50 Fun Facts About Taoism

What does the Chinese word 'Tao' (Dao) most literally mean?

In the Taoist sense it is understood as an enigmatic process of transformation underlying all reality.

What does the name Laozi, the legendary author of the Tao Te Ching, literally mean?

Modern scholars think his biography is later invention and the book the work of several hands, the archaic name lending it anonymous authority.

According to tradition, at whose request did Laozi write the Tao Te Ching before departing to the West?

The story has him serving as an official in the imperial archives before riding off, never to be seen again.

What is the personal name traditional accounts give to Laozi?

A later imperial dynasty whose emperors were surnamed Li claimed him as an ancestor, and a legend ties his birth to a plum tree.

Into how many chapters is the modern Tao Te Ching divided?

Chapters 1-37 form the Daojing, the Classic of the Way, and 38-81 the Dejing, the Classic of Virtue.

What are the oldest excavated fragments of the Tao Te Ching, dating to about 300 BCE, called?

The book is one of the most translated texts in world literature, though a conservative dating puts its modern form in the mid-third century BCE.

After whom is the Zhuangzi, the other foundational Taoist text, named?

Almost nothing concrete is known of Zhuang Zhou beyond the book itself; Sima Qian's biography seems to be drawn from it.

In the Zhuangzi's most famous passage, Zhuang Zhou wakes unsure whether he had dreamed of being what?

The story plays with transformation, suggesting the line between waking and dreaming is another false distinction.

How many chapters does the surviving Zhuangzi have, as edited by Guo Xiang around AD 300?

He cut it down from an earlier 52-chapter version; the first seven, the Inner Chapters, are held to be Zhuang Zhou's own work.

What is the Taoist ethical concept of 'wu wei' usually translated as?

The paradoxical phrase 'wei wu wei' means action without action, and forcing one's will against the world's rhythms disrupts its harmony.

What element is wu wei associated with in ancient Taoist texts because of its yielding nature?

Exerting one's will against the world's rhythms is held to disrupt its harmony.

What is the Taoist metaphor for original nature, translated as 'the uncarved block'?

It is a state one may return to; the related concept of ziran, 'self-so', describes naturalness and spontaneity.

What are Taoism's 'Three Treasures' or 'Three Jewels' of virtue?

Arthur Waley rendered them politically as abstaining from aggressive war, absolute simplicity of living, and refusing to assert leadership.

What is 'De' (Te), the second word in the title Tao Te Ching, usually translated as?

It is the active expression of the Tao, the sagely power that comes from living in accord with it.

In the yin-yang concept, which force is described as passive, contractive and receptive?

Yang is active, expansive and repelling; the two are opposite but complementary and each needs the other.

What is the name of the swirling black-and-white diagram that represents yin and yang?

The diagram was first introduced by the Song-dynasty Neo-Confucian philosopher Zhou Dunyi.

Which Han historian first grouped the 'Taoist school' among six schools of thought?

That label, daojia, describes the philosophical tradition; the term daojiao for the organised religion was coined by Lu Xiujing in the 5th century.

Who reportedly saw a vision of Laozi in 142 CE and founded the first organised Taoist religion?

He preached that the world was ending and taught people to repent; followers of Zhengyi Dao still venerate him as the first Celestial Master.

What was the early Celestial Masters movement popularly called, after the levy it charged members?

It established a theocratic state in Sichuan; its leader Zhang Lu later surrendered it in exchange for official recognition.

Which late-Han uprising, sparked by Taoist secret societies, tried to create a Taoist theocracy?

The Celestial Masters kept out of it, survived, and won official recognition from a warlord in 215 CE.

Which warlord officially recognised the Celestial Masters school in 215 CE?

Zhang Lu surrendered his theocratic state in exchange for state-religion status, and his daughter married Cao Cao's son.

The early Taiqing tradition sought immortality by concocting elixirs from which toxic substances?

This 'external alchemy' later gave way to inner alchemy, neidan, working with the body's own energies.

Under which dynasty did Taoism peak, with emperors claiming descent from Laozi?

Emperor Gaozong even made the Tao Te Ching a subject in the imperial examinations, and Xuanzong wrote Taoist works himself.

What is the Daozang?

Monks began assembling it in the 5th century; Du Guangting re-edited it in the 10th and Song emperors published new editions.

Who founded the Quanzhen (Complete Perfection) school of Taoism in 12th-century Shandong?

It stressed inner transformation, monasticism and asceticism, and became one of Taoism's two great surviving branches alongside Zhengyi.

Which Quanzhen disciple founded the Dragon Gate lineage and Beijing's White Cloud Monastery?

