The Five-Thousand-Word Version of Laozi 老子五千文

It is one of the versions of Laozi’s Tao Te Ching handed down in Taoism. According to legend, in the late Eastern Han Dynasty, Zhang Lu deleted the function words from the annotated version of Laozi’s Tao Te Ching by the Hermit of the River, and finalized it to five thousand characters for educating the followers of the Five Pecks of Rice Sect. However, because the line “ten spokes share one hub” was written as “thirty spokes share one hub” in this version, the actual number of characters is 4,999.

In the Three Kingdoms Period, Ge Xuan wrote a preface for this version, deifying Laozi and the Hermit of the River. Hence, The Five Thousand Character Classic is also known as the “Ge Version”. From the Southern and Northern Dynasties to the Sui and Tang dynasties, the Five Thousand Character version was widely adopted by Taoists for teaching and studying Laozi, and relevant editions were later included in The Daozang (Taoist Canon).

According to the catalog Taoist Texts from Dunhuang compiled by Onuki Shinji, more than twenty fragmentary manuscripts of the Five Thousand Character Tao Te Ching (such as P2584, S6453) have been found among the Dunhuang manuscripts, all copied by Taoist priests in the Tang Dynasty.

Some of these manuscripts include Ge Xuan’s Preface and Commentary on Laozi before the scripture text, and append The Scripture of the Ten Precepts and the oath texts for Taoist priests in the Tang Dynasty to transmit The Five Thousand Character Classic after the text. At the end of some manuscripts, there is an inscription stating: “Preface by the Left Immortal Lord of Taiji; annotated by the Immortal Lord of the River, finalized by the Lineage Master.”

In addition, some Taoist priests from the late Eastern Han Dynasty, Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties to the Tang Dynasty also adopted the Five Thousand Character version when annotating Laozi. For example, Laozi Xiang’er Zhu (Commentary on Laozi According to the Xiang’er) unearthed from Dunhuang, the fragmentary annotated manuscript numbered S4430, Cheng Xuanying’s An Exegesis on the Opening, Preface and Commentary of Laozi’s Tao Te Ching, and Li Rong’s Annotations on Laozi’s Tao Te Ching—all these works adopted the Five Thousand Character version of the scripture text, and partial annotations were also included in the Dongzhen Section (Hymn and Commentary Category) of the Taoist Canon in later generations.

It is evident that this version exerted considerable influence among Taoists.