{
    "schema": "prokopton42-public-passage-v1",
    "id": "laozi.daodejing",
    "canonical_url": "https://prokopton42.com/en/works/laozi/daodejing/reference-55/",
    "language": "en",
    "title": "Daodejing, Book of the Way and Virtue",
    "author": "Laozi",
    "date": "layered composition, 4th-3rd centuries BCE",
    "summary": "The Daodejing explores a Way that cannot be possessed by names and an action that avoids needless force. Its compressed sayings join government, simplicity, withdrawal, and the power of what appears weak.",
    "learning": "Interpret non-action without confusing it with passivity, follow reversals of weak and strong, and understand the limits placed on language.",
    "long_summary": "The short chapters set speech against silence, fullness against emptiness, and domination against flexibility. Non-action does not command passivity; it names a way of avoiding unnecessary control, especially in political conduct.\n\nThe work has a layered history of composition and transmission, and the name Laozi does not guarantee one individual author. Paradoxes and images of water, valley, or uncarved wood require relational reading rather than immediate conversion into slogans.",
    "historical_context": "The Daodejing is generally situated in an age of competing states and intense political experiment. Its chapters have a layered history of composition and transmission. The scenes evoke a world of courts, roads, and withdrawal without claiming to reconstruct one author at work.",
    "material_world_label": "Eastern Zhou and Qin China",
    "material_world": {
        "technology": "Cast iron, crossbows, roads, canals, and standardization let states mobilize people and resources on a large scale.",
        "science": "Calendars, court astronomy, administrative mathematics, and agricultural observation produce precise knowledge tied to government.",
        "medicine": "Herbs, diet, cautery, and traditions of breath coexist. Diagnosis relies on observation without microbiology.",
        "transport": "Walking, chariots, carts, cavalry, and river craft use networks that rulers seek to standardize.",
        "agriculture": "Millet, rice, wheat, livestock, and irrigation feed rural populations subject to taxes and labour service.",
        "communication": "Messengers, bells, drums, bamboo-slip documents, and administrative scripts carry orders and texts.",
        "clothing": "Cross-collared robes, tunics, trousers for some riders, hairstyles, and ornaments vary by rank, gender, and region."
    },
    "material_world_scenes": [
        {
            "asset": "/assets/timeline/landmarks/05-221-bce/world-01.webp",
            "title": "Technology, science, and care",
            "description": "Cast iron, crossbows, roads, canals, and standardization let states mobilize people and resources on a large scale. Calendars, court astronomy, administrative mathematics, and agricultural observation produce precise knowledge tied to government. Herbs, diet, cautery, and traditions of breath coexist. Diagnosis relies on observation without microbiology."
        },
        {
            "asset": "/assets/timeline/landmarks/05-221-bce/world-02.webp",
            "title": "Travel and communication",
            "description": "Walking, chariots, carts, cavalry, and river craft use networks that rulers seek to standardize. Messengers, bells, drums, bamboo-slip documents, and administrative scripts carry orders and texts."
        },
        {
            "asset": "/assets/timeline/landmarks/05-221-bce/world-03.webp",
            "title": "Farming and food",
            "description": "Millet, rice, wheat, livestock, and irrigation feed rural populations subject to taxes and labour service."
        },
        {
            "asset": "/assets/timeline/landmarks/05-221-bce/world-04.webp",
            "title": "Clothing, women and men",
            "description": "Cross-collared robes, tunics, trousers for some riders, hairstyles, and ornaments vary by rank, gender, and region."
        }
    ],
    "intellectual_tradition": {
        "id": "chinese-thought",
        "label": "Early Chinese thought"
    },
    "period": {
        "id": "ancient",
        "label": "Antiquity"
    },
    "languages": [
        "lzh",
        "en",
        "fr"
    ],
    "manifestations": [
        {
            "coverage": "complete",
            "file": "data/corpus/normalized/laozi/daodejing/representations/lzh.ndjson",
            "language": "lzh",
            "records": 81,
            "role": "received_original",
            "sha256": "00ebcd057b5147e9781473c95cea23ad27c98a665b7b2c94c2e9e50301e0104b",
            "source_id": "laozi-lzh-wang-bi-wikisource-2026"
        },
        {
            "coverage": "complete",
            "file": "data/corpus/normalized/laozi/daodejing/representations/en.ndjson",
            "language": "en",
            "records": 81,
            "role": "historical_translation",
            "sha256": "97cd701bb762fffb42080516c9a766a16a949e7af9290671c673d34c3e06094c",
            "source_id": "laozi-en-legge-1891",
            "publication_year": 1891,
            "publication_year_basis": "source_metadata"
        },
        {
            "coverage": "complete",
            "file": "data/corpus/normalized/laozi/daodejing/representations/fr.ndjson",
            "language": "fr",
            "records": 81,
            "role": "historical_translation",
