_Challenges standard views of the origins of the _Daodejing_, revealing the work’s roots in a tradition of physical cultivation._.

The Laozi (Daodejing) and the Zhuangzi have long been familiar to Western readers and have served as basic sources of knowledge about early Chinese Daoism. Modern translations and studies of these works have encouraged a perception of Daoism as a mystical philosophy heavy with political implications that advises kings to become one with the Dao. Breaking with this standard approach, The Pristine Dao argues that the Laozi and the Zhuangzi participated in a much wider tradition of metaphysical discourse that included (...) a larger corpus of early Chinese writings. This book demonstrates that early Daoist discourse possessed a distinct, textually constituted coherence and a religious sensibility that starkly differed from the intellectual background of all other traditions of early China, including Confucianism. The author argues that this discourse is best analyzed through its emergence from the mythological imagination of early China, and that it was unified by a set of notions about the Dao that was shared by all of its participants. The author introduces certain categories from the Western religious and philosophical traditions in order to bring out the distinctive qualities constituting this discourse and to encourage its comparison with other religious and philosophical traditions. (shrink)

Abstract:Daoist thought often takes nothingness as a foundational source of generation that can also be harnessed to good government. This study re-interprets the Daodejing's original discourse on nothingness in terms of an original condition, which it connects to the variety of philosophically significant wu-compounds found throughout the text. It examines two early articulations of this discourse by drawing a contrast between the thought of Laozi and the thought of Heshang Gong.

Order in Early Chinese Excavated Texts represents a selection of essays composed by Wang Zhongjiang of Beijing University, edited and translated by Misha Tadd. Its appearance comes on the heels of a separate book-length selection of various other of Wang's essays translated by Livia Kohn, entitled Daoism Excavated: Cosmos and Humanity in Early Manuscripts. The proximity of the publications of these two English-language works is important to note. It demonstrates the growing international renown of Wang, a foremost expert on the (...) reading and interpretation of early Chinese excavated texts. Both works handily display his erudite mastery in placing the content of excavated... (shrink)

This study examines the intertextuality of the Daodejing 道德經 and the Sunzi 孫子 by exploring one possible horizon that can shed light on the intellectual environment of their early circulations. A preliminary section examines the early doctrinal movements of what would later be recognized as Daoism and Militarism by triangulating them with the early doctrinal movements of what would later be recognized as Confucianism. This is followed by a consideration of the possible ways in which the early “authors” of the (...) Daodejing and the Sunzi honed their respective systems of thought by way of at least occasional encounter, dialogue, and debate with each other during the early period when their texts were still relatively fluid. The final sections provide a textual analysis of some of their shared content on the topics “surprise attack” and “straightforward attack,” and the “chaos” of cosmogony and battle. (shrink)