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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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