Laozi

Laozi, the “Old Master,” is the figure to whom the Daodejing is attributed. Almost nothing about him can be verified historically. What is known comes almost entirely from legend and from what later traditions built on it, from the earliest philosophical texts through to his worship as a supreme deity in religious Daoism.

The Historical Record

The only sustained ancient account of Laozi comes from Sima Qian’s Shiji (Records of the Historian, ca. 100 BCE), which gives him a surname of Li, a personal name of Er, and an alternate style of Dan. According to Sima Qian, he held a post as keeper of archival records at the Zhou court and at some point met Confucius. He eventually departed China, and at the western pass a border official persuaded him to write down his teachings, producing the text known as the Daodejing.

Scholars treat this account with considerable skepticism. A. C. Graham argued that the biography reflects a conflation of separate legends rather than a coherent historical memory. The Zhuangzi, written in the late fourth century BCE, contains seventeen passages featuring Laozi in dialogue with Confucius, but the Zhuangzi itself presents these as literary devices. Sima Qian’s own account hedges. He lists three different candidates who might be the Laozi of tradition, acknowledges he cannot confirm which is correct, and closes by noting that Laozi “cultivated the Dao and virtue.”

What the sources agree on is that a figure called Laozi or Lao Dan circulated in early Chinese philosophical literature as a wise elder associated with ideas about the Dao and De. Whether that figure maps onto a single historical person remains an open question.

Attributed Author of the Daodejing

The story of Laozi writing the Daodejing at the western pass gave later tradition a fixed point of attribution. Sima Qian narrates that he composed two parts discussing the Dao and De in roughly 5,000 words, a description that matches the text’s structure. Early texts including the Hanfeizi and Huainanzi quote passages from what would become the Daodejing and attribute them to Lao Dan or Laozi by name, establishing the connection before Sima Qian formalized it.

Modern scholarship views this attribution as legendary. The Daodejing shows signs of compilation over time, with different manuscript traditions circulating simultaneously, and the textual evidence points to a collection built from earlier sayings rather than a single authored work. What concerns Laozi’s biography is that the tradition settled on him as the author during the Han dynasty, and that settlement gave the text canonical standing.

Deification in Religious Daoism

The transformation of Laozi from legendary philosopher to deity began during the Han dynasty. Emperor Huan (r. 147 to 167 CE) authorized official veneration, and an inscription from 166 CE marks what historians regard as the first formal apotheosis. Under the Celestial Masters movement, which took shape from around 142 CE, Laozi became Taishang Laojun (Most High Lord Lao), a cosmic figure capable of descending into history to restore order and establish Great Peace (taiping). In this framework, the historical Lao Dan is one earthly manifestation of a deity who exists beyond any single lifetime.

Later traditions extended this further. The Classic of the Inner Explanation of the Three Heavens (ca. 420 CE) attributed three births to Laozi, as cosmic deity, historical philosopher, and a third manifestation in the west as the historical Buddha. This last claim fueled sectarian conflict between Daoists and Buddhists for centuries. The Classic of the Conversion of the Barbarians (ca. 300 CE) made the identification explicit and went through cycles of imperial suppression and revival. A Yuan dynasty illustrated text, the Eighty-one Transformations of Lord Lao, shows the mythology still circulating a millennium later.

In the cosmology of the Three Pure Ones, Laozi is identified with Taishang Laojun, the emanation most directly involved in human history and the transmission of Daoist teaching. The Tang dynasty imperial family, who shared the Li surname, claimed descent from Laozi and elevated him to the rank of “Supreme Mysterious Primordial Emperor.” His birthday is still observed across much of Asia on the fifteenth day of the second lunar month.