Table of Contents

List of Tables and Figures Permissions Preface Editors' Introduction Part I. Ancient Myths 1. The Origins of the Legend of Lao Tan A. C. Graham 2. The Lao-tzu Myth Livia Kohn 3. Lao-tzu in Six Dynasties Taoist Sculpture Yoshiko Kamitsuka Part II. Chinese Interpretations 4. A Tale of Two Commentaries: Ho-shang-kung and Wang Pi on the Lao-tzu Alan K. L. Chan 5. Later Commentaries: Textual Polysemy and Syncretistic Interpretations Isabelle Robinet 6. The Tao-te-ching in Ritual Livia Kohn Part III. Modern Readings 7. Influential Western Interpretations of the Tao-te-ching Julia M. Hardy 8. The Thought of the Tao-te-ching Benjamin Schwartz 9. Naturalness (Tzu-jan), the Core Value in Taoism: Its Ancient Meaning and Its Significance Today Liu Xiaogan Part IV. Critical Methods 10. Situating the Language of the Lao-tzu: The Probable Date of the Tao-te-ching William H. Baxter 11. Recovering the Tao-te-ching's Original Meaning: Some Remarks on Historical Hermeneutics Michael LaFargue 12. On Translating the Tao-te-ching Michael LaFargue and Julian Pas Appendix: Index to Citations from Tao-te-ching Chapters Glossary List of Contributors Index

About the Author

Livia Kohn is Associate Professor of Religion at Boston University. She has written many books including most recently The Taoist Experience: An Anthology, also published by SUNY Press, and Laughing at the Tao: Debates among Buddhists and Taoists in Medieval China. Michael LaFargue is Lecturer in Religious Studies and Director of the East Asian Studies program at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. He is the author of The Tao of the Tao-te-ching and Tao and Method: A Reasoned Approach to the Tao-te-ching, both published by SUNY Press.

Reviews

"There are so many things about this book that please me. It presents the most up-to-date scholarship on Lao-tzu and the Tao-te-ching. The essays approach the text and its legendary author from a broad spectrum of disciplines. Furthermore, the authors are uniformly both critical (in a positive sense, as all good scholars should be) and sympathetic (as befitting students of other cultures). I particularly appreciate the open-minded manner in which Buddhist art, legend, and scripture are dealt with here in spite of the fact that the subject could not be more Taoist. Finally, I am pleased by the international nature of the scholarship represented in this book--here we have the best work of Anglo-American, French, German, Chinese, and Japanese specialists brought together." -- Victor H. Mair, University of Pennsylvania