{
    "schema": "prokopton42-public-passage-v1",
    "id": "laozi.daodejing",
    "canonical_url": "https://prokopton42.com/en/works/laozi/daodejing/reference-62/",
    "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": "anger",
            "label": "Anger"
        },
        {
            "id": "dao",
            "label": "Dao"
        },
        {
            "id": "de",
            "label": "De, virtuous efficacy"
        },
        {
            "id": "education",
            "label": "Education"
        },
        {
            "id": "emptiness",
            "label": "Useful emptiness"
        },
        {
            "id": "family",
            "label": "Family"
        },
        {
            "id": "freedom",
            "label": "Freedom"
        },
        {
            "id": "messiah",
            "label": "Messiah"
        },
        {
            "id": "nature",
            "label": "Nature"
        },
        {
            "id": "non_contention",
            "label": "Non-contention"
        },
        {
            "id": "poverty_wealth",
            "label": "Poverty and wealth"
        },
        {
            "id": "psychological_symbol",
            "label": "Psychic symbol"
        },
        {
            "id": "reason",
            "label": "Reason"
        },
        {
            "id": "roles",
            "label": "Roles and relationships"
        },
        {
            "id": "service",
            "label": "Service"
        },
        {
            "id": "simplicity",
            "label": "Uncarved simplicity"
        },
        {
            "id": "softness",
            "label": "Softness"
        },
        {
            "id": "virtue",
            "label": "Virtue"
        },
        {
            "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:62",
    "canonical_ref": "62",
    "canonical_parent_ref": null,
    "canonical_parent_id": null,
    "representations": [
        {
            "language": "lzh",
            "text": "道者萬物之奧。 善人之寶， 不善人之所保。 美言可以市，尊行可以加人。 人之不善，何棄之有？ 故立天子，置三公， 雖有拱璧以先駟馬，不如坐進此道。 古之所以貴此道者何？不曰以求得，有罪以免邪？故為天下貴。",
            "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": "Tao has of all things the most honoured place. No treasures give good men so rich a grace; Bad men it guards, and doth their ill efface. (Its) admirable words can purchase honour; (its) admirable deeds can raise their performer above others. Even men who are not good are not abandoned by it. Therefore when the sovereign occupies his place as the Son of Heaven, and he has appointed his three ducal ministers, though (a prince) were to send in a round symbol-of-rank large enough to fill both the hands, and that as the precursor of the team of horses (in the court-yard), such an offering would not be equal to (a lesson of) this Tao, which one might present on his knees. Why was it that the ancients prized this Tao so much? Was it not because it could be got by seeking for it, and the guilty could escape (from the stain of their guilt) by it? This is the reason why all under heaven consider it the most valuable thing.",
            "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": "Le Tao est l’asile de tous les êtres ; c’est le trésor de l’homme vertueux et l’appui du méchant. Les paroles excellentes peuvent faire notre richesse, les actions honorables peuvent nous élever au-dessus des autres. Si un homme n’est pas vertueux, pourrait-on le repousser avec mépris ? C’est pour cela qu’on avait établi un empereur et institué trois ministres. Il est beau de tenir devant soi une tablette de jade, ou d’être monté sur un quadrige ; mais il vaut mieux rester assis pour avancer dans le Tao. Pourquoi les anciens estimaient-ils le Tao ? N’est-ce pas parce qu’on le trouve naturellement sans le chercher tout le jour ? n’est-ce pas parce que les coupables obtiennent par lui la liberté et la vie? C’est pourquoi (le Tao) est l’être le plus estimable du monde.",
            "translator": "Stanislas Julien",
            "edition": "Imprimerie royale, Paris",
            "source_id": "laozi-fr-julien-1842",
            "translation_type": "historical_human_translation"
        }
    ],
    "content_checksum": "4db0c65c1e9e2d4b81fdcc82144c8a95f7fa7df8a5ddab516226c01aa98ff2a9"
}