Lao-Tzu- Te-Tao Ching

by Robert G Henricks

  37. Lau, 1963, p. 92.

  38. “Tien-hisa” (literally “all under heaven”) can be translated as “empire” and is often translated that way in the Lao-tzu. But there was no empire in China before 221 B.C., SO I have translated tien-hisa, throughout, as “the world” or “the whole land.”

  39. Rulers in early China referred to themselves as “The Orphan,” “The Widower,” or “The One Without Grain” (line 15) as a way of identifying themselves with the lot of the poor and unfortunate, whose welfare was said to be the ruler’s foremost concern.

  40. Both lines are from Chan, 1963, p. 170.

  41. Although the final i can be read to mean the same thing as the instrumental i, since the author uses the instrumental i in all cases in lines 2–6 and the final i in all cases in lines 8-12, it would appear that a distinction is being made. Accordingly, D. C. Lau (1982, p. 191) treats the i in lines 8-12 as the verb “to stop,” and translates: “It will mean that not knowing when to stop in being limpid heaven will split; It will mean that not knowing when to stop in being settled earth will sink;” and so on. I dislike the fact that this seemingly makes i into a transitive verb (literally, “If Heaven did not stop its clarity”), a sense in which it is never used to my knowledge. But it is possible, I think, to read the i in its sense as “and that’s all” and go on from there. This would give us the following lines:

  8 If Heaven did not have it (t’ien wu i), its clarity, I’m afraid, would shatter (ch’ing chiang k’ung lieh);

  9 If the Earth did not have it, its stability, I’m afraid, would let go;

  10 If the gods did not have it, their divinity, I’m afraid, would come to an end.

  11 If valleys did not have it, their fullness, I’m afraid, would dry up.

  12 And if marquises and kings did not have it, their nobility, being so high, I’m afraid, would topple.

  Apart from the fact that this gives us the awkward arrangement of having Heaven’s “clarity” shatter instead of Heaven itself, there is another reason why this will not work. The reason is that in line 12, while the word “noble” is preceded by the final i, the word “high” is preceded by the instrumental i, and since it becomes clear in lines 13 and 14 that “noble” and “high” are treated in a parallel way, it seems best to assume that in all cases it is the instrumental i that is intended throughout. Moreover, reading the final i as the instrumental i in lines 8-12 clearly gives us the most sensible reading of those lines.

  William Boltz, in his article on this chapter (Boltz, 1985), essentially agrees with D. C. Lau’s interpretation of these lines. Boltz reads the wu-i in lines 8-12 as “without end” “in perpetuity,” thus translating—“Should Heaven remain clear in perpetuity, it might, we fear, split apart; should Earth remain steadfast in perpetuity, it might, we fear, burst open.” He points out that this interpretation is supported in the Ho-shang Kung commentary, where wu-i is understood as wu-i shih, “time without end” (a point also noted by Cheng Liang-shu [Cheng, part IV, p. 40]), and further argues that this interpretation makes better sense of the philosophical message of the chapter, which is that all things must incorporate something of their opposites: Heaven must be murky as well as clear, and rulers must accept lowliness along with their exalted status, anything wanting to be, in perpetuity, one thing only will come to an end.

  I remain unconvinced. Lines 8-12 clearly demonstrate what will happen if the actions noted in lines 1-6 are not so. And the point here is the same as that of chapter 22, that the Sage-ruler should model himself on all other things and hold on to the One, which means that he should be simple, humble, and unpretentious. That Ho-shang Kung interprets these lines in this way is not sure evidence that this is what the text he was using said: Chinese textual commentators delight in using things said in a text as a springboard to make their own philosophical points. Philologically speaking, I should think that if wu-i here did mean “in perpetuity,” the word order would then have to be t’ien ch’ing wu-i (“Heaven clear without end,” etc.) instead of t’ien wu-i ch’ing. Finally, Boltz docs not explain for the reader why the word “high” in line 12 is preceded by the instrumental i and not the final i.

  42. Chan, 1963, p. 170.

  43. On this argument see for example the words of Kao Yen-ti cited in Chiang, 1973, p. 263.

  44. Lau, 1982, p. 193. One of the arguments used in favor of this interpretation has always been the fact that the words “perfect praise has no praise” occur in chapter 18 of the Chuang-tzu, followed almost directly by lines that echo the first part of Lao-tzu chapter 39. Burton Watson’s translation of the relevant lines is “perfect praise knows no praise,” followed by “The inaction of Heaven is its purity, the inaction of earth is its peace” (Watson, 1968, p. 191).

