The Dao De Jing in numbers
The Dao De Jing has 5,281 characters in the Wang Bi text this site uses, in 81 chapters and 785 lines as recited. It uses 801 different characters, and 334 of them occur only once. 道, the Way, occurs 75 times and 德, virtue, 44 times; the most frequent character is 之, 253 times. Every figure on this page is computed from the text and the recording on this site.
| Measure | Figure |
|---|---|
| Chapters | 81 |
| Lines, as divided on this site | 785 |
| Characters | 5,281 |
| Different characters | 801 |
| Characters used only once | 334 |
| Characters per chapter, on average | 65 |
| Length of the recitation | 45 min |
“Five thousand characters”
The book has long been called the “five thousand characters” (五千言). The phrase goes back to Sima Qian's Records of the Grand Historian (about 90 BCE), which says Laozi wrote a book in two parts, “speaking of the meaning of the Way and virtue in five thousand and some characters”. The count holds: the received text runs to a little over five thousand. Published totals vary from one source to another, because editions differ by a few characters here and there and because few say what they counted. This page counts Han characters only, without punctuation, in the Wang Bi text as recited here.
The two parts
The book has two parts: the 道经, the book of the Way, chapters 1 to 37, and the 德经, the book of virtue, chapters 38 to 81. The second is the longer.
| Part | Chapters | Characters | Different characters | Recitation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 道经 The Book of the Way | chapters 1 to 37 | 2,376 | 540 | 21 min |
| 德经 The Book of Virtue | chapters 38 to 81 | 2,905 | 574 | 25 min |
Longest and shortest chapters
Chapter 39 is the longest, with 134 characters; chapter 40 the shortest, with 21.
| Chapter | Opening | Characters |
|---|---|---|
| Chapter 39 | 昔之得一 | 134 |
| Chapter 20 | 绝学无忧 | 132 |
| Chapter 38 | 上德不德 | 129 |
| Chapter 64 | 其安易持 | 125 |
| Chapter 31 | 夫佳兵者 | 116 |
| Chapter 47 | 不出户知 | 36 |
| Chapter 71 | 知不知上 | 28 |
| Chapter 18 | 大道废有 | 26 |
| Chapter 6 | 谷神不死 | 25 |
| Chapter 40 | 反者道之 | 21 |
The most frequent characters
The commonest characters are the grammar of classical Chinese: 之, 不, 以, 其, 而. Tap a character to see its meaning in the book; the characters page lists the first hundred with their HSK levels.
| Rank | Character | Pinyin | Most common meaning in the book | Occurrences | Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 之 | zhī | it, them (object) | 253 | 47.9 per 1,000 |
| 2 | 不 | bù | not | 244 | 46.2 per 1,000 |
| 3 | 以 | yǐ | by means of, with | 162 | 30.7 per 1,000 |
| 4 | 其 | qí | its, his, their | 142 | 26.9 per 1,000 |
| 5 | 而 | ér | and yet, but | 120 | 22.7 per 1,000 |
| 6 | 为 | wéi | to be, to count as | 115 | 21.8 per 1,000 |
| 7 | 无 | wú | not have, without, no | 102 | 19.3 per 1,000 |
| 8 | 天 | tiān | heaven | 92 | 17.4 per 1,000 |
| 9 | 者 | zhě | one who, that which | 92 | 17.4 per 1,000 |
| 10 | 人 | rén | people, others | 85 | 16.1 per 1,000 |
| 11 | 有 | yǒu | to have, to possess | 82 | 15.5 per 1,000 |
| 12 | 下 | xià | low, below | 82 | 15.5 per 1,000 |
| 13 | 道 | dào | the Way | 75 | 14.2 per 1,000 |
| 14 | 是 | shì | this | 72 | 13.6 per 1,000 |
| 15 | 故 | gù | therefore | 64 | 12.1 per 1,000 |
| 16 | 大 | dà | great, big | 58 | 11.0 per 1,000 |
| 17 | 知 | zhī | to know | 57 | 10.8 per 1,000 |
| 18 | 善 | shàn | to be good at | 52 | 9.8 per 1,000 |
| 19 | 于 | yú | to, at | 47 | 8.9 per 1,000 |
| 20 | 若 | ruò | like, as if | 45 | 8.5 per 1,000 |
| 21 | 德 | dé | virtue | 44 | 8.3 per 1,000 |
| 22 | 生 | shēng | to live | 38 | 7.2 per 1,000 |
| 23 | 物 | wù | thing, beings | 37 | 7.0 per 1,000 |
| 24 | 可 | kě | can be | 34 | 6.4 per 1,000 |
| 25 | 民 | mín | the people | 33 | 6.2 per 1,000 |
| 26 | 得 | dé | to get, to obtain | 33 | 6.2 per 1,000 |
| 27 | 能 | néng | can, to be able | 33 | 6.2 per 1,000 |
| 28 | 自 | zì | oneself, by oneself | 33 | 6.2 per 1,000 |
| 29 | 谓 | wèi | to call, to be called | 32 | 6.1 per 1,000 |
| 30 | 圣 | shèng | the divine, holiness | 32 | 6.1 per 1,000 |
Key terms
How often the book's key words occur, counted as words in their sense in each line (道 as the Way, not 道 as “to speak”).
| Term | Most common meaning in the book | Occurrences | Chapters |
|---|---|---|---|
| 道 dào | the Way | 74 | 37 |
| 天下 tiān xià | all under heaven, the world | 61 | 33 |
| 德 dé | virtue | 42 | 15 |
| 圣人 shèng rén | the sage | 31 | 26 |
| 万物 wàn wù | the myriad things | 20 | 16 |
| 常 cháng | constant, eternal | 14 | 7 |
| 柔弱 róu ruò | soft and weak | 14 | 8 |
| 无为 wú wéi | non-action | 12 | 10 |
| 玄 xuán | mystery, mysterious | 12 | 7 |
| 一 yī | the One | 12 | 5 |
| 朴 pǔ | the uncarved block | 8 | 6 |
| 不争 bù zhēng | not contending | 8 | 7 |
| 自然 zì rán | what is so of itself | 5 | 5 |
| 水 shuǐ | water | 3 | 2 |
The recitation
The Mandarin recitation on this site lasts 45 minutes for the whole book, about 117 characters a minute: slow enough to follow each character, which is how the text is usually recited.
How these figures are counted
Han characters only, punctuation left out, in the Wang Bi received text as this site gives it and as it is recited. The lines are the site's own division of each chapter for reading and listening. Key terms are counted by their sense in each line, from the site's word-by-word glossary. The figures are computed from the text whenever the site is built, so they follow every correction.