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The Way and Its Power: Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching and Its Place in Chinese Thought (UNESCO collection of representative works)

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The full title of the present book is: 'THE WAY AND ITS POWER - A Study of the TAO TE CHING and Its Place in Chinese Thought by ARTHUR WALEY. The book, which was first published in 1934 and has often been reprinted, besides containing a study of the historical and intellectual background, also contains a complete translation of the Tao Te Ching.

Waley, who was one of the great Sinologists of the twentieth century, is perhaps better known to most as a translator of Chinese poetry. His 'Translations from the Chinese,' the book which contains, among other treasures, the marvelous poems of T'ao Ch'ien, Po Chu-I, and Wang Wei, has been reissued many times. And although we have seen other excellent translations of Chinese poetry from writers such as A. C. Graham, Kenneth Rexroth, and Gary Snyder, none of them have had the impact of Waley. Chinese poetry, for most, is and always will mean Arthur Waley. His influence has been overwhelming.

I would attribute his enormous success to two things. In the first place, there is the very special quality of his English, a quality impossible to describe. In the second place, Waley was a master at evoking an atmosphere, a feeling tone, that strikes one as authentically Chinese. So good was he at this that one sometimes gets the feeling, as one does when reading the poems of Emily Dickinson (whose mind had a very Chinese cast), that they must have been Chinese souls who had somehow strayed and ended up reincarnating in Western bodies.

The particular beauty of Waley's style, a style which despite its age still strikes one as modern, will also be found at work in the present book. The book falls into two parts. The first gives us a 100-page Introduction which covers such topics as The Hedonists, Quietism, The Language Crisis, The Realists, The Mystic Basis of Realism, The Tao Te Ching, The Sheng, The Literary Methods of the Book, and the Author. Then follow six Appendices which treat of such matters as Authorship in Early China, Foreign Influence, Taoist Yoga, Text and Commentaries, etc. Then comes the translation itself, after which Waley rounds out the book with some Additional Notes and an Index.

Waley's translations of each Chapter of the Tao Te Ching are followed either by a Paraphrase, a brief Commentary, or, in most cases, simply a few footnotes. The notes are brief, practical, and invariably helpful, and are designed to assist both the general reader and those with access to the Chinese text to arrive at a better understanding of the text. Waley's approach, in other words, has a distinctly old-world and British feel, and is designed to appeal, not to the pedant or technical specialist, but to gentlemen and gentlemen scholars, and ladies also, who are seriously interested in understanding the thought of Lao Tzu. Chapter XLIII gives us a good example of Waley's style and basic procedure:

"What is of all things most yielding
Can overwhelm that which is of all things most hard.
Being substanceless it can enter even where there is no space;
That is how I know the value of action that is actionless.
But that there can be teaching without words,
Value in action that is actionless,
Few indeed can understand."

Readers are referred to the book itself for Waley's two brief informative notes on these lines.

Waley, who mastered both Chinese and Japanese, but who wisely refused to visit the East for obvious reasons, was undoubtedly something of a genius, and he has much to teach us all. His edition can be recommended with confidence to anyone who is looking for a study of Ancient Chinese thought along with an uncluttered, authoritative, and readable version of the Tao Te Ching.

Arthur Waley's scholarship is impeccable. He, I believe, correctly categorizes a translation of the Tao Te Ching as either conforming to the original times in which it was written or as representing current language and thought that is to be applied to one's life today. His translation is of the former type. I think both types of translation are important. I would call his type the scholarly type and the latter type a mystical type of translation. I sense that Arthur Waley was not a mystic, but took great care in trying to uncover the original sense of the works that he translated. Whereas, someone like Alan Watts would be able to wander back and forth between the scholarly and the mystical. Arthur Waley's translation of the Tao Te Ching is very good and also definitely worth reading for his notes and commentaries.

