the Old Master reflect well enough the general principles of his presumed guru but present his sayings in a jumbled fashion—again, if we take the Tao Te Ching as a standard. Virtually all other quotations purporting to come from the Old Master in sources that date from before the second half of the third century B.C. are similarly unreliable. Only in extremely rare cases do they tally exactly with his words as recorded in the Tao Te Ching, and in most cases they only vaguely approximate various parts of the classic. The situation improves drastically as we approach the second century B.C.
The sayings of the Old Master are first quoted or referred to in Warring States and Western Han period works such as Master Chuang, Records of the Grand Historian, and Intrigues of the Warring States. It therefore seems highly improbable that a work attributed to the Old Master could have been compiled before 476 B.C., the advent of the Warring States period. In terms of intellectual history, the Old Master represents a quietist reaction against the hierarchical, bureaucratic ideology of Confucius and his followers. The Old Master’s digs at humaneness (jen), righteousness (i), etiquette (li), filial piety (hsiao), and so forth are plainly directed at the Confucian school. Such attacks most likely could not have come to pass before about the middle of the fourth century B.C., because until then Confucianism itself had not solidified sufficiently to be viewed as a threat to more spiritually minded individuals.
The composition of the Master Chuang book and other comparable works at the beginning of the third century may have provided the stimulus to assemble the wise sayings attributed to the Old Master during the course of the previous three centuries. The codification of the Tao Te Ching was probably essentially finished by the middle of the third century, and the first written exemplars must have appeared by about that time, setting the stage for the Ma-wang-tui silk manuscripts.
During the latter part of 1973, thirty silk manuscripts were excavated from a Han period tomb at Ma-wang-tui (literally “Horse King Mound”) in the city of Changsha, Hunan province. They had been buried in the tomb of the son of Li Ts’ang, Marquis of Tai (a small southern feudal estate) and Prime Minister of Changsha. The son died in 168 B.C., so the manuscripts recovered from his tomb must date from before that time. Among them were two nearly complete texts of the Tao Te Ching. Based on the style of the calligraphy and other paleographical considerations, these texts have been dated to approximately the end of the third century and the beginning of the second century B.C. This means that they are roughly five centuries older than any previously available text of the Tao Te Ching.
The next stage in the evolution of the Tao Te Ching was the appearance around the beginning of the third century A.D. of the standard, or received, text, together with three notable commentaries upon it, the Hsiang-erh, the Wang Pi, and the Ho-shang Kung. Only the first half of the Hsiang-erh commentary survives. We know nothing of its author except that he leaned strongly in the direction of Yoga, a spiritual discipline emphasizing integration of mind and body. The oldest complete commentary is that of the brilliant Wang Pi (226–249) who died at the age of twenty-three. After it comes the Ho-shang Kung (translated as “Gentleman Who Lives by the River”), about whose author we are also totally in the dark. Where the Wang Pi commentary is more philosophical and metaphysical, the Ho-shang Kung commentary is more religious and emphasizes longevity.
Both commentaries bring their own agendas to the Tao Te Ching and, as a result, are not wholly reliable guides to the original text. Aside from minor details, the versions of the Tao Te Ching that they present are nearly identical and may be collectively referred to as the received text, although the Wang Pi version is favored by most scholars. Before the discovery of the Ma-wang-tui manuscripts, there were altogether half a dozen major versions of the text that date from before the ninth century A.D. Yet even when all six are consulted, a host of baffling questions remains.
It is only with the emergence of the Ma-wang-tui manuscripts that a substantial number of these problems can be solved. The chief reason for this is that they preserve many credible readings that later editors and commentators changed for their own political, polemical, or philosophical purposes, or simply because they could not comprehend them. The Ma-wang-tui manuscripts are not necessarily the primary text of the Old Master, but they do bring us much closer to it than any of the previously available versions.
Since the second century A.D., more than fifteen hundred commentaries have been devoted to the Tao Te Ching. Most of these commentaries do not significantly alter the received text itself, but there have been repeated attempts, even in this century, to remold the Tao Te Ching for one reason or another. Because ancient Chinese texts are difficult to read, the commentaries and subcommentaries attached to them can have a huge impact on a reader’s understanding. A commentator might rearrange the chapters or parts to make the work as a whole seem more logical. Problematic characters might be replaced with more easily intelligible ones. When looking at the early commentaries, we must guard against their misleading or erroneous interpretations. These commentaries often give a false sense of security to the uncritical reader. We would do well to heed the words of the British sinologist Arthur Waley:
All the commentaries, from Wang Pi’s onwards down to the eighteenth century, are “scriptural”; that is to say that each commentator reinterprets the text according to his own particular tenets, without any intention or desire to discover what it meant originally. From my point of view they are therefore useless.
From The Way and Its Power by Arthur Waley, p. 129.
By no means does this imply that the various commentaries have no value as records for the study of intellectual and religious history. Indeed, since 1949 it has even become possible to read the Old Master
as espousing a materialist philosophy acceptable to Marxism! And there are numerous instances where the political and governmental concerns of the Ma-wang-tui manuscripts have been changed to meet more mystical and religious ends. In the early stages of the evolution of the Tao Te Ching, this sort of willful interpretation was commonplace.
The original Tao Te Ching is actually a very political book—otherwise, why so much attention to gaining all under heaven? Clearly, the aim of the author(s) was to show how to achieve hegemony over the empire. The sage who appears so often in the Tao Te Ching is the ideal ruler with the heart of a Yogin, an unlikely blend of India and China. The best way to control is through minimal interference and by keeping the people simple, without knowledge and without desires—two pervasive themes of the Tao Te Ching. As members of a modern, democratic society we may find reprehensible chapters such as 47, which advocate filling the bellies and emptying the minds of the people. But if we understand them as exemplifying a kind of third-century B.C. realpolitik, they begin to make sense as antidotes to the turbulent conditions that prevailed in society.
Although there is much in the Tao Te Ching of a mystical, metaphysical quality, the text as a whole is designed to serve as a handbook for the ruler. Perhaps this is the most intriguing aspect of the Tao Te Ching for a late-twentieth-century reader—the audacity of combining cosmic speculation and mundane governance in a single, slender tome. Some of the mundanity has been leached out of the received text by the religious preoccupations of those who were responsible for it, but in the Ma-wang-tui manuscripts it is still quite obvious.
Next to the Ma-wang-tui manuscripts the most important edition by far for anyone who strives to comprehend the Tao Te Ching as it existed during the late third century B.C. is that of Fu I (A.D. 555–640), which is usually referred to as the “ancient text” (ku-pen). It is based largely on a text of the Tao Te Ching said to have been found in the year 574 in the tomb of one of Hsiang Yü’s concubines. Hsiang Yü was a renowned military and political personage at the end of the Chou dynasty who lived from 232–202 B.C. and was from the state of Ch’u. This is additional evidence that the Tao Te Ching probably first came to be written down during the latter part of the third century B.c. and in what were then considered to be the southern reaches of Chinese civilization. This puts the apparent source of the Tao Te Ching in a region that had access to Indian Yoga both by land and by sea, a factor that will receive due attention in the next two parts of the Afterword. It is also highly significant that Fu I’s ancient text derives from the very same area as do the Ma-wang-tui manuscripts. It is possible that the Ma-wang-tui and Fu I texts were among the very first attempts to write down the Tao Te Ching.