Tao Te Ching Translations

[gurugeorge]

So that the discussion of the Tao Te Ching philosophy, and the Tao Te Ching translations, aren't squeezed together in a single thread, I've made this thread to help organize things a bit.

Which translation of the Tao Te Ching is your favorite?

SecularFuture

-------------------------------------

I'd be very careful about how to read the Daodejing or any other of those early Chinese texts. The DDJ is in a very archaic form of Chinese that only specialists can read - most of the "translations" floating about are transliterations or paraphrases of other translations. For some reason everyone seems to think they can interpret the DDJ for themselves. I'd look at translations by scholars (e.g. Hendricks, LaFargue) before taking the popular ones seriously.

It was likely the product of a school of thought and practice, rather than the philosophical expatiation of a Great Man. Some of the terms used, as always with these kinds of texts, are "jargon" terms related to psychosomatic exercises or practices, and their results, and in the absence of living traditions, we can't be exactly sure what was originally meant. But then again, Chinese thinkers have themselves reinterpreted the text many times - because of the brevity and obscurity of the text, everyone tends to see what they want to see in it. It's a kind of philospohical Rorschach blot

Having said that, I don't think the "pop" versions of the " philosophy" are all that far off the mark, it's just that they mostly don't give a good sense of the text in its historical and social context. Basically the philosophy is a kind of non-dualism, somewhat akin to Advaita Vedanta or the non-dual forms of Buddhisim like Zen and Dzogchen; but there are also other philosophies mixed in, such as primitivism. It may be that the apparent contradictions aren't cute paradoxes but simply contradictions arising from the fact that the text is a bit of a grab-bag. (The same goes for the other famous text often lumped in with the DDJ, the Zhaungzi or Chuang Tzu) Nevertheless, there is a certain kind of consistency in the bulk of the passages and it does seem to point to non-dualism.

(One cliche to watch out for is the notion that there was originally this pristine school of "philosophical" Daoism that got corrupted into "religious" Daoism. That's now thought by some scholars to have been a misunderstanding perpetrated by 19th century Protestant scholars and their Confucian interlocutors. In reality, there was no such distinction, and "religious" Daoism is just as ancient as the "philosphical" variety - they have always been interlinked. The DDJ is as much a manual of kingship as it is a practice text for meditation and a philosophical text.)

[SecularFuture]

[quote=""gurugeorge""]I'd be very careful about how to read the Daodejing or any other of those early Chinese texts. The DDJ is in a very archaic form of Chinese that only specialists can read - most of the "translations" floating about are transliterations or paraphrases of other translations.[/quote]
I agree.

When I first started to have interest in Taoism, I think I spent more time trying to find a good translation of the Tao Te Ching than on studying the philosophy. Today, I finally have some idea about which translations to read.

For some reason everyone seems to think they can interpret the DDJ for themselves. I'd look at translations by scholars (e.g. Hendricks, LaFargue) before taking the popular ones seriously.

Do you mean Henricks?


Thank you, and all, for sharing your thoughts.

[gurugeorge]

Henricks, that's the one!

Also worth checking out is the "bamboo strip" version of the DDJ, recently discovered in a tomb in a place called Guodien (IIRC). It's interesting in that it's the earliest version (much earlier than the Mawangdui version, the previously-oldest-known version that switches the "Dao" and "De" sections) and it's much briefer, and lacks much of the anti-Confucian polemic of the DDJ we know. Whether that's the result of it being in fact an earlier, simpler version that later drew accretions, or a deliberate selection from the bigger text, nobody is sure.

[SecularFuture]

I found some problems with the Henricks translation.

For example, from verse 1:
"The nameless is the beginning of the ten thousand things;
The named is the mother of the ten thousand things."

The first line, where he uses "ten thousand things", should read "heaven and earth." Henricks mistakingly assumed that the "ten thousand things" (all life on the planet) and "heaven and earth" were the same thing, and used "ten thousand things" twice as a result.

One of the most readable translations I've found is by Keith Seddon. Here is a link to an unfinished draft that was posted on Das Tao Te King von Lao Tse: LINK. It's faithful to the original, and uses just the right amount of adverbs and conjunctions to make it readable.

