Traditional author of the Daodejing, described by Sima Qian as Li Er, keeper of the Zhou archives, though the same biography records rival identifications
Mural guide
Mural of Classic of the Way and Virtue, a work by this person.
At Hangu Pass at dawn, Laozi rides west on a dark ox while the gatekeeper bows to receive his teaching. The meeting marks the passage of wisdom from the border into the world.
Little is known of Laozi for certain. His biography in the *Records of the Grand Historian* (*Shiji*) says he came from Quren village in Ku county of Chu, bore the surname Li, the personal name Er and the courtesy name Dan, and kept the archives of the Zhou court. The same chapter says Confucius visited Zhou and asked him about ritual. It adds that, seeing Zhou in decline, he left and at the frontier pass wrote a book in two parts of some five thousand words on the Way and its virtue at the request of the gatekeeper Yin Xi, after which no one knew where he went. Sima Qian also records that some identified Laozi with Lao Laizi or with the Zhou grand historian Dan, admitting that no one could tell. The received *Laozi*, also called the *Classic of the Way and Virtue* (*Daodejing*), remains disputed in date. In 666 Emperor Gaozong of Tang gave Laozi the title Most High Emperor of Mysterious Origin.
500 BCEHundred Schools ContentionTook partConfucian, Mohist, Daoist, Legalist, and other thinkers debated ethics, human nature, and government across the rival states.
Laozi Authoring Tao Te Ching516 BCEPhilosopher Laozi authored the canonical 5,000-word Tao Te Ching at Hangu Pass, establishing Daoist philosophy.
UnknownDied
Works
Literature · Prose86
Classic of the Way and VirtueZhouFounding Daoist classic attributed to Laozi, eighty-one chapters on the Dao and its virtue
The Records of the Grand Historian says Laozi was a man of Quren hamlet in Li district, Ku county of Chu, surnamed Li, personal name Er, courtesy name Dan, and a historian of the Zhou archives. He cultivated the Way and its Power, and his teaching aimed at self-effacement and namelessness. After long residence in Zhou he saw its decline and left; at the pass, the keeper Yin Xi asked him to write a book, and he composed two parts, speaking of the Way and its Power in over five thousand characters, then departed, and no one knew where he ended.
Zhou
Literature · Prose
