Abstract

Studies on Chinese ancient philosophy, in China as well as in Japan and in the Western world, are based principally upon Chinese written historic documents. Nevertheless, during the past thirty years, the discovery of abundant philosophical manuscripts on bamboo slips and on silk has compelled us to re-examine interpretations of Chinese philosophy, especially that of Confucianism and Taoism. ;The first chapter is a brief review of studies on the concept Tao of Lao Zi in the 20th century. In this chapter, we present and comment on representative works of M. Granet, H. G. Creel, Hu Shi, Feng Youlan, B. Schwartz, A. C. Graham, etc. ;The second chapter is an overview of tomb number one of Guodian at Jingmen and of 804 discovered bamboo slips. Besides archeological characteristics, burial date and the tomb occupant's status, we discuss especially the process of ordering of bamboo slips and the identification of Confucianist and Taoist materials on the basis of the different shapes of the slips and the distance between the binding marks. ;The third chapter is the reconstruction of the Taoist text of Guodian Lao Zi A, B, C and Taiyi shengshui . After the philological transcription of the graphs on 85 bamboo slips, we divide these materials into chapters and sentences, using the sequence of the slips within each text and punctuation symbols on each slip. ;The fourth chapter is the study of the content and nature of GDL A, B, C. ;The fifth chapter is a research on textual evolution of Lao Zi from GDL to MWDL and WBL. After a thorough examination of variants and textual comparisons of GDL, MWDL and WBL, we conclude that a schema of textual transformation of the Lao Zi can be determined as follows: GDL A → GDL → MWDL A/MWDL B → WBL. ;The sixth chapter is a research on the philosophical evolution of Tao and De of Lao Zi from GDL to MWDL and WBL