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| I have started this translation of the Tao Te Ching
based on the current edition and whenever I found sentences
that do not make sense, I checked and edited it according to more
ancient editions like the "Bamboo Slip
Laozi" excavated from Guodian
and the Mawangdui
copies. |
| Sentences in braces { } are those I have determined that they
should not be there. However, unless there is compelling
evidence, I still keep them and provide the translation. |
| This new translation of mine is basically a word by word
translation. Words in parentheses ( ) are words I have
added to explicate the underlying meaning. |
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I have not intended to make it into good
English. Instead, I have stuck to the original layout of
the words as they appear in the original Chinese
text. | |
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In ancient Chinese, some
words, e.g. Tao, have multiple
meanings and together they constitute the total meaning of that
word. I have tried my best to find an equivalent in
English. However, due to my limited English vocabulary,
sometimes the translation may seem clumsy to express the total
meaning. For some words like Ren( ) , I have put the Roman transliteration
there and the meaning in square brackets [ ] behind it.
And for some words, such as Hsuan( ), which
I believe the original meaning had already been lost, I have adopted
concepts from Vedic Science. |
| The readers will probably
find my translation significantly different from other translations
in the world. This is not a translation for the
scholars. What I have intended is to provide a
translation for the practitioner of Tao to dig into its
real essence. |
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