            "sha256": "fbaf287ae16302546f35f977f67fab52b6514b6d6c578b0cb42631567e7468a2",
            "source_id": "laozi-fr-julien-1842",
            "publication_year": 1842,
            "publication_year_basis": "source_metadata"
        }
    ],
    "concepts": [
        {
            "id": "attribute",
            "label": "Attribute"
        },
        {
            "id": "constitutional_government",
            "label": "Constitutional government"
        },
        {
            "id": "dao",
            "label": "Dao"
        },
        {
            "id": "de",
            "label": "De, virtuous efficacy"
        },
        {
            "id": "emptiness",
            "label": "Useful emptiness"
        },
        {
            "id": "family",
            "label": "Family"
        },
        {
            "id": "force",
            "label": "Force"
        },
        {
            "id": "knowledge",
            "label": "Knowledge"
        },
        {
            "id": "messiah",
            "label": "Messiah"
        },
        {
            "id": "non_contention",
            "label": "Non-contention"
        },
        {
            "id": "political_union",
            "label": "Political union"
        },
        {
            "id": "simplicity",
            "label": "Uncarved simplicity"
        },
        {
            "id": "sin",
            "label": "Sin"
        },
        {
            "id": "softness",
            "label": "Softness"
        },
        {
            "id": "virtue",
            "label": "Virtue"
        },
        {
            "id": "wisdom",
            "label": "Wisdom"
        },
        {
            "id": "wuwei",
            "label": "Wuwei, action without forcing"
        },
        {
            "id": "ziran",
            "label": "Ziran, self-so"
        }
    ],
    "source_work_ids": [
        "laozi.daodejing"
    ],
    "passages": 81,
    "word_count": 10432,
    "word_counts_by_language": {
        "en": 10432,
        "fr": 9079,
        "lzh": 1222
    },
    "editorial_status": "gpt_5_6_semantic_draft_v1",
    "structure": {
        "citation_scheme": "laozi-received-chapter-v1",
        "kind": "native",
        "levels": [
            {
                "key": "chapter",
                "label_fr": "Chapitre reçu",
                "label_en": "Received chapter"
            }
        ],
        "leaf_fr": "Chapitre",
        "leaf_en": "Chapter"
    },
    "canonical_passage_id": "passage:laozi.daodejing:55",
    "canonical_ref": "55",
    "canonical_parent_ref": null,
    "canonical_parent_id": null,
    "representations": [
        {
            "language": "lzh",
            "text": "含德之厚，比於赤子。蜂蠆虺蛇不螫，猛獸不據，攫鳥不搏。 骨弱筋柔而握固。 未知牝牡之合而全作， 精之至也。終日號而不嗄， 和之至也。知和曰常， 知常曰明。 益生曰祥。 心使氣曰強。 物壯則老，謂之不道，不道早已。",
            "edition": "Wang Bi received recension, base text without commentary",
            "source_id": "laozi-lzh-wang-bi-wikisource-2026",
            "translation_type": "received_literary_chinese_text"
        },
        {
            "language": "en",
            "text": "He who has in himself abundantly the attributes (of the Tao) is like an infant. Poisonous insects will not sting him; fierce beasts will not seize him; birds of prey will not strike him. (The infant's) bones are weak and its sinews soft, but yet its grasp is firm. It knows not yet the union of male and female, and yet its virile member may be excited;--showing the perfection of its physical essence. All day long it will cry without its throat becoming hoarse;--showing the harmony (in its constitution). To him by whom this harmony is known, (The secret of) the unchanging (Tao) is shown, And in the knowledge wisdom finds its throne. All life-increasing arts to evil turn; Where the mind makes the vital breath to burn, (False) is the strength, (and o'er it we should mourn.) When things have become strong, they (then) become old, which may be said to be contrary to the Tao. Whatever is contrary to the Tao soon ends.",
            "translator": "James Legge",
            "edition": "The Sacred Books of China, volume 39",
            "source_id": "laozi-en-legge-1891",
            "translation_type": "historical_human_translation"
        },
        {
            "language": "fr",
            "text": "Celui qui possède une vertu solide ressemble à un nouveau-né qui ne craint ni la piqûre des animaux venimeux, ni les griffes des bêtes féroces , ni les serres des oiseaux de proie. Ses os sont faibles, ses nerfs sont mous, et cependant il saisit fortement les objets. Il ne connaît pas encore l’union des deux sexes, et cependant certaines parties (de son corps) éprouvent un orgasme viril. Cela vient de la perfection du semen. Il crie tout le jour et sa voix ne s’altère point ; cela vient de la perfection de l’harmonie (de la force vitale). Connaître l’harmonie s’appelle être constant. Connaître la constance s’appelle être éclairé. Augmenter sa vie s’appelle une calamité. Quand le cœur donne l’impulsion à l’énergie vitale, cela s’appelle être fort. Dès que les êtres sont devenus robustes, ils vieillissent. C’est ce qu’on appelle ne pas imiter le Tao. Celui qui n’imite pas le Tao périt de bonne heure.",
            "translator": "Stanislas Julien",
            "edition": "Imprimerie royale, Paris",
            "source_id": "laozi-fr-julien-1842",
            "translation_type": "historical_human_translation"
        }
    ],
    "content_checksum": "b1b07d93ceae2270aef78ff3287f5fe09ece3e37dff3fe6363589f4608474681"
}