Daoist texts & free library 經典
The classics of the Way, read online, downloaded as PDFs, or listened to as audiobooks. This part of the website is always completely free.
Foundational classics
Daodejing (Tao Te Ching) 道德經
c. 4th c. BCE
81 short chapters on the Dao and its Virtue: wu wei, water, emptiness, the sage. The most translated Chinese book.
Legge 1891 translation hosted here in full.
Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu) 莊子
4th–3rd c. BCE
Parables of the butterfly dream, Cook Ding carving the ox and the useless tree. Freedom, perspective and joy.
Giles 1889 translation hosted here in full.
Liezi (Lieh Tzu) 列子
c. 300 BCE–300 CE
Stories of Lie Yukou and the art of riding the wind: dream and waking, fate and effort.
Lionel Giles' 1912 "Taoist Teachings" is public domain (installer).
Wenzi 文子
Han era
Sayings attributed to a disciple of Laozi, often called the "Understanding the Mysteries" classic.
Yijing (I Ching, Book of Changes) 易經
c. 1000–300 BCE
64 hexagrams of yin and yang lines describing every kind of change. Shared by Daoists and Confucians.
Legge 1882 (Sacred Books of the East vol. 16), in the installer.
Huainanzi 淮南子
139 BCE
An encyclopaedia of Han Daoist cosmology, statecraft and self-cultivation.
Meditation & inner alchemy
Neiye (Inward Training) 內業
4th c. BCE
Poems on stillness, breath and the refined qi (jing) settling in the heart. The oldest Chinese meditation manual.
Read free modern translations online.
Baopuzi 抱朴子
c. 317
Ge Hong on alchemy, immortality, herbs and the discipline of the Way.
Yinfu Jing (Hidden Talisman) 陰符經
Tang or earlier
A dense, mysterious text on aligning with the hidden workings of heaven.
In Legge's Texts of Taoism (SBE 40).
Huangting Jing (Yellow Court Scripture) 黃庭經
3rd–4th c.
Visualization of the body's inner deities and palaces.
Zhouyi Cantong Qi 周易參同契
2nd c. (trad.)
"The Kinship of the Three": the oldest alchemical classic, joining the Yijing, Daoism and alchemy.
Wuzhen Pian (Awakening to Reality) 悟真篇
1075
Zhang Boduan's poems on the inner elixir.
Taiyi Jinhua Zongzhi (Secret of the Golden Flower) 太乙金華宗旨
17th c.
A meditation manual of "turning the light around". Famous in the West through Wilhelm and Jung.
Scriptures & liturgy
Qingjing Jing (Classic of Purity & Stillness) 清靜經
Tang
A short scripture recited daily in Quanzhen temples: "if people can be always pure and still, heaven and earth will return to them."
In Legge's Texts of Taoism (SBE 40).
Morality books
Taishang Ganying Pian 太上感應篇
12th c.
The Treatise on Response and Retribution: good and bad deeds and their echoes. Hugely popular.
Suzuki & Carus 1906 translation is public domain (installer).
The Canon
Daozang (Daoist Canon) 道藏
1445 / 1607
About 1,400 texts in the Three Caverns and Four Supplements: scriptures, rituals, alchemy, medicine and philosophy.
Chinese text free at ctext.org.
Literature
Peach Blossom Spring 桃花源記
421 CE
Tao Yuanming's tale of a hidden valley of peace, the Daoist utopia.
Chinese original (Gutenberg).
Also hosted here
Lao-tzu: A Study in Chinese Philosophy (1870)
Thomas Watters' early Western study of Laozi.
The free library: install it to this website
Like the martial arts library, a one-click installer downloads many more public-domain books (Legge's Sacred Books of the East volumes and other pre-1929 translations) from the Internet Archive and Project Gutenberg into this website's sacred-texts folder. After you upload that folder, they appear below automatically.
How: double-click INSTALL-SACRED-TEXTS.bat in the website folder, wait for "Done", then upload the sacred-texts folder.
No extra books installed yet. The core texts above are already here to read and download.
Read more, free
- Chinese Text Project: Free original Chinese texts of the Daoist classics, with Legge's translations side by side.
- Fabrizio Pregadio – Golden Elixir: Scholarly translations and free essays on inner alchemy.
- Wikipedia: Taoism: A broad overview with references.
- Taoist Tai Chi Society – find a location: Classes across North America.