Why Dao De Jing translations differ

Why the same line comes out differently

The book has been translated into Western languages over 250 times, by one count (LaFargue and others, 1998); a 2022 study by Misha Tadd counted 1,930 translations into 94 languages. Four things make them differ.

This site translates the Wang Bi text: the received edition with the commentary of Wang Bi (226 to 249). Its English stays close to the Chinese, one line for one line, and each chapter page also shows James Legge’s translation of 1891. The two oldest commentaries already disagree, and both are cited below in Chinese with their sense: Wang Bi, and the Heshang Gong commentary, which scholarship dates to about the third century CE.

道可道: “spoken” or “followed”? (chapter 1)

Word for word: 道 way, 可 can, 道 “way” used as a verb, 非 is not, 常 constant, 道 way.

The same character comes three times, and the middle one is a verb. Most translations take it as “to speak”. Legge writes “The Tao that can be described is not the enduring and unchanging Tao”, Gia-fu Feng and Jane English (1972) and Stephen Mitchell (1988) both use “told”, and Wang Bi explains the way that can be spoken as one that points to things and gives them form (指事造形). The Heshang Gong commentary reads the verb otherwise: the way that can be 道’d is 经术政教之道, the way of classical learning, government and teaching, a way people can practise, set against the constant Way that cannot. This site’s English takes that path: “The way that can be followed is not the eternal Way.”

常 comes out as “eternal”, “constant”, or in Legge “enduring and unchanging”. The silk manuscripts found at Mawangdui in 1973 do not have 常 here: they read 道可道也，非恒道也, with 恒, another word for “constant”, and the particle 也 closing each clause.

Why it matters: read as “spoken”, the line is about the limits of language and sets up the next line on names. Read as “followed”, it is also about doctrines and rules, the ways people prescribe. Both readings agree that the constant Way is not one that can be pinned down.

无名 or 无, 名: where does the phrase break? (chapter 1)

Word for word: 无名 no name, 天地 heaven and earth, 之 of, 始 beginning.

The ancient text has no punctuation, and these lines can be cut in two places. Wang Bi reads 无名 and 有名 as phrases, “nameless” and “named”: before things take form they have no name (未形无名之时). Legge follows him: “(Conceived of as) having no name, it is the Originator of heaven and earth; (conceived of as) having a name, it is the Mother of all things.” The other cut puts the break after 无 and 有: 无，名天地之始, “non-being names the beginning of heaven and earth”, which turns 无 and 有 into the book’s two great terms. The collated edition on Wikisource gives both punctuations, and the same choice comes back two lines later, in 常无欲 or 常无，欲.

Why it matters: the first cut keeps chapter 1 about names; the second makes it the first statement of 有 and 无, presence and absence, which chapters 2, 11 and 40 take up.

天地不仁: “inhumane” or “impartial”? (chapter 5)

Word for word: 天地 heaven and earth, 不 not, 仁 humane, 以 take, 万物 the myriad things, 为 as, 刍狗 straw dogs.

仁 is the Confucian virtue of care for others, and translators render it “humanity”, “benevolence”, “kind acts” or even “partiality”. So 不仁 becomes “inhumane” in this site’s English, “impartial” in Feng and English, and in Legge “do not act from (the impulse of) any wish to be benevolent”. Mitchell’s version leaves out heaven and earth and has the Tao itself refuse to take sides.

刍狗 are dogs made of straw for a sacrifice. The Zhuangzi describes them: before the offering they are kept in a box under embroidered cloth; after it, passers-by tread on them and those who gather grass take them to light their fires. Legge has “dogs of grass”, this site “ritual dolls”. Wang Bi reads the two characters apart: earth does not grow grass for the animals, yet the animals eat grass; it does not make dogs for people, yet people eat dogs. Heshang Gong too reads grass and dogs, which heaven and earth give without expecting thanks.

Why it matters: “inhumane” can sound cruel, “impartial” sounds fair. The Chinese says only “not 仁”, and the straw dogs say the indifference is that of a ritual, not of malice.

谷神: the valley spirit or the spirit that nourishes? (chapter 6)

Word for word: 谷 valley, 神 spirit, 不 not, 死 die.

Wang Bi takes 谷 as the valley and explains 谷神 as the empty middle of the valley (谷中央无谷也): formless, low, still, and never worn out. Heshang Gong reads 谷 as “to nourish” (谷，养也): whoever nourishes the spirits does not die, the spirits being those of the five organs. Some editions write the character differently, 浴 or 穀 (grain). Legge has “The valley spirit”, as do Feng and English, and Julien writes the spirit of the valley in French. This site’s English, “The spirit of abundance”, follows the nourishing reading. Mitchell’s version drops the valley and speaks of a mother.

Why it matters: the valley ties the line to the book’s other low, empty places (chapters 28 and 41); the nourishing reading turns it toward care of the body and the spirit, which is how Heshang Gong reads the whole book.

无之以为用: use from emptiness (chapter 11)

Word for word: 无 what is not, 之 it, 以 take, 为 as, 用 use.

The chapter’s images are plain: the hole in the hub, the hollow of a pot, the space of a room. The question is what 无 means when the chapter sums them up. Some translations keep the image, “emptiness” or “what is not there”; others make it the abstract “non-being”. Wang Bi says wood, clay and walls all work through their 无, and that the hub can hold thirty spokes because it is empty. Heshang Gong says what is empty can hold things, and adds 道者空也, “the Way is emptiness”. Legge renders the last two lines “what has a (positive) existence serves for profitable adaptation, and what has not that for (actual) usefulness”; this site has “presence brings benefits, absence brings utility.” The punctuation of the earlier lines is disputed too: the collated edition notes that 当其无，有车之用 can also be cut 当其无有，车之用.

