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Lao Tzu (Chinese: 老子, pinyin Lǎozi, Wade-Giles Lao Tzu; Romanized also as Lao Tse, Lao Tu, Lao-Tsu, Laotze, Laosi, Laocius, and other variants) is one of the most prominent figures of Chinese philosophy, whose historical existence is uncertain. The Chinese tradition places his life in the 6th century BC, many modern sinologists move his life to the 4th century BC, or consider it a compilation of figures of several philosophers from these periods. He is the legendary founder of Taoism and the author of its fundamental treatise Tao Te Ching.
Biographical data are extremely uncertain. The only ancient biographical source is the Notebooks of the historian Sima Qian, who lived from 145 to 86 BC, about 400 years after Lao.
According to him, Lao Tzu came from the village of Kuchen in Li County, Gu County in the feudal state of Zhou. His birth name was Li (Lao Tzu is a later adopted name meaning "Old Master"), his personal name Li, his masculine Poyang, and his honorary posthumous title Tan.
He was a historian of the State Archives in Zhou, and his wisdom also stemmed from the many books he cared for. Here, according to Sima Chian, Confucius also consulted him on the problem of the funeral ceremony. This alleged encounter with Confucius is also the main reason why Lao Tzu is traditionally considered to be the author of the 6th century BC. During the meeting, Lao is said to have accused Confucius of pride and ambition, and Confucius is said to have had the feeling that he was talking to a "dragon". He was literally supposed to say to Lao Confucius: "If a noble man finds his time, he will exalt himself; if he does not find it, he will go away and let the weeds grow. I have heard that a good merchant carefully conceals his treasures, as if he had poverty in his house; that a noble man of perfect virtue appears outwardly as a fool. Give up, my friend, your pride and your manifold desires, your outward gestures and your ambitious plans. All this is worthless to your own self. I have nothing more to say to you." Confucius is said to have said to his disciples: "Birds – I know they can fly; Pisces – I know they can swim; A wild animal – I know it can run. But I don't understand how a kite can fly with the wind and clouds and ascend into the sky. Today I saw Lao Tzu – I think he is equal to the dragon."
In 520 BC, Lao was dismissed from office, perhaps because of his involvement in a dynastic strife that had erupted at the time. Since then, he has been wandering and nothing was known about him. Just before leaving, he was supposed to write his famous treatise. Sima Chian reproduces the legend that when Lao arrived at the border of the state of Zhou on his way out of Zhou, the guardian of the pass, Jin Hin, said to him: "Lord, I see that you want to go into solitude; For my own sake, I beg you to put your thoughts in a book." And Lao Tzu wrote a book of two volumes and five thousand words on Tao and virtue, or the Tao Te Ching, the basic book of Taoism. Then he finally disappeared from history. According to Sima Qian, however, he left several descendants.
However, Sima Qian's brief biography has been criticized many times. According to William Boltz, "it contains practically nothing that is demonstrably factual."
Lao's teachings became the dominant ideology of China's elite and high culture from the third to the sixth centuries. During the Tang Dynasty (618–907), the imperial family is said to have discovered that their ancestors traced back to Lao. In the 7th century, Lao's work was translated into Sanskrit. In 733, Emperor Xuanzong included the Tao Te Ching in the "compulsory literature" for imperial civil servant examinations. In religious Taoism, the recitation of this book became a prescribed devotional practice and a central part of the ceremony. The first translation into English was not made until 1868. In the West, Lao became popular especially in the second half of the 20th century, mainly thanks to the New Age movement, especially Fritjof Capra's work The Tao of Physics in 1975. Of the traditional philosophers, Karl Jaspers in particular claimed to be one of them, for whom Lao was the "axial philosopher of human history".