Abstract
This paper explores the spatial connotations of the notion dao 道 as employed in the Daoist classic, the Laozi 老子. First, it attempts to determine the meaning of the concept as it appears in early Chinese texts. I contend that doing so allows us to understand the semantical background against which the notion was coined. Secondly, the study turns its focus to the analysis of the spatial features of dao as implied by its numerous descriptions in the Laozi. It shows that text attaches two opposed locations to dao at the same time, the one traditionally associated with the governing principle of the world, and the other which was revolutionary in the given context. My argument is that the contradictory nature of the dao’s location operates as the foundation for a number of famous paradoxical statements of the text. Finally, the biographical accounts of Laozi given in the Shiji can also be explained by referring to the paradoxical locality of dao.
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Notes
See also Ziporyn (2012), 142ff.
For more on the juxtaposition of the “big roads” and “paths”, see Liu Xiaogan (2006), p. 522.
Zhongguo wenwu yanjiusuo, Hubeisheng wenwu kaogu yanjiu suobian 2001, p. 95: 敢行馳道中者,皆 (遷)之。“Anyone who dares to move on the ‘speed-way’ is to be deported.” Even though this quote stems from the notoriously harsh Qin 秦 law catalogue and refers to the usage of the “speed ways” (chi dao 馳道), it is entirely possible that similar regulations existed also in regard to the dao highways.
It contains the line wanwu zuo er sheng fu ci 萬物作而生弗辭 (myriad things arise and come to life [through it, yet] it claims no authority) (Beijing daxue chutu wenxian yanjiusuo 2012, 161). This line is absent in the Mawangdui edition and is modified in the transmitted versions that mostly read: wanwu chi zhi er sheng er bu ci 萬物持之而生而不辭 (The myriad creatures depend on it for life yet it claims no authority).
While some scholars translate zuo 作 as “make”, meaning that the “ten thousands things” were subject to “making” (Lau 2001, 269; Moeller 2007, p. 7), for the majority of scholars interpreting excavated editions of the Laozi this verb signifies the development, i.e. “rising”, of things (Henricks and Lau 1992, p. 53; Gao Ming 1996, p. 233; Liu Xiaogan 2006, p. 11; Kim Hongkyung 2012, p. 165; Cook 2012, p. 252). This latter view is supported by chapter 16 which employs the same metaphor of rising in regard to the development of “ten thousand things”: Laozi 16A/6/2: 致虛極, 守靜篤。萬物並作, 吾以觀復。“I do my utmost to attain emptiness; I hold firmly to stillness. The myriad creatures all rise together and I watch their return.”
For a similar position, see Michael (2005), 58.
As distinguished from the transmitted text, Mawangdui and Beida editions all use tianwu instead of fu wu 夫物. As for Guodian fragments, we have tiandao 天道 (Way of Heaven) at this juncture. For a comparison of different transmitted and excavated editions of the text, see Beijing daxue chutu wenxian yanjiusuo 2012, p. 197. Despite all differences, however, the idea of a downward directed return is common to all versions of the Laozi.
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Fech, A. “Place” in the philosophy and biography of Laozi. Int. Commun. Chin. Cult 4, 53–64 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40636-017-0079-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40636-017-0079-0