Dao-de jing: the Main Canon of Chinese Philosophy in the First Academic Translation into Russian

Abstract

The Dao-de jing (The Canon of the Way-dao and Grace), or Lao-zi (The [Trea­tise] of the Master Lao / the Old Child), is the main canon of Taoism, which un­derlies its philosophy, mythology and religion, cult and psychophysical prac­tice, as well as the most original and popular work of all Chinese philosophy in the world, second only to the Bible in terms of publicity. For more than two millennia in China and neighboring countries hundreds of scientists and philoso­phers have been studying, commenting and interpreting it. For a century and a half in Europe, America, Russia, it has been consistently considered the great­est work of philosophical and religious thought in China, attracting the attention of major thinkers and cultural figures. Over the past half century, the outstanding discoveries of Chinese archaeologists have been the finds of its oldest manuscripts. However, until now, despite thousands of studies and hundreds of translations, the origin and authentic meaning of the Dao-de jing remain a mystery. This pa­per provides brief information about the current state of its study and the first academic translation in Russia, based on the textually most verified original and a scientifically based system of Russian-language equivalents for the categories and basic concepts of Chinese philosophy, as well as observing the unity of ter­minology when transmitting the same hieroglyphs used in the same sense. The most well-founded and detailed commentary text of the monument, published by China’s leading expert on classical Taoism, Professor Chen Gu-ying, is used as the original.