And now that I got the translation problems out the way, I can start on my review.

[Lugubert]

29 English language translations of the Dao De Jing.

Lots of links here, including to 100 versions of chapter 1.

I haven't got myself together yet to build an opinion on any one of them. To get a taste of Daoism, The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu, translated by Burton Watson is more fun. (The author is Zhuangzi in Pinyin.)

[Apostate1970]

One of the best translations available is the 1934 Arthur Waley translation available here, which also has another english version and french and german versions.

Another good one is this one by D.T. Suzuki, and which includes the chinese characters on facing pages.

I'd say that, although it can be more verbose, the Waley translation is probably the most "accurate" in the sense of being truest to the archaic chinese meanings that's possible for an english translation, and that only a handful of translations are comparable to it in this regards. If you're going to have just one copy to own then it would probably be this one which you can get here.

There is also the sadly less-well-known Book of Chuang Tzu, with links to translations available at the bottom of that page.

[SecularFuture]

From my original post:

Here are two quality translations of the text:
- Tolbert McCarroll
- Derek Lin

NOTE: I'm well aware of the more popular Mitchell and Feng/English translations. Unfortunately, most translations suffer from excessive paraphrasing (Mitchell), or they're a little disjointed (Feng/English). I'm currently reading the Derek Lin (or via: amazon.co.uk) translation with commentary. So far so good. The commentary is especially helpful, but I'm not yet sure if it's good enough to recommend.

UPDATE: The Derek Lin translation, in my opinion, is good enough to recommend.

UPDATE: I'm having second thoughts about the Derek Lin translation. :banghead:

[SecularFuture]

I have a question for everyone:

Do you think it is more important that the translation be by a scholar, a practicing Taoist, or someone who is both? Also, do you prefer literal translations that aren't as easy to read but can be understood with the help of a good commentary? Or do you prefer for them to be easy to read translations that kind of mix a little commentary into the text itself?

[aupmanyav]

Some one must give a literal translation, that is a first priority. Then you can have any number of translations, by scholars or by taoists or those who are both. There could be easy translations and commentaries or text mixed with a little bias, no, commentary (I am vary of the last, see what Hare-Krishnas have done with their Geeta). I have no aquaintance with Tao texts, but I have this problem with Vedas and other Sanskrit texts.

[SecularFuture]

I wish there were just 5 good translations to choose from instead of 100 good, okay, and confusing ones. :banghead: I'm not even sure anymore which version would be the best one to read.

Tolbert McCarroll's translation seems very faithful to the literal translations I've read, and seems to only add words in places where readability can be improved.

McCarroll [v2]: "Thus, the True Person acts without striving and teaches without words. Deny nothing to the ten thousand things."

Feng/English [v2]: "Therefore the sage goes about doing nothing, teaching no-talking. The ten thousand things rise and fall without cease,"

I read the Feng/English translation first, and had no idea what "teaching no-talking" meant. But when I read the McCarroll version, his rendering "teaches without words" made so much more sense to me. And I've seen others render this line in a similar way.

Henricks [v2]: "Therefore the Sage dwells in nonactive affairs and practices the wordless teaching."

D.C. Lau [v2]: "Therefore the sage keeps to the deed that consists in taking no action and practises the teaching that uses no words."


Some Chinese/English speaking people I know believe Derek Lin's translation is the most faithful and literal. With the commentary, it reads wonderfully. But without the commentary, I can barely understand some parts.

Lin [v5]: "Too many words hasten failure Cannot compare to keeping to the void"

McCarroll [v5]: "Many words lead to exhaustion. Better to hold fast to your center."

Feng/English [v5]: "More words count less. Hold fast to the center."

D.C. Lau [v5]: "Much speech leads inevitably to silence. Better to hold fast to the void."

Seddon [v5]: "Many words exhaust themselves. It is better to watch over what is within."

Waley [v5]: "Whereas the force of words is soon spent. Far better is it to keep what is in the heart."

Of this selection, the Seddon and Waley renderings, for me personally, make more sense than the others.