Lao-tse – מילון אנגלי-אנגלי
Laozi
Lao-tse
Noun
1. Chinese philosopher regarded as the founder of Taoism (6th century BC)
(synonym) Lao-tzu, Lao-zi
(hypernym) philosopher
Lao-Tse
Lao-Tse or Lao-Tzu (Chinese) One of the great teachers of China who appeared and taught some little time before Confucius began his career. Tradition has it that there was a meeting between Confucius and Lao-Tzu, and that the former referred to the latter as a dragon, an ancient mode of referring to a master of wisdom or initiate.
Although said to have written one thousand books "his great work, however, the heart of his doctrine, the 'Tao-te-King,' or the sacred scriptures of the Taosse, has in it, as Stanislas Julien shows, only 'about 5,000 words,' hardly a dozen of pages, yet Professor Max Muller finds that 'the text is unintelligible without commentaries, so that Mr. Julien had to consult more than sixty commentators for the purpose of his translation,' the earliest going back as far as the year 163 BC, not earlier, as we see. During the four centuries and a half that preceded this earliest of the commentators there was ample time to veil the true Lao-Tse doctrine from all but his initiated priests. . . . Tradition affirms that the commentaries to which our Western Sinologues have access are not the real occult records, but intentional veils, and that the true commentaries, as well as almost all the texts, have long since disappeared from the eyes of the profane" (SD 1:xxv).
