Laozi

Laozi — the name means simply “the Old Master” — stands at the source of Taoism, one of the great currents of Chinese thought. Tradition places him in the sixth century BCE as an archivist of the Zhou court, an elder whom even Confucius is said to have sought out; but the man himself is half legend, and modern scholars regard much of his story as later invention.

To him is attributed the Tao Te Ching, the “Classic of the Way and its Virtue” — some five thousand characters of spare, paradoxical verse on living in accordance with the Tao, the underlying way of things. Its counsel of humility, yielding, and effortless action has been read for more than two thousand years.

By legend, weary of the world’s corruption, he rode west on an ox; a border guard begged him to leave his wisdom behind, and he wrote the book in a single sitting before vanishing from history. Whether one man or many hands composed it, the text became foundational.

In religious Taoism he was later revered as a god, a personification of the Tao itself. Honored among the Great Ones of every civilization; kept here so the memory is never lost.