![]() What is important to me - and has been/will be reflected on this blog - are the themes and concepts of philosophical Taoism. I agree with Cleary that each of the books more likely represents a school of thought within the Taoist perspective and, most likely, had many authors. While some people may wish to debate the precise order that these books were written as well as which authors were real people and which were mythic characters, I frankly don't care that much. However, Cleary and several others posit that the Chuang Tzu may have preceded the Tao Te Ching in the sequence and that the Wen Tzu makes use of all these works. When I was first discovering philosophical Taoism, the chronology of works was presented as Tao Te Ching, Chuang Tzu and Lieh Tzu, with no mention of the Hua Hu Ching and the Wen Tzu. Secondly, Cleary argues that much evidence points to the fact the Wen Tzu was compiled during the first centuries of the Common Era (CE) and this is hundreds of years after the mythic figure of Lao Tzu walked the earth. For starters, there is no clear indication that Lao Tzu was an actual person, so it's kind of hard to be a disciple of a mythic figure. However, as the translator Thomas Cleary * points out, this is most likely true only in a symbolic sense. ![]() ![]() According to legend, Wen Tzu was a follower of Lao Tzu and he wrote down additional sayings and proverbs in a second book beyond the Tao Te Ching. ![]()
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