Nobody knows who wrote the Tao Te Ching, or whether Laozi existed
Taoism's founding classic is among the most translated books in the world, second only to the Bible. Yet its supposed author has a name that simply means Old Master, and legends say he was born old and lived 996 years. The earliest surviving fragments date to around 300 BCE.
The title means Classic of the Way and its Virtue, and the book is also called simply the Laozi. It underpins both philosophical and religious Taoism and has shaped Chinese art, medicine and culture well beyond them. Later Legalists, Confucians and above all Chinese Buddhists, who arrived long after the text was circulating, reworked its vocabulary for their own purposes. Its first translation, into French, appeared in the early 19th century.
Dating is contested. The oldest excavated pieces, bamboo slips from Guodian, belong to roughly 300 BCE in the late Warring States period, an era running from 475 to 221 BCE. A cautious estimate puts the versions read today in the mid-3rd century BCE, assembled from collections a century or two older. Among later editions, the Heshang Gong version is named for a legendary sage said to have lived under Emperor Wen of Han, though scholars date it to about the 3rd century CE.
The first biography comes from the Han historian Sima Qian, who lived about 145 to 86 BCE, and he hedged by offering three stories. In one, a Confucius contemporary named Li Er, an archivist, wrote a two-part book at the request of Yinxi, keeper of the Han-ku Pass, before heading west. In another, Laozi was Lao Laizi, author of a book in 15 parts. In the third, he was Lao Dan, a grand historian active under Duke Xian of Qin in the 4th century BCE.
Modern scholars split. Alan Chan sees little reason to reject the idea that Laozi was an older contemporary of Confucius, who lived from 551 to 479 BCE. Thomas Michael doubts anyone had heard of Laozi before the text was compiled. Feng Youlan argued the question matters less than it seems: a real Laozi need not have written the book bearing his name.
Source: Tao Te Ching