  45. Cheng, part IV, p. 43. Cheng proposes that wise rulers will look upon their large numbers of carriages as though they had none, just as they refer to themselves as people without any grain even though they own all there is. This again is making the base the root of the noble, as is preferring to be like common stone (but in that way remaining firm and long lasting) instead of rich jade.

  46. Hsü, 1985, p. 11.

  47. Lau, 1982, p. 63.

  48. See Chiang, 1973, pp. 282-83.

  49. Hsü, 1985, p. 18.

  50. Lau, 1982, p. 201.

  51. See, for example, Hsü, 1985, p. 19.

  52. Chan, 1963, p. 84.

  53. See Chiang, 1973, pp. 303-4.

  54. For the four limbs and nine cavities, see Ch’en, 1963, p. 371. The “9 cavities and 4 passes” is the gloss in the Ho-shang Kung text. The definition in terms of the seven emotions and six desires is that of the Tao-chiao ta tz’u-tien, vol. 1, p. 42.

  55. Chan, 1963, p. 188.

  56. The only other place we find chih for i at this point in the text is in the “Chieh-Lao” (Understanding Lao-tzu) chapter of the Han-fei-tzu, but Ch’en Ch’i-yu sees this as a mistake for i, resulting from the closeness of the two characters written in grass script (see Ch’en, 1963, p. 374). “Also” (i) is given as a meaning of chih in P’ei, 1971, chitan 9, p. 736, and most scholars working on the Ma-wang-tui texts seem to read this chih in that way (i.e., as meaning “also”; see, for example, Lau, 1982, pp. 206-7; Cheng, part VI, p. 37; Wu, 1979, pp. 59-60; but Chou, 1984 [p. 188] disagrees). But one of the four examples P’ei cites to illustrate this usage is the line from Han-fei-tzu (Ch’en, 1963). In all other places where i occurs in the standard text (chapters 23, 25, 32, 49, 60, 65), the Ma-wang-tui texts also use j, with the exception noted above in chapter 42.

  57. For example, the I Ching, Mencius, Analects.

  58. On the identification of the character here as hsüeh (“cavities” or “holes”), see Chou, 1984, p. 192.

  59. For chiu (“to save”) Text B has chi (“thorns”); there is a lacuna in Text A. The most plausible solution seems to be that posed by Wu Fu-hsiang (Wu, 1979, pp. 66-67), who suggests that the two were homophones (archaic pronunciations were kiog [for chiu] and kiək [for chi]).

  60. For chieh-jan (“little,” “in a subtle way”) Text B has chieh-yu, and Text A has hsieh-yu. Hsü K’ang-sheng (Hsü, 1985, p. 28) reads the hsieh in Text A as ch’ieh (“to lift up,” “support”); chieh as wei (“infinitesimally small”) still seems to make the most sense. The “yu” in the Ma-wang-tui texts makes sense both as “have” and as jan (“in this manner”).

  61. See Hsü, 1985, pp. 28-29, and Chou, 1984, pp. 194-95.

  62. Chan, 1963, p. 197.

  63. Cheng, part VI, p. 47.

  64. See Chiang, 1973, pp. 351-52.

  65. Waley, 1934, p. 211.

  66. D. C. Lau (Lau, 1982, p. 227) does not read line 3 as predicate for line 1; rather he combines 3 and 4 to give “In the intercourse of the world, the female always gets the better of the male by stillness.”

  67. Chan, 1963, p. 208.

  68. For more on the significance of these changes in chapter 61, see Kao, 1978, pp. 211-12.

  69. Reading chu (“tende
ncy”) as chu (“lord”), as Hsü K’ang-sheng (Hsü, 1985, p. 44) suggests is certainly possible; that would give us “The Way is the lord of all things.” But the characters “tendency” and “lord” seem to be distinct in the Ma-wang-tui texts since in all cases where the standard text has “lord” (chapters 30, 34, 69, 78) the Ma-wang-tui texts do as well.

  70. Hucker, 1985, p. 396, item 4,847.

  71. Hucker, 1985, p. 399, item 4,871.

  72. See Henricks, 1979a, p. 177.

  73. See Hsü, 1985, p. 48.

  74. Chan, 1963, p. 214.

  75. See Chiang, 1973, p. 391.

  76. Chan, 1963, p. 214.

  77. For more on this point, see Henricks, 1982, pp. 521-22. Chou Tz’u-chi (Chou, 1984, p. 216) argues for the connection and follows Text A.

