The Dao De Jing manuscripts
The Dao De Jing survives in two kinds of version: ancient copies on bamboo and silk recovered since 1973 (the Guodian bamboo slips, the Mawangdui silk manuscripts A and B, and the Western Han bamboo slips at Peking University) and the received editions handed down by copying and printing, chiefly those named after the commentators Heshang Gong and Wang Bi. This site follows the Wang Bi received text, checked against the Wang Bi edition on Wikisource; where editions differ, the displayed text follows the recording.
| Version | Date of the copy | Material | Where and when found | How much of the text | Order of the two parts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Guodian (郭店楚简) | About 300 BCE | Bamboo slips | Tomb 1 at Guodian, Jingmen, Hubei, October 1993 | About 2,000 characters, parts of 31 chapters | No division into two parts; chapters in another order |
| Mawangdui A (帛书甲本) | Early Han, before 168 BCE | Silk | Tomb 3 at Mawangdui, Changsha, Hunan, 1973 | Nearly complete, with gaps | Virtue first, then the Way |
| Mawangdui B (帛书乙本) | Early Han, later than A, before 168 BCE | Silk | The same tomb, 1973 | Nearly complete, with gaps | Virtue first, then the Way |
| Peking University (北大汉简) | Western Han | Bamboo slips | Not excavated: bought by Peking University in January 2009 | 221 slips, over 5,300 characters, 77 chapters | Virtue first, then the Way |
| Heshang Gong (河上公本) | Commentary dated to about the 3rd century CE | Received text | Handed down | Complete | The Way first, then virtue |
| Wang Bi (王弼本) | Commentary by Wang Bi (226 to 249 CE) | Received text | Handed down | Complete, 81 chapters | The Way first, then virtue |
The Guodian bamboo slips
The oldest known copy was found in October 1993 in tomb 1 at Guodian, near Jingmen in Hubei, and is dated to about 300 BCE. Its Laozi is written on three bundles of bamboo slips, known as Laozi A, B and C. Together they hold about 2,000 characters, which match parts of 31 chapters of the received text, from chapter 2 to chapter 66; nothing in them matches chapters 67 to 81. The chapters come in another order, and there is no part on the Way and part on virtue: bundle A begins with chapters 19, 66 and 46. The slips are now in the Hubei Provincial Museum.
Chapter 18 shows what such a copy can do to a familiar passage. The received text has four lines:
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大道废，有仁义；
When the great Way perishes, appear humaneness and justice.
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智慧出，有大伪；
When intelligence is manifest, arises great deception.
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六亲不和，有孝慈；
When the six family relationships are not in harmony, emerge filial piety and compassion.
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国家昏乱，有忠臣。
When the country is in chaos, stand out loyal ministers.
The Guodian copy has three: 故大道废，安有仁义。六亲不和，安有孝慈。邦家昏乱，安有正臣。 The line on cleverness and great deceit is not there.
The Mawangdui silk manuscripts A and B
Two copies on silk were found in 1973 in tomb 3 at Mawangdui, in Changsha, Hunan, a tomb sealed in 168 BCE. Both are nearly complete, with gaps where the silk is damaged. Manuscript A is written in an earlier, seal-style script, manuscript B in clerical script, and A is the earlier copy. The emperors’ names help date them. A writes 邦, “state”, freely, although it was the personal name of Liu Bang, the founder of the Han; B replaces it with 国, but keeps 恒, the name of Emperor Wen, Liu Heng (reigned 180 to 157 BCE).
Both copies put the part on virtue before the part on the Way. They open with the chapter that is chapter 38 in the received text, and the book of the Way follows:
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上德不德，是以有德；
Superior virtue is not "virtuous"; that is why it has virtue.
The silk copies also keep many grammatical particles that the received text lacks, such as the 也 that ends each clause of chapter 1.
The Peking University Han bamboo slips
In January 2009 Peking University acquired a large group of Western Han bamboo manuscripts. They were not excavated by archaeologists but bought from an antiquities dealer, so where they were found is not known. Their Laozi, published in full in 2012, survives on 221 slips with more than 5,300 characters, of which only about 60 are lost: it is the most complete early copy found so far. It is divided into 77 chapters, not 81. Like the Mawangdui copies it puts the part on virtue first, and the backs of two slips carry the titles 老子上经 and 老子下经, the upper and lower books of the Laozi. Because the slips were bought, their authenticity has been questioned, notably by Xing Wen, and defended, by Christopher Foster among others.
The received editions: Heshang Gong and Wang Bi
The text read for most of Chinese history is the received text, handed down by copying and later by printing. Its main editions are named after the commentaries printed with them. The Heshang Gong commentary is attributed to a legendary “master on the river” said to have lived under Emperor Wen of Han; scholars date it much later, to about the 3rd century CE. Wang Bi (226 to 249 CE) wrote his commentary in the state of Wei, and the origins of his edition are better attested than those of the others. Both put the book of the Way first, chapters 1 to 37, and the book of virtue second, chapters 38 to 81.
