Taoism (Daoism)

The study sheds new light on many Doaist allegories by showing how modern translations often concealed the original wit and humor of the Chinese original, or imposed alien philosophical frameworks on them. It attempts to take away the metaphysical and Christian disguises with which Daoist philosophy has been obscured by Western interpretations in the past 100 years.

Many of the brightest Chinese minds have used the form of the commentary to open the terse and poetic chapters of the Laozi to their readers and also to develop a philosophy of their own. None has been more sophisticated, philosophically probing, and influential in the endeavor than a young genius of the third century C.E., Wang Bi (226–249). In this book, Rudolf G. Wagner provides a full translation of the Laozi that extracts from Wang Bi’s Commentary the manner in which he read the text, as well as a full translation of Wang Bi’s Commentary and his essay on the “subtle pointers” of the Laozi. The result is a Chinese reading of the Laozi that will surprise and delight Western readers familiar with some of the many translations of the work.

Revered for millennia in the Chinese spiritual tradition, Chuang Tzu stands alongside the Tao Te Ching as a founding classic of Taoism. The Inner Chapters are the only sustained section of this text widely believed to be the work of Chuang Tzu himself, dating to the fourth century B.C.E. Witty and engaging, spiced with the lyricism of poetry, Chuang Tzu's Taoist insights are timely and eternal, profoundly concerned with spiritual ecology.