Written more than two thousand years ago, the Laozi, or Daodejing, is a classic of Chinese intellectual history and has been of foundational importance to cultural and religious history throughout East Asia. It is now venerated as a masterpiece of self-cultivation, with a poetic narrative that remains accessible and relevant even today. Paul Fischer's new, annotated translation aims for fidelity to the original text as well as clarity for a modern audience. Fischer's notes and explanations bring out obscure meanings in ancient Chinese wording and rhetoric, elucidate the connections among the eighty-one short chapters, and clarify the coherence of the work as a whole. Carefully considering the various manuscripts that have been archaeologically uncovered in recent decades, as well as the variations among received versions of the Laozi, Fischer's translation discloses the beauty and meaning of the original. This book will benefit students and readers interested in intellectual history as well as those who want to explore what the text has to say about the meaning of life.

Chen Guying’s Laozi includes some of the most significant traditional commentary and influential contemporary scholarship. This book completely changed Laozi studies in China, and its English translation gives scholars a unique inroad to Chinese perspectives on the Laozi.

A clear translation and helpful explanations illuminate this ancient classic of self-cultivation for a modern audience.

Philip J. Ivanhoe's richly annotated translation of this classic work is accompanied by his engaging interpretation and commentary, a lucid introduction, and a Language Appendix that compares eight classic translations of the opening passage of the work and invites the reader to consider the principles upon which each was rendered.

Leading scholars examine religious and philosophical dimensions of the Chinese classic known as the Daodejing or Laozi.

Dao De Jing was composed in China between the late sixth and late fourth centuries BC.

The Laozi (Daodejing) and the Zhuangzi have long been familiar to Western readers and have served as basic sources of knowledge about early Chinese Daoism. Modern translations and studies of these works have encouraged a perception of Daoism as a mystical philosophy heavy with political implications that advises kings to become one with the Dao. Breaking with this standard approach, The Pristine Dao argues that the Laozi and the Zhuangzi participated in a much wider tradition of metaphysical discourse that included a larger corpus of early Chinese writings. This book demonstrates that early Daoist discourse possessed a distinct, textually constituted coherence and a religious sensibility that starkly differed from the intellectual background of all other traditions of early China, including Confucianism. The author argues that this discourse is best analyzed through its emergence from the mythological imagination of early China, and that it was unified by a set of notions about the Dao that was shared by all of its participants. The author introduces certain categories from the Western religious and philosophical traditions in order to bring out the distinctive qualities constituting this discourse and to encourage its comparison with other religious and philosophical traditions.