Abstract:
There has long been great controversy concerning the interpretation of the first three lines of chapter 78 of the received Wang Bi Laozi:“天下莫柔弱于水, 而攻坚强者莫之能胜 (Some early Laozi versions have 先 here), 其 (Some early versions have an additional 以 before 其, which should be the correct wording) 无以易之”.In light of the Peking University Laozi manuscript, in which the corresponding lines are given as “天下莫柔弱于水, 而功坚强者莫之能失也, 以其无以易之也”, the present paper suggests that: First, 先 is the correct original character.胜 and 先 are semantically interchangeable, and the manuscript’s 失 should be seen as a scribal error for 先. Second, the line “以其