  78. Hsü K’ang-sheng (Hsü, 1985, p. 50) also understands chih in this way, and Cheng Liang-shu (Cheng, part VIII, p. 36) notes that the meanings of the two characters are close. Chou Tz’u-chi (Chou, 1984, p. 217) seems to read chih as “to understand,” and D. C. Lau (Lau, 1982, p. 237) translates in this way. That is, he has “Thus to understand a state through knowledge Will be a detriment to the state; And to understand a state through ignorance Will be a boon to the state.”

  79. Chan, 1963, p. 238.

  80. See the argument of Yü Yüeh cited in Chiang, 1973, pp. 460-61.

  81. See Graham, 1986, p. 82.

  82. Chan, 1963, p. 240.

  83. Lau, 1982, p. 241.

  84. For more on puns in the Lao-tzu, see Henricks, 1981b, pp. 67-69.

  85. One might read the chih here as ch’i and read it as the first character in line 7 (“The first of these is called”) save for the fact that a comma appears in the text right after the chih. Clearly what has happened is that since lines 5 and 6 both end with the word “treasure” (pao), the copyist placed the chih after the first of these paos instead of the second.

  86. Wing-tsit Chan (Chan, 1963, p. 219) translates ch’eng-ch’i chang as “the leader of the world,” and Waley (Waley, 1934, p. 225) translates it as “chief of all Ministers,” noting that it means the same thing as kuan-chang in chapter 28. My sense is that ch’eng-ch’i does ultimately mean officials or ministers, but that literally it says something like “those with complete (or perfect) talent.”

  87. See Chiang, 1973, p. 406.

  88. Lau, 1982, p. 147. For more on this point, see Chiang, 1973, pp. 415-16, and Cheng, part VIII, p. 42.

  89. Lau, 1982, p. 247.

  90. Chan, 1963, p. 222.

  91. For more on the grammatical precision of the Ma-wang-tui texts, see Henricks, 1979a, pp. 182-86.

  92. Chan, 1963, p. 225.

  93. Lau, 1982, p. 251.

  94. Wu, 1979, pp. 134-35.

  95. Text A has jo min heng shih ssu tse erh wei che wu chiang (literally “If people constantly affirm death then and yet those who act, I would”). My guess would be that the shih (“affirm”) in place of wei (“fear”) is a mistake based on form: the two characters look alike even in modern script. The copyist then skipped ahead to line 4 in which the tse (“then”) comes right after the ssu (“death”). His eye then returned to line 3, writing down the erh (“and yet”), but he left the ch’i (“abnormally”) out.

  96. Lau, 1982, pp. 253-54. See also Hsü, 1985, pp. 65-66.

  97. Chan, 1963, p. 230.

  98. Chou Tz’u-chi (Chou, 1984, p. 237) and Hsü K’ang-sheng (Hsü, 1985, p. 68) agree in reading the unknown characters we find here (i.e., the character heng plus the “grass” radical in Text A and heng plus the “bone” radical in Text B) as keng (the character heng plus the “wood” radical) which is defined in the Shuo-wen chieh-tzu as ching “in the end.” They also agree in reading jen (“eight feet”—Text B has hsin, “sincerity”) as shen, meaning “stretched out straight” (as the limbs are in death).

  99. Chou, 1984, p. 238.

  100. It is not entirely clear what the two characters are that are missing at this point in Text B; especially since Text A has three characters—yu i ch’ü (“have in order to take and”)—in the text at this point. But the meaning seems unaffected by our choice.

  101. Line 1 in Text A is t’ien-hsia che yeh. There are a number of ways to fill in the blanks, one of which would be to assume that t’ien-hsia is correct, that is, t’ien-hsia chih tao yu chang-kung che yeh—“The Way of the world is like the stretching of a bow.” I prefer the following reconstruction, which assumes the copyist mistakenly wrote hsia instead of chih: t’ien chih tao ch’i yu chang-kung che yeh—“The Way of Heaven, it’s like the stretching of a bow.” This is essentially the reading of the line that we find in the Fu I text (which is t’ien chih tao ch’i yu chang-kung che yü [= yeh-hu]).

  102. Chiang, 1973, p. 454.

  103. In an earlier reading of this chapter, I understood the last line of 78 to actually be the first line of 79, in which case it would read, “Words of correction have the opposite effect.” See Henricks, 1982, pp. 522-23.