The White Cloud Temple remains the most important centre for training Taoist monastics on the Chinese mainland.

What are the two main sects of later Taoism, one focused on spells and ritual, the other on inner alchemy?

Zhengyi grew up among the Zhang clan in southern China during the Song and is still supported by hereditary Celestial Masters.

Who are the Three Pure Ones?

They merged the supreme deities of different traditions into a common trinity during the 6th century; the Jade Purity is the Original Heavenly Lord.

How many immortals form the famous group of xian said to live on islands in the Bohai Sea?

Their legends became especially popular in the Ming dynasty, and the most important of them is Lü Dongbin.

What is a 'xian' in Taoism?

The word also came to describe a principled, moral person; Taoist deities are roughly divided into gods and immortals.

Which range in Hubei is the Taoist counterpart to the Buddhist Shaolin Monastery and famed for tai chi?

The first temple there was built under a 7th-century emperor and it is one of the Four Sacred Mountains of Taoism.

Which Taoist immortal did early tai chi masters like Sun Lutang credit with creating the art?

Modern tai chi developed largely in the 20th century under figures like Yang Chengfu.

What are the 'Three Treasures' of the body in Taoist physical practice such as qigong and inner alchemy?

Essence, energy and spirit are linked to the three 'elixir fields' or dantian in the body.

What is the traditional title reserved for ordained Taoist clergy?

Historically Chinese had no word for lay Taoists, who fell within folk religion; 'daojiao tu' for a lay believer is a 20th-century coinage.

What did the 5th-century scholar Lu Xiujing borrow from Buddhism to organise the Taoist scriptures?

He also coined the term daojiao to distinguish Taoism from Buddhism.

Which Song emperor actively promoted Taoism, collecting texts and publishing new editions of the canon?

The Song era also produced the Thunder Rites, protection and exorcism rituals invoking the celestial departments.

What happened to many Taoist priests during China's Cultural Revolution of 1966-76?

Temples were destroyed or secularised, and Taoists emigrated to Taiwan, Southeast Asia and the West, spreading the religion globally.

How many religious doctrines does the Chinese government officially recognise, Taoism among them?

Taoism also has official status in Hong Kong and Macau and is a major religion in Taiwan.

What is 'Tao' in the Wade-Giles system rendered as in Hanyu Pinyin?

The Standard Chinese initial is neither voiced nor aspirated, so neither English pronunciation is quite right; Pinyin was adopted in China in the 1950s.

With which other tradition is Taoism most often compared, both having shaped Chinese thought profoundly?

With Buddhism they formed the 'Three Teachings' discourse of the 6th century on how the traditions could coexist.

During which turbulent era of Chinese history did the core of Taoist thought crystallise, around 450 BCE?

The epigrammatic Tao Te Ching and the anecdotal Zhuangzi were largely composed then.

Which 4th-century alchemist and author of the Baopuzi was a key figure in early Taoist thought?

The Xuanxue or 'Mysterious Learning' scholars of the Three Kingdoms period, such as Wang Bi, blended Taoist and Confucian ideas.

Which Qing-era Longmen inner alchemy text became famous in the West via a translation with a Jung commentary?

Longmen authors such as Liu Yiming and Min Yide worked to preserve inner alchemy practices through such books.

According to Isabelle Robinet, practices for achieving what were one of four components in Taoism's emergence?

She traces some Taoist elements to prehistoric Chinese folk religion.

The Tao Te Ching is informally known as the 'Five Thousand Character text'. Why?

Its two parts are the more metaphysical Daojing (chapters 1-37) and the more political Dejing (chapters 38-81).

Early Tao Te Ching manuscripts written on silk were found in 1973 in a tomb at which site?

The tomb dated to 168 BCE, and the texts put the two parts of the book in the opposite order from today's version.

Who gives the first biographical account of Laozi, combining three different stories?

His Records of the Grand Historian make Laozi variously an archivist who met Confucius, a 15-part author named Lao Laizi, or an astrologer called Lao Dan.

How many 'inner chapters' of the Zhuangzi are traditionally held to be by Zhuang Zhou himself?

Editor Guo Xiang split the remaining 26 into outer and miscellaneous chapters, now seen as later accretions.

In a famous Zhuangzi passage, what is Zhuang Zhou found doing after his wife's death?

The story of death as nothing to fear inspired a 'funeral drumming' folk tradition in Hubei and Hunan that lasted into the 1800s.

With which philosopher friend does Zhuang Zhou debate the 'joy of fish' in chapter 17?

Victor Mair compared the exchange to a Socratic dialogue and Huizi's paradoxes to those of Zeno of Elea.