The DDJ

[Mig]

Do we know why the DDJ has the jing=scripture whereas other books don't have the scripture. Is it a Buddhist competition to use that ending for the book as it seems Chinese talk more more as Laozi for the book. Any ideas or information?

[SirPalomides]

I’m not sure what other books you’re looking at but “jing” is a very common ending for other Daoist scriptures.

[dawei]

As most ancient books go... they just follow the author name... so it was first referenced as, Laozi (LZ).    There is no book titling in that time.

 

The earliest manuscript is from 300 BC, often called the Guodian Laozi.  It was not until the Han ruling period that monarchy interest in LZ occurred.  

 

here is one source explanation: 

 

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/laozi/

 

The Laozi did not acquire its “classic” status until the Han dynasty. According to the Shiji (49.5b), the Empress Dowager Dou—wife of Emperor Wen and mother of Emperor Jing (r. 156–141 B.C.E.)—was a dedicated student of the Laozi. Later sources added that it was Emperor Jing who established the text officially as a classic. However, the title Daodejing appears not to have been widely used until later, toward the close of the Han era.

 

Your question of Buddhist competition is very interesting given it enters china in the Han period.  I have no comment but would welcome it.   My gut feeling is, the monarchy, or those few, found a spirit with the LZ.  Happy to be wrong.  

[Mig]

I checked on Wikipedia and found this:

 

The title "Daodejing", with its status as a classic, was only first applied from the reign of Emperor Jing of Han (157-141 BCE) onward.^[16] Other titles of the work include the honorific "Sutra (or "Perfect Scripture") of the Way and Its Power" (Daode Zhenjing) and the descriptive "5,000-Character Classic" (Wuqian Wen).

Indeed, every time I check a Chinese source (no I am not an expert and don't consider myself expert in reading Classical Chinese or literary Chinese), I don't see the name of scripture in many texts. I can't remember where I read but the reason seems to be because they were in competition of Buddhist scriptures where they have translated scriptures jing in Chinese.

[dawei]

1 hour ago, Mig said:

I can't remember where I read but the reason seems to be because they were in competition of Buddhist scriptures where they have translated scriptures jing in Chinese.

 

I don't really doubt the possibility.  

[SirPalomides]

經 (Jing) is variously translated as classic, scripture, book, etc. It is used in all kinds of texts. For example the Buddhist Heart Sutra is the Xinjing. Confucian classics like the classic of poetry (shijing)and book of filial piety (xiaojing) also use this same word (jing). Some non-religious texts also use the term. It is not a borrowing from Buddhism. I don’t know where you get this information because it’s not accurate.

 

Tons of Daoist texts have this name, eg the Taiping Jing, Qingjing jing, Huangting Jing, Yinfu jing etc.  I don’t know what Chinese sources you’re searching but if you had an electronic version of the Daoist canon the word 經 would come up a gajillion times.

Edited January 11, 2020 by SirPalomides

[Mig]

2 hours ago, SirPalomides said:

經 (Jing) is variously translated as classic, scripture, book, etc. It is used in all kinds of texts. For example the Buddhist Heart Sutra is the Xinjing. Confucian classics like the classic of poetry (shijing)and book of filial piety (xiaojing) also use this same word (jing). Some non-religious texts also use the term. It is not a borrowing from Buddhism. I don’t know where you get this information because it’s not accurate.

 

Tons of Daoist texts have this name, eg the Taiping Jing, Qingjing jing, Huangting Jing, Yinfu jing etc.  I don’t know what Chinese sources you’re searching but if you had an electronic version of the Daoist canon the word 經 would come up a gajillion times.

Maybe I wasn't clear, I was talking about Daoist texts where the only I found is 文始真經 - Wen Shi Zhen Jing, all others have a name or surname. The ones you mentioned are later texts or post Hand documents as far as I can understand

[Walker]

1 hour ago, Mig said:

Maybe I wasn't clear, I was talking about Daoist texts where the only I found is 文始真經 - Wen Shi Zhen Jing, all others have a name or surname. The ones you mentioned are later texts or post Hand documents as far as I can understand

 

The 文始真經 is almost certainly no older than the Sui-Tang period, and maybe even as "new" as late Southern Song. It didn't become popular until it was delivered to 尹志平/Yin Zhiping, a disciple of Dragon Gate founder, Qiu Chuji. Yin Zhiping was effectively the patriarch of the Quanzhen movement for a time, so his promotion of the text was very influential, and it was widely studied during the Ming dynasty, which followed the short-lived Yuan dynasty which Yin was alive in.  

 

The received 文始真經 is meant to be the work of Yin Xi, who it is said met Laozi at the Han'gu pass and asked him to write the DDJ. In fact the historical Yin Xi, it seems, did write a book, which was listed in imperial bibliographies up through to the Eastern Han dynasty. Unfortunately it disappeared from record for about a millennia. Whoever wrote the 文始真經 was attempting to "fill the shoes" left empty by the disappearance of Yin Xi's actual book. (I actually think the 文始真經 is fantastic, but I am pretty convinced by the argument that it is not Yin Xi's original work; dating it to the Sui-Tang period  seems reasonable, though)

 

Regarding the character 經, it is important to note that the early bibliographies that mentioned Yin Xi's book did not use this character, or even 文始. Rather, the original was called 關尹子, which was either Yin Xi's sobriquet or his political post's title (there were political posts that used the character 尹, which was also Yin Xi's surname).

[SirPalomides]

If you’re looking for pre-Han Daoist texts... well Daoism was really founded in the Han. Laozi, Zhuangzi, et al were sort of made “Daoist” retroactively.