  104. Chiang, 1973, p. 456.

  105. See Cheng, part IX, pp. 36-37.

  106. Kao Heng earlier made the same point. See Cheng, part IX, p. 36.

  107. The standard text has tao k’o tao fei ch’ang tao; the Ma-wang-tui texts have tao k’o tao yeh fei heng tao yeh. I read the first yeh as equivalent to the nominalizing particle che (“the one who” or “the one which”); k’o tao yeh therefore means “the one that can be talked about.” Most Chinese commentators seem to understand these lines in this way (i.e., they punctuate tao, k’o-tao yeh fei heng tao yeh). See for example Hsü, 1985, pp. 74-75. D. C. Lau (Lau, 1982, p. 267) translates these lines in a slightly different way. He has “The Way can be spoken of, But it will not be the constant way; The name can be named, But it will not be the constant name.” In my review of Lau’s translation (Henricks, 1984) I took issue with this interpretation: I still feel the first part of each line must be a nominal phrase that is then negated in the second part with the fei. On this point also note Cheng Liang-shu’s comments and punctuation of these lines (Cheng, part I, p. 23).

  108. I translated this line in much the same way in Henricks, 1979a, pp. 195-96. It is also possible, however, that the intended character is the chiao that means “white” or “bright,” which would give us “only sees that about it that dazzles and shines.” For part of the evidence on this point, see Henricks, 1985, pp. 35-36. The So-tung hsüan-shu text of Lao-tzu (P. 2584)—which is in other ways similar to the Ma-wang-tui texts—here has so-hao (“that which is bright or dazzling”).

  109. Chan, 1963, p. 97.

  110. The Chinese is heng yeh. A number of Lao-tzu texts have maintained nominal phrase structure of the preceding lines with the added particle chih (e.g., nan-i chih hsiang ch’eng). See, for example, Shima Kunio (Shima, 1973), p. 56. Without this heng yeh, however, those lines remain incomplete, unless we read them in the fashion of Hsü K’ang-sheng.

  111. On this reading see, for example, Hsü, 1985, pp. 76-77.

  112. The Ma-wang-tui texts seem to say, “He brings it about that the knowledgeable do not dare [to act]. If he simply does not act on them, then all will be in order.” But I am persuaded by a number of commentators to see the fu in this line as copy error. (The punctuation would therefore be pu kan wei erh-i versus pu kan. Fu-wei erh-i.)

  113. For more on this point, see the Introduction.

  114. For more on this point, see Henricks, 1982, pp. 512-13.

  115. Chou Tz’u-chi’s argument that yü (normally “bathe”) here for ku (“valley”) [yü is always used for ku in the Ma-wang-tui texts] means the desire aroused by seeing female genitalia seems forced. Yü can hardly mean anything other than “valley” or “valley stream” in a number of contexts below (e.g., see chapters 32 and 39).

  116. See, for example, Boltz, 1982, p. 100, and Chou, 1984, p. 66.

  117. Thus I assume the yu (has) is copy error for fu (“does not compete with them”); alternatively, yu might here mean “further,” with the negative fu mistakenl
y left out. D. C. Lau (Lau, 1982, pp. 275-77) reads the yu in this way. But he punctuates the line in a novel way, in a way that eliminates the need for the negative pu. His translation reads, “It is because water is not only good at benefiting the myriad creatures but also vies to dwell in the place detested by the multitude that it comes close to the way.”

  118. Chou Tz’u-chi (Chou, 1984, pp. 71-72) cites some interesting lines from Chinese medical texts on the process of ying-ch’i, in which breath turns into blood and circulates in the body. He also notes that the lungs were both the root of breath and the locus of the p’o. I think he is right in suggesting that Lao-tzu had these traditional views on physiology in mind in lines 1 and 2 of chapter 10.

  119. How to interpret the kua (“juniper tree”) here remains a problem. Chou Tz’u-chi (Chou, 1984, p. 73) ends up with chan (“benefit”) for the intended word; Hsü K’ang-sheng (Hsü, 1985, p. 87) stays with the standard graph of chih (“to rule”). I choose to be somewhat conservative at this point and use huo (“to be alive,” “revive”), which involves only a change in the radical from wood to water. Note that kua is used once again for huo in chapter 73.

  120. Chan, 1963, p. 122.

  121. Translated by A. C. Graham (Graham, 1981, p. 224).

  122. The standard text has ch’i shang pu-chiao, ch’i hsia pu-mei. I read both characters in the fourth position in line 9 in the Ma-wang-tui texts as chiu (“to band or bind together”); Boltz (Boltz, 1984, pp. 200-202) reaches the same conclusion but interprets the meaning differently. Hsü K’ang-sheng (Hsü, 1985, pp. 94-95) reads the character in Text A as yu (“distant”) and the character in Text B as miu (“false”) and translates these lines “Its top is not unreal; its bottom is also not extinguished.” Chou Tz’u-chi (Chou, 1984, p. 88) reads the miu in B as liao (“clear and deep”).

  123. Translated by D. C. Lau (Lau, 1982, p. 21).

  124. Chan, 1963, p. 126.