Jain Journal 1967 04

SR No.: 520006
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication
Publication Year: 1967
Total Pages: 104
Language: English
Classification: Magazine, India_Jain Journal, & India
File Size: 6 MB

Page 89

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JAIN JOURNAL
He was a member of the Li family, born, again according to tradition, about 600 B.C. in the modern Honan province. His personal name was Lao-tan, Lao meaning old and Tan meaning long-lobed. Hundreds of years later, when he was canonised, his name was changed into Laotse or Lao-tzu meaning the Old Sage or the Old Philosopher. Legend goes that he lay in the womb for eighty-one years and was born with snow-white hair. Another legend holds that he was the Yellow Lord reborn, an incarnation of one of the all-wise guides of mankind.
Though a recluse, Lao-tse, according to tradition, rose to become the librarian (treasurer) at the royal court of the Chou dynasty that ruled all over China. He served the Court for many years and perhaps acted as the official historian. His living was extremely virtuous and modest and his life was almost uneventful except for the visit of Confucius about 517 B.C. The two met as strangers and there was not much common ground between them. For, while Lao-tse was a mystic and was looking back to an age when rulers were necessary, Confucius, a much younger man at the time of the meeting, was a practical reformer and was looking only to a time when rulers were benevolent and subjects law-abiding. Confucius saw Lao-tse not because the latter was a mystic but because as an archivist he must have had sufficient information about laws and ceremonies of olden times. Lao-tse talked of the Tao or the Way to Heaven, which was of little use and interest to Confucius and so he went away dissatisfied.
Lao-tse dreamt of a golden age of contemplation and quietude but he saw no possibility of its realisation in the intensely militaristic ventures of the Chou dynasty. Meanwhile the common man in China was steeped in stark poverty and serfdom. In this surrounding, Lao-tse could see the decay and extinction of civilisation. He even forecast the collapse of the proud Chou dynasty and the disintegration of the empire. He could no longer stay at this royal court. So he moved to the western frontier, may be in search of his paradise, may be to spend the rest of his life in spiritual illumination and perfect calm. When he reached the western frontier, the keeper of the pass, Yin-Hi, recognised him. He requested the sage to put down in a book his ideas so that he could be remembered by the posterity. This the sage did, composing his Tao Teh, and depositing it with the frontier guard, he went through the pass into the mountains beyond, and disappeared. This tradition is based primarily on an account given in the Historical Records, a work completed in the first century B.C. Later Taoist propagandists, compet