Revolutionizing received opinion of Taoism's origins in light of
historic new discoveries, Harold D. Roth has uncovered China's
oldest mystical text -- the original expression of Taoist
philosophy -- and presents it here with a complete translation and
commentary.
Over the past twenty-five years, documents recovered from the
tombs of China's ancient elite have sparked a revolution in
scholarship about early Chinese thought, in particular the origins
of Taoist philosophy and religion. In "Original Tao, " Harold D.
Roth exhumes the seminal text of Taoism -- "Inward Training
(Nei-yeh)" -- not from a tomb but from the pages of the "Kuan Tzu,
" a voluminous text on politics and economics in which this
mystical tract had been "buried" for centuries.
"Inward Training" is composed of short poetic verses devoted to
the practice of breath meditation, and to the insights about the
nature of human beings and the form of the cosmos derived from this
practice. In its poetic form and tone, the work closely resembles
the "Tao-te Ching"; moreover, it clearly evokes Taoism's affinities
to other mystical traditions, notably aspects of Hinduism and
Buddhism.
Roth argues that "Inward Training" is the foundational text of
early Taoism and traces the book to the mid-fourth century B.C.
(the late Warring States period in China). These verses contain the
oldest surviving expressions of a method for mystical "inner
cultivation," which Roth identifies as the basis for all early
Taoist texts, including the "Chuang Tzu" and the world-renowned
"Tao-te Ching." With these historic discoveries, he reveals the
possibility of a much deeper continuity between early
"philosophical" Taoism and the later Taoist religion than scholars
had previously suspected.
"Original Tao" contains an elegant and luminous complete
translation of the original text. Roth's comprehensive analysis
explains what "Inward Training" meant to the people who wrote it,
how this work came to be "entombed" within the "Kuan Tzu, " and why
the text was largely overlooked after the early Han period.
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