Arthur Waley's "The Way And Its Power: Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching And Its Place In Chinese Thought," as the title states, is a translation and commentary on the Tao Te Ching in the context of Chinese philosophy and thought. With this said, I would like to warn you that if you are looking for a good, readable translation of the Tao Te Ching with emphasis on the philosophical and "spiritual" aspect of the work, then I would recommend looking elsewhere such as Stephen Mitchell or R.B. Blankey's translations. Arthur Waley's book is better suited for readers who are interested in Chinese philosophy and the "Taoist" role in it. In his introduction, Arthur Waley gives a rather detailed report on the evolution of Chinese religious practice and philosophy. He addresses the early days of Chinese religious practice of sacrifice and ritual, many of the great Chinese thinkers such as Confucius, Mencius, Mo Tzu, Chuang Tzu, Sung Tzu, and other schools of philosophy such as Quietism, Hedonism, the Realists, and "Taoism." While I find all of the information here useful and interesting, I found it trailed off from the subject of the Tao Te Ching. If it had been a book about Chinese philosophy only then you would hear no complaints from me but I feel as though Arthur Waley wanders off the subject at hand. Arthur Waley goes on to discuss what little is known about the history of the Tao Te Ching and Lao Tzu. The translation of the Tao Te Ching itself is very literal and wordy, loosing the beauty and free flowing nature of other translations. Each chapter is followed by a short commentary and a series of commentary, usually discussing the meaning of the Chinese words and its relation to other Chinese philosophy.

I thought it was well worth reading for the information and insight I got from the information on Chinese philosophy but I felt it had little to do with the message of the "Tao Te Ching" other than the political chapters of the book. The translation would make me not want to read it again. I think out of all the "spiritual" texts I've read, the Tao Te Ching is the hardest to analyze and make concentrate since it goes against the whole message of the book. I think it is better just to find a good translation of it and just read it for what it is.

I read this book in graduate school where I was studying religion and ethics, with a particular interest in Taoism. There are many translations of the Tao Te Ching, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. The strength of Waley's translation is the enlightening footnotes to each chapter. He presents information about the text that makes obscure passages much clearer. He distinguishes when the author is quoting a proverb of his day from originial ideas. He points out puns that are untranslatable but important for getting the nuances of the text.

I did not care for his notion that there are two strands of Taoism, the esoteric pursuit of personal enlightenment and the practical pursuit of power. This leads him to suggest the text is a composite of two different authors, one interested in an understanding of the mystery of life, the other interested in gaining power.

I think he misunderstands how the contemplative complements the practical. The author of the Tao Te Ching (I think it was written by a single author) makes it quite clear that power cannot and should not be pursued. Power is only attained when it comes unsought, as a byproduct of conduct that is in line with the Way (or Tao). This colors his translation in that Waley translates Te as Power. I think Nature is a better translation, with a connotation of a concrete manifestation of the Tao, which of itself is ineffable. There is power in this, to be sure, but not a power that one can appropriate for any purpose.

Still, this is a very important translation and well worth getting. There are more poetic translations, but none that gives as much of the sense the readers of the age in which it was written would make of it.

If you're undecided about which copy of the Tao Te Ching to purchase buy this one. Arthur Waley's introduction, which takes up the bulk of the book, is superb and alone is worth the price. I have several other translations and this is the best.

This is one of the best translation sof the Tao te Ching that I have read. Additionally, the author provides a great deal of background information on the period in which it was written.

Arthur David Waley (1889-1966) was an English orientalist and sinologist.

He wrote in the Preface to this 1958 book, "I must apologize for the fact that the introduction is longer than the translation itself. I can only say that I see no way of making the text fully intelligible without showing how the ideas which it embodies came into existence. The introduction together with the translation and notes are intended for those who have no professional interest in Chinese studies..."

Here are some quotations from the book:

"...it was Taoism that first welded these ideas together into a system in which the unassertive, the inconspicuous, the lowly, the imperfect, the incomplete become symbols of the Primal Stuff that underlies the kaleidoscope of the apparent universe." (Pg. 56)
"The reader may at this point well ask why I have all this time said nothing about the author of the book. The reason is a simple yet cogent one. There is nothing to say. We do not know and it is unlikely that we shall ever know who wrote the Tao te Ching." (Pg. 99)
"Now such is the spell that the Tao te Ching has always had over the minds of all save the most narrow and rigid sectaries of Confucianism that so long as no middle way presented itself China has been obliged, despite every evidence to the contrary, to accept the book as a work of a legendary Worthy, Lao Tzu; for the only alternative was to admit that it was a forgery, in which case it could not be read." (Pg. 104-105)
"In short, Ssu-ma Chien's 'biography' of Lao Tzu consists simply of a confession that for the writing of such a biography no materials existed at all." (Pgl 108)

I'm sorry for even buy this book. I just couldn't get through that hunderd page introduction. Its too long and not useful information, if he would had kept it short and simple. I feel, he does not know what he was translated it was very poor. How do I explain "Tao Te Ching of Arthur Waley" to my child or my wife in spanish who doesn't know the way of Taoist.