"Previously published as " Lao Tzu's TAO TE KING 老子道德經 "
The Chinese ideogram 道 TAO can be translated as "the Way", which can mean either the right path to follow in the journey of life, the journey of knowledge, or simply 'the way things go'. The concept of Tao has been used since ancient times in Chinese Philosophy, Religion, and Spirituality, to indicate the infinite principle of creation, the origin of good and evil, of everything that exists, the beginning of the existence of all beings. The TAO TE CHING is an ancient Chinese manuscript about the Tao and it tries to explain in simple words a concept that is not easily intelligible, as it is infinite, therefore it is not easy to define. The legendary author of the Tao Te Ching, LAO TZU was an old wise man who lived in the centuries between the 6th and 5th BC, and he is still revered today as a Saint. With his Book of the Tao, Lao Tzu is considered the founder of the School of Thought known as TAOISM.
S.A.Julien, J.Legge, S.Williams, P.Carus, D.T.Suzuki, T.F.Wade, H.A.Giles, D.Goddard, are among the most eminent sinologists and translators of the Tao Te Ching, in the years between the late 18th century and early 1900. Wade and Giles give their name to the transliteration, or romanization (the transcription of the pronunciation of Chinese ideograms in the letters of the Latin alphabet) in use until 1979, the year in which the modern Pinyin (ISO) system was adopted, the system that is also used on the Internet. The romanization of the Chinese title of the book: 《老子道德經》 (Wade-Giles: "Lao Tzu Tao Te Ching"), in Pinyin Chinese, is: "Lao Zi DAO DE JING". In this book, I have kept the pronunciation with which the Tao Te Ching has spread, translated into all the languages of the world, and has been known by mine and by past generations.
This edition, to which I have added for Tao lovers and scholars, the original full text in Chinese Ideograms, and Romanization, is taken from the book Tao & Wu Wei (Brentano's Publishers, New York, 1919), which included D.Goddard's original English translation of the Tao Teh King, and a short essay on Taoism "Wu Wei", by Dutch sinologist, writer and translator Henri Borel (1869-1933). This book does not include Borel's Wu Wei.
In 1939 D.Goddard became a publisher himself and he published a different translation of the Tao Teh King, made in collaboration with Bhikshu Wai-Tao, which still included the Wu Wei, with the addition of the "Notes on Taoist Philosophy and Religion" by Dr. Kiang Kang-Hu.
The reason why I chose, among the many, the English translation by D. Goddard, is because, in my opinion, it is the simplest and the most literal.
DWIGHT GODDARD (1861-1939), was an American writer and translator, who became a pioneer in the American Zen Buddhist movement. "The publication of the texts marked the end of a fascinating journey on the part of Goddard from engineer, to Christian missionary and minister, to student, to practitioner of Zen Buddhism. The best record of this journey is Goddard's own writings." (R.Aitken). With an innumerable series of essays, translations, and collections of sacred texts, first of all, "A Buddhist Bible" (1932), he inspired the greatest poets of the Beat Generation, like Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. The translation of the Tao Teh King "was one of the few explicitly non-Buddhist texts in that collection." (J.Bruno Hare)