The text on this site
This site gives the Wang Bi received text in simplified characters, checked character by character against the Wang Bi edition on Wikisource. Where editions differ, the displayed text follows the recording, so that the line you read is the line you hear. When a reading differs between editions, the chapter’s commentary says so, as in chapters 10, 16, 26 and 45. The manuscript readings on this page are given for comparison; they do not replace the text.
Notable variant lines
A few lines where the excavated copies read differently, with what changes. Manuscript readings are given in simplified characters; □ marks a character lost in the silk.
| Chapter | Received text (Wang Bi) | Mawangdui | Guodian | What changes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 道可道，非常道。名可名，非常名。 | A: 道可道也，非恒道也。名可名也，非恒名也。 B (damaged): ……恒名也 | Not in the slips | 恒 and 常 both mean “constant”; the received text changed 恒 to avoid the name of Emperor Wen, Liu Heng. The silk copies end each clause with 也, which makes it a plain statement. The sense is the same. |
| 18 | 智慧出，有大伪； | A: 知快出，案有大伪 B: 知慧出，安有□□ | Missing | Without this line, Guodian’s chapter has three parallel pairs, and cleverness is not among the things that bring decline. |
| 18 | 国家昏乱，有忠臣。 | A: 邦家昏乱，案有贞臣 | 邦家昏乱，安有正臣 | 邦, “state”, became 国 to avoid the name of the first Han emperor, Liu Bang. The older copies praise “upright” ministers (正, 贞) where the received text has “loyal” ones (忠). |
| 19 | 绝圣弃智……绝仁弃义，民复孝慈 | B: 绝圣弃知……绝仁弃义 (A writes 声 for 圣) | 绝智弃辩……绝伪弃虑，民复孝慈 | Guodian gives up cleverness and disputation, artifice and calculation: no word against sageliness, humaneness or justice. Mawangdui already has the received wording. |
| 41 | 大器晚成 | B: 大器免成 (A damaged) | 大器曼成 | The Guodian editors read 曼 as 晚, “late”; Qiu Xigui suggested 慢, “slow”. 免 can mean “without”: the great vessel would be never completed, like the square without corners. |
| 57 | 以正治国，以奇用兵 | A: 以正之邦，以畸用兵 B: 以正之国，以畸用兵 | 以正之邦 | Most scholars read 之 as 治, “to govern”; some read it as 持, “to hold”. 畸 is another way of writing 奇. 邦 and 国 are the taboo again. |
Chapter 1 as the received text has it:
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道可道非常道，
The way that can be followed is not the eternal Way.
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名可名非常名。
The name that can be named is not the eternal name.
Chapter 19 opens with the lines the Guodian copy reads so differently. The idiom 绝圣弃智 comes from the first of them.
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绝圣弃智，民利百倍；
Reject the divine and abandon wisdom, the people will benefit a hundredfold.
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绝仁弃义，民复孝慈；
Get rid of humaneness and abandon justice, the people will return to filial piety and compassion.
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绝巧弃利，盗贼无有。
Get rid of cleverness and abandon profit, thieves and gangsters will not exist.
In chapter 41, the idiom 大器晚成 is the received reading of the third character:
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大方无隅，大器晚成，
the great square has no corners, the great vessel is finished late,
Chapter 57 opens with the lines of the idiom 以正治国，以奇用兵:
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以正治国，以奇用兵，
Govern the state by what is upright; wage war by surprise;
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以无事取天下。
win the world by leaving it alone.
How to read the differences
Most differences are small. Taken as a whole, the Mawangdui and Guodian copies agree with the received text; what differs is mostly the order of the chapters and the way words are written: a character borrowed for its sound (声 for 圣 in manuscript A), an older form (畸 for 奇), a name avoided (国 for 邦, 常 for 恒).
A few change the sense. In chapter 19 the Guodian copy has no word against humaneness and justice; the philosopher Pang Pu read this as a sign that the open attack on those Confucian virtues came later, beginning with the Zhuangzi. In chapter 18 it lacks the line on cleverness. In chapter 41 the third character may say the great vessel is finished late, or never finished. Scholars do not agree on what each difference shows, and this site keeps the received reading in the text and names the others in the commentary.
Sources
The silk texts as transcribed on Wikisource (manuscript A, manuscript B); Wikipedia on the Guodian slips and the Mawangdui silk texts; Pang Pu, “The oldest surviving Dao De Jing” (存世最早的道德经, 1999), for the Guodian chapter 19; the Taiwan Ministry of Education dictionary of idioms, entry 大器晚成; Liang Yue’e (2022), on 以正之邦 in the excavated copies; Han Wei and Sun Hui, of the Institute of Excavated Documents at Peking University, on the Peking University Laozi; Christopher Foster, “Introduction to the Peking University Han Bamboo Strips” (Early China, 2017). The figures for this site’s own text are on the numbers page.