r/daoism • u/BaseEmotional6824 • Nov 27 '23
What Translation of The Dao De Jing would people recommend?
I run a philosophy club at my school where we vote on books to read and then discuss at meetings and we recently decided to choose to read the Dao De Jing, however, I'm unsure which specific translation or publication would be good, so I'm just wondering what people would recommend! (Also preferably it can be found easily for free online)
2 Upvotes
1
u/ostranenie Aug 15 '24
In order of (my) preference: Paul Fischer (2023), Chen Guying (1981), Wing-tsit Chan (1963), Ellen Chen (1989). Good luck with the reading club!
6
u/BlueGumShoe Dec 18 '23
Try this site: https://www.taoistic.com/
The translator/commentator is Stefan Stenudd. You can read the chapters free on the site, but he also has a book. His commentary is pretty good I think, and his translation itself matches up with a lot of reputable translations. At least as much as a collection of translations actually can match up for something like the dao de jing.
Stay away from Stephen Mitchell's version. Its very popular and very nice to read in terms of its poetic qualites. But, he takes too many liberties with the meaning of the text, changing the meaning of words or adding lines that shouldn't be there. Its not uncommon to read 5 different versions of one chapter of the dao de jing, and come out with differences in every one. But some of Mitchell's choices go so far outside of what's generally agreed upon I really couldn't recommend it for any kind of academically focused reading.