Why it matters: 有 and 无 here are the same pair as in chapters 1, 2 and 40. Translating with the image keeps the argument concrete; “being” and “non-being” bring a metaphysics the chapter does not spell out.

复命: returning to life, to fate, or reporting back? (chapter 16)

Word for word: 归 return, 根 root, 曰 is called, 静 stillness, 是 this, 谓 is called, 复命 return to 命.

命 means life, fate, and an order given by a superior; in the dictionary, 复命 is to report on the completion of a mission. Legge takes that sense: stillness “may be called a reporting that they have fulfilled their appointed end.” Wang Bi reads 命 as one’s nature and life: whoever returns finds the constancy of their nature and life (得性命之常). This site’s English has “returning to life”, and its word card gives “return to one’s destiny”. Feng and English leave fate out and speak of the way of nature. The silk manuscripts have the same words here.

Why it matters: each sense paints a different return: back to life, back to one’s allotted nature, or a task completed and reported. The chapter supports all three, and the next words, 复命曰常, tie them to the constant.

上德不德: virtue that is not “virtuous” (chapter 38)

Word for word: 上 highest, 德 virtue, 不 not, 德 “virtue” used as a verb.

The second 德 is a verb, and the translator must decide what it does. Wang Bi says the highest virtue does not treat its virtue as virtue (不德其德). Heshang Gong reads 上德 as the rulers of high antiquity, and 不德 as not teaching the people by virtue, so that their virtue is not seen. Legge adds a subject and a purpose, “(Those who) possessed in highest degree the attributes (of the Tao) did not (seek) to show them”, and takes 德 as the attributes of the Tao. Feng and English make the line about a good person who is not aware of being good. This site writes “Superior virtue is not ‘virtuous’”, the quotation marks showing the word used as a label. The silk manuscripts lack one line of the received chapter, 下德为之而有以为 (inferior virtue acts, and has a motive for acting).

Why it matters: 德 opens the second half of the book. Whether it is “virtue”, “power” or “attributes”, and whether the highest kind hides, ignores or simply does not claim itself, sets the tone for the chapters that follow.

道生一，一生二: what are one, two and three? (chapter 42)

Word for word: 道 the Way, 生 gives birth to, 一 one; 一 one, 生 gives birth to, 二 two; 二 two, 生 gives birth to, 三 three.

The line gives numbers and nothing else. Heshang Gong fills them in: one gives rise to yin and yang; yin and yang give rise to three breaths, harmonious, clear and turbid, which divide into heaven, earth and people. Wang Bi reads it as a logic of naming: the myriad things come back to one, and one comes from 无; once you call it “one”, there is the word as well as the thing, which makes two, and the two with the one make three. Legge capitalises the numbers, “The Tao produced One; One produced Two; Two produced Three”, which turns them into proper names; this site keeps them lower case. The next line of the chapter names yin and yang.

Why it matters: a translation that writes “yin and yang” in this line is giving a commentary, however old. Keeping the bare numbers leaves the question open, as the Chinese does.

为学日益，为道日损: what grows and what shrinks? (chapter 48)

Word for word: 为 do, 学 learning, 日 daily, 益 increase; 为 do, 道 the Way, 日 daily, 损 diminish.

The verbs have no object: something increases, something diminishes. Legge supplies them in brackets, “to increase (his knowledge)” and “to diminish (his doing)”. Wang Bi says the learner strives to advance his abilities and add to what he has practised, while the follower of the Way strives to return to emptiness. Heshang Gong says the learning is that of government, teaching, rites and music, and that what grows every day is desire and ornament. Feng and English leave the object open, as “something” acquired and dropped. This site’s English, “one gains every day … one loses every day”, keeps it open too. The silk manuscripts read the second half differently: 为学者日益，闻道者日损, “one who hears the Way” rather than one who does it.

Why it matters: “lose knowledge” sounds like a rejection of learning; “lose desires” or “lose doing” does not. The next line, 损之又损，以至于无为, suggests that what is shed leads to non-action.

小国寡民: a description, a wish or a plan? (chapter 80)

Word for word: 小 small, 国 state, 寡 few, 民 people; 使 let, 有 have, 什 ten, 伯 hundred, 之 of, 器 tools, 而 and yet, 不 not, 用 use.

There is no verb in the first four characters and no subject anywhere. Legge makes it the speaker’s plan: “In a little state with a small population, I would so order it”, and Julien in French opens with an added “if I governed”. Feng and English write a plain description. This site has a heading and a wish: “A small state with few people: let them have …”. Heshang Gong reads 小 and 寡 as verbs: the sage governs a great state as if it were small, and many people as if they were few.

什伯之器 splits translators too. This site and its word card read 什 and 伯 as ten and a hundred, tools worth ten or a hundred people; Legge has “individuals with the abilities of ten or a hundred men”; Julien reads weapons for ten or a hundred men; Heshang Gong reads 什伯 as army units of ten and a hundred. The silk manuscripts write 使十百人之器毋用, “tools of ten or a hundred people”, and 小邦寡民 with 邦 for 国.

Why it matters: read as a plan, the chapter is a program for a ruler; as a description, a picture of a lost golden age; as Heshang Gong reads it, advice on modesty in governing. The Chinese allows each.

Legge and this site side by side

Two translations a century and a half apart, both close to the Chinese, still differ on almost every line above. Legge marks in brackets the words he adds; this site keeps one English line for each Chinese line.

How to choose a translation

No translation is the right one; each settles the questions above in its own way. What helps is knowing how it settled them. Five things to check:

The surest way to read past any one translator is to read two side by side with the Chinese. Every chapter page here has the Chinese, the pinyin, this site’s line-by-line English and Legge’s translation, and the How to read page explains how to use them.