Laozi: Encyclopedia II - Laozi - His life

Laozi - His life

Little is known about Lao Tsu's life. His historical existence is strongly debated, as is his authorship of the Dao De Jing. Lao Tsu has become an important culture hero to subsequent generations of Chinese people. Tradition says he was born in Ku Prefecture (苦縣 Kǔ Xiàn) of the state of Chǔ (楚), which today is Lùyì County (鹿邑) of Henan province, in the later years of Spring and Autumn Period. Some legends say he was born with white hair, having spent eight or eighty years in his mother's womb, which is given as an explanation for his title, which can be both read as "the old master" and "the old child".

According to the tradition, and a biography included in Sima Qian's work, Lao Tsu was an older contemporary of Confucius and worked as an archivist in the Imperial Library of the Zhou Dynasty court. Confucius intentionally or accidentally met him in Zhou, near the location of modern Luoyang, where Confucius was going to browse the library scrolls. According to these stories, Confucius, over the following months, discussed ritual and propriety, cornerstones of Confucianism, with Lao Tsu. The latter strongly opposed what he felt to be hollow practices. Taoist legend claims that these discussions proved more educational for Confucius than the contents of the libraries.

Later, Lao Tsu quit his work, perhaps because the authority of Zhou's court was disappearing. Some accounts claim he travelled west on his water buffalo through the state of Qin and from there disappeared into the vast desert. These accounts have a guard at the western-most gate convincing Lao Tsu to write down his wisdom before heading out into the desert. Until this time, Lao Tsu had shared his philosophy in spoken words only, as was also the case with Jesus, the Buddha and Confucius (whose Analects were most likely compiled by disciples). Lao Tsu's response to the soldier's request was the Dao De Jing.

Some of the modern controversies concerning Lao Tsu's life include:

• The discussion with Confucius might have been fabricated by Taoists to make their school of philosophy sound superior to Confucianism.

• The actual author(s) of the Tao Te Ching might have created a fictitious character so the origin of the text would look more mysterious, thus making it easier to popularize.

• Arguments have been put forth that Lao Tsu was a pseudonym of Dan, Prefect of the Grand Scribes (Tài Shǐ Dàn, 太史儋); or of an old man from Lai, a prefecture in the state of Qí (齊); or of some other historical person.

• It is also believed that the Tao Te Ching was written also as a guideline for emperors as how they should rule the empire in a more natural way "Ruling by not ruling". This can be found in the numerous referings in the Tao Te Ching which state: "Not exalting men of worth prevents the people from competing" and "Not putting high value on rare goods prevents people from being bandits" and "Human hunger is the result of overtaxation. For this reason, There is hunger"

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "His life", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki