Showing posts with label Taoism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Taoism. Show all posts

Sunday, 9 June 2024

The Tao Te Ching, Lao Tsu - A Theosophical Bibliography - Lao Zi Daodejing

Theosophists have made at least 6 translations of the Tao Te Ching.
Without trying, they have contributed to making the Doa De Jing, one of the most translated texts in the world.

 

 

 

 
Walter Gorn-Old 1894
 
C. Spurgeon Medhurst 1905
 
D.T. Suzuki & Paul Carus 1913
 
Dwight Goddard 1919 (Not really a Theosophist, but his translation of the Lankavatara Sutra, with the assistance of D.T. Suzuki, is quite Theosophy-friendly in my opinion, although purists might object to his renderings, but I think that they were appropriately accessible for a general western public.
 
Isabella Mears,  1922
 
Charles H. Mackintosh 1926
 
Henry Wei, 1982
 
Some recommended versions by other translators:

A Translation of Lao-tzu’s Tao Te Ching and Wang Pi’s Commentary
Paul J. Lin 1977
 
Lao-tzu's Taoteching
Bill Porter (Red Pine), trans. 2009
Some bold readings based on the Mawangdui and Guodian versions. Includes good selections from the commentary tradition.
 
Treasuries of the Tao: A Translation of the TAO-TE CHING with Chinese Commentaries revealing a relevance to Taoist Yoga and its Philosophies 
Richard Bertschinger 2016
 
Tao Te Ching: The Essential Translation of the Ancient Chinese Book of the Tao
John Minford 2018
The Annotated Critical Laozi:With Contemporary Explication and Traditional Commentary
Guying Chen  2020
 
The Annotated Laozi: A New Translation of the Daodejing
Paul Fischer 2023

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Wednesday, 25 February 2015

Blavatsky on the Tao and Taoism

From the Theosophical Glossary, an esoteric, perennialist perspective of Taoism (Swabhâvat can be spelled as Svabhava today). Taoism is much better known today, but Blavatsky seems to have already had a clear understanding of how Taoist cosmology finds into the Secret Doctrine: 

Tao-teh-king (Chin.). Lit., “The Book of the Perfectibility of Nature” written by the great philosopher Lao-tze. It is a kind of cosmogony which contains all the fundamental tenets of Esoteric Cosmo genesis. Thus he says that in the beginning there was naught but limitless and boundless Space. All that lives and is, was born in it, from the “Principle which exists by Itself, developing Itself from Itself”, i.e., Swabhâvat. As its name is unknown and it essence is unfathomable, philosophers have called it Tao (Anima Mundi), the uncreate, unborn and eternal energy of nature, manifesting periodically. 

Nature as well as man when it reaches purity will reach rest, and then all become one with Tao, which is the source of all bliss and felicity. As in the Hindu and Buddhistic philosophies, such purity and bliss and immortality can only be reached through the exercise of virtue and the perfect quietude of our worldly spirit; the human mind has to control and finally subdue and even crush the turbulent action of man’s physical nature; and the sooner he reaches the required degree of moral purification, the happier he will feel. (See Annales du Musée Guimet, Vols. XI. and XII.; Etudes sur les Religion des Chinois, by Dr. Groot.) As the famous Sinologist, Pauthier, remarked: “Human Wisdom can never use language more holy and profound ”.
(image thanks to www.mardb.com)
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