Product Description

Tao Te Ching, also commonly known as Lao Tzu, is perhaps the most important of Chinese classical texts, with an unparalleled influence on Chinese thought. This bilingual edition consists of two parts. The English text in Part One is a reprint of the earlier translation of the so-called Wang Pi text, first published by Penguin Books in 1963. Part Two is the fresh translation of a text which is a conflation of two manuscripts of the Lao Tzu, dating at the latest from the early Western Han and discovered at Ma Wang Tui in December 1973. The result is a text with a fuller use of particles, free from the scribal errors and editorial tampering of subsequent ages.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #48391 in Books
• Published on: 1964-05-30
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 176 pages

From AudioFile
Carole Boyd and John Rowe alternate reading chapters of this Taoist classic. Boyd's voice is gently seductive, clearly female, meticulously precise, yet subtly attentive to the nuances of this fourth-century BC poetry. Rowe's voice, by contrast, is clearly male in its directness, yet soothing, gentle, and thoughtful. These two become the perfect vehicle to convey the balanced wisdom of the sage and the modest guidance given to those who direct the affairs of men. But readers unfamiliar with the complexity and simplicity of this little book beware: Lau's translation is poetic--spare and unadorned, yet replete with the clarifying notes that this audiobook cannot include. The only guidance given here is Lao Tzu's. P.E.F. © AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Language Notes
Text: English (translation)
Original Language: Chinese

About the Author

D. C. Lau, a world renowned scholar on sinological studies, is professor emeritus of Chinese language and Lliterature at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. He is reknowned for his classic English translations of Tao Te Ching, the Mencius, and The Analects of Confucius.

Customer Reviews

ANCIENT WISDOM FOR CONTEMPORARY PEOPLE
Stepping Off the Edge: Learning & Living Spiritual Practice
Traditionally ascribed to Lao Tzu, an older contemporary of Confucius, the work is more probably an anthology of wise saying compiled in about the fourth century, "says the rear cover of this book. Whoever did it, the Tao Te Ching is wonderful. I have this version.

Kick the New Age right out of your DDJ...
I love this translation. Not so much for the translation but for the introduction in the original edition. Lau was really the first critic of the traditional story of Laozi and the Dao De Jing to bring it to the English masses. The DDJ is a composite work, not the work of one author, as romantic as the story of Laozi may be. It was the work of many and thus the reason for some of its inconsistencies. Sure the work can be made to fit into one's particular scheme (the Dao obviously has plenty of flexibility to accommodate) but quite often this reflects the reader/translator/interpreter more than it does the actual DDJ which makes sense as the 'mirror' is a latent symbol in this work.

Lau grounds this translation. Though he notes there may be hints of an ancient cosmology and perhaps traces of a guide to lengthening one's life through mystical practice, he notes that in reality the DDJ does not emphasize these at all. Any hints of these are reinterpreted and recontextualized due to the multiple layers of sayings represented here. It's just one particular view of the multitude of views of the Daoism school. If anything, such views are actually stripped away. Contrary to the belief (and translation) of many, the DDJ does not emphasize long life. In fact, it even points out that those who emphasize life too much surely come to an early end.

In all my years and in all my readings (from at least a dozen different translations) I too have come to a similar conclusion. This isn't a mystical treatise; it isn't an otherworldly spiritual guidebook; it isn't even a philosophy. It is a guidebook that teaches us how to live here and now, on earth, in the dirt,with the people. No fortune telling, no mystical visions, no otherworldly gurus, no escapism, nothing transcendent here.

Lau's translation reflects this spirit. Don't expect a poetic, mystical, New Agey translation tailored toward a Western audience nor one that embodied in the Perennial Philosophy. Too often the book is viewed as exotic, as "the Other", an alternative to the overly analytical, linear and often overbearing Western religious traditions.

But as the DDJ reminds us:

"Beautiful words aren't true; true words aren't beautiful."

"When people hear the Dao they think: How bland it is."

Not your average fortune cookie
My first reaction was negative to the fatalism of
"doing nothing"
that is a major theme of this mystic path philosophy,
but I realized that this was contemporary to the Hebrew biblical wisdom books
like Proverbs. The dualism seems more Persian as in Zorasterism
than would be expected for such an early Chinese document.
I actually think the translation trys more for poetic form
than actual meaning. One gets a feeling of Vulcan like stoicism
than seems out of place in an era that is mostly polytheistic.
The author was a well respected wise man who advised the kings of his time.
The result is a blending of wisdom, politics, philosophy and mysticism
with the religious origins of both Taoism and Zen Buddhism.