Laozi

Lao-tzu is commonly attributed as being the founder the Chinese way of life known as Taoism, albeit this claim is historically suspect and frequently disputed by scholars. While some think Lao-tzu is a legendary figure, his stories, nevertheless, have become deeply ingrained in Chinese culture and continue to be inspirational to practicioners of the Taoist way. Lao-tzu is also credited with having written the Tao Te Ching, albeit this claim is once again disputed, in addition to establishing a distinct philosophical lineage in China. Perhaps his greatest contribution to the history, culture and thought of China, was Lao-tzu's insistance on living in harmony with the ways of nature, and not exploting the earth for human self-aggrandizement. In this manner, Lao-tzu's vision seems instructive even today.

Historical Background

Only the smallest fraction of historical figures continue to be known and venerated millennia after their deaths. It is even rarer for the writings of such an individual to remain extant into the present day. Lao-tzu is one example of this rare case – not only is he known throughout the modern world (far outside his original cultural context), but the Tao Te Ching (the text ascribed to him) is one of the most studied and translated documents in human history. Despite his continued notoriety, however, it turns out that very little is actually known about him.

The Chinese historian Ssu-ma Ch’ien (~145-90 b.c.e..) provides the two earliest biographical stories about Lao-tzu in his Record of the Grand Historian (Shih chi). The first describes Lao-tzu as an archivist in the kingdom of Chou’s grand library. While thus employed, he was visited by a young Confucius, who was seeking advice on the proper performance of rites. Lao-tzu rebuked him savagely, stating that without the correct attitude of non-detachment, all ritual action is pointless. The tale ends with Confucius lamenting the difficulty of following Lao-tzu’s wisdom: “When it comes to the dragon, I have no means of knowing how it rides the wind and the clouds and ascends into heaven. Today I have seen Lao-tzu who really is like unto a dragon.”

The second story describes Lao-tzu’s departure from Chou and the composition of the Tao Te Ching. After realizing that the power of the current dynasty was waning (resulting in social chaos and corruption), Lao-tzu decided to remove himself from society altogether by retiring to the wilds beyond the Western border. “When he reached the western frontier, Yin Hsi, the guardian of the pass, said: ‘You want to withdraw forever. Please write down your thoughts for me.’ Thereupon Lao-tzu wrote a book in two sections dealing with the Tao and its virtue [the Tao-te-ching]. It had more than five thousand words. Then he left, and nobody knows what became of him.”

It is notable that even at this early date, and even for as revered a historian as Ssu-ma Ch’ien, some doubts and confusion existed with respect to Lao-tzu as a historical personage. Indeed, he describes two additional individuals (Lao Lai Tzu and Lao Tan) and states that it is unknown whether these names also, in fact, referred to Lao-tzu.

Scholarly Debate

The absence of any clear factual evidence concerning the life and existence of Lao-tzu has led to considerable academic consternation. Indeed, was it not for the existence of the Tao Te Ching, it is likely that his life would have been dismissed as fiction long ago. Commentators traditionally address the problem of authorship (which, in this case, is primarily concerned with the author’s identity) in one of three ways: 1) The most traditional interpreters argue that, given the dearth of contrary information, there is no reason to doubt the Han dynasty account – that Lao-tzu was, in fact, “an elder contemporary of Confucius.” 2) Others suggest that the Tao Te Ching is a far later text (approximately 250 B.C.E.), though it still feasibly represents the philosophical output of a single individual. Such an interpretation invalidates the majority of the historical biography detailed above. 3) The final group conjectures that the text was, in fact, a primarily syncretic offering: a document composed by editing down the literary output of a large corpus of like-minded renunciants. This final group would likely all agree that Lao-tzu, as an individual, was simply a historical fabrication.

The Legends and Cults of Lao-tzu

As is often the case with hagiographical literature, tales of venerated figures frequently become embossed with various symbolic tropes. The Ssu-ma Ch’ien account (the earliest extant biography), for example, begins by describing Lao-tzu’s mother conceiving after seeing a falling star. Her miraculous pregnancy continues for 62 years before she (finally!) gives birth. Her “old child” (a literal translation of lao tzu) was born with white hair and the ability to converse wisely. In the years following the dissemination of this account, interest in Lao-tzu as a figure grew exponentially and a process of deification began.

Interestingly, he was adopted for (largely) contrary purposes by two different groups – the alchemists (individual magicians and seekers-of-power) and the ruling class. The first group came to describe him as “an immortal, a particularly gifted human being who, by his own initiative and efforts, has attained the purity and power of the celestials.” The second “saw in Lao-tzu the personification of the Tao and worshipped him as a representative of their ideal cosmic and political unity.” Both trends reached their logical culmination when Lao-tzu was reinterpreted as the apex of the celestial bureaucracy (either as a “supreme deity” or as a member of the “Three Heavenly Worthies.”)

This deification process was completed by approximately 150 C.E., as evidenced by the development of the Heavenly Masters School of Taoism. This group (“the first Taoist religious organization”) believed that their teachings were revelations from the deified Lao-tzu. Thus, they took the Tao Te Ching as their central scripture and concentrated their worship activities on “T’ai-shang Lao-chün (Lord Lao Most High).”

Lao-tzu as Philosopher

In addition to his religious significance, Lao-tzu was also centrally important to the development of philosophical Taoism. This development was related both to the text of the Tao Te Ching and to the actions of the great Han systematizers. As for the text, its poetic, esoteric style, its focus on the transformative power of non-action (wu wei) and its thematic emphasis on the ideal of naturalness (as key to good life and good government) made it an undisputed classic. Its classical status, in turn, caused later Han thinkers (Ssu-ma Ch’ien among them) to select it as the quintessential example of a primitivist philosophical movement (whose other members included Chuang-tzu and Lieh-tzu). As a result, Lao-tzu, as its author, became retroactively identified as the originator of the school of philosophical Taoism.

Intriguingly, this process was completely divorced from Lao-tzu as a historical entity – thus, his importance as a “philosophical rallying point” is undiminished, regardless of his actual temporal existence.

See also:

• Philosophical Taoism
• Alchemical Taoism
• Religious Taoism
• Chuang-tzu
• Lieh-tzu
• Tao Te Ching
• Tao (“The Way”)
• Wu-wei (“non-action”)
• Ziran (tzu-jan) (“naturalness”)
• P’u (“the Uncarved Block”)
• Chinese Celestial Bureaucracy
• Three Heavenly Worthies
• Heavenly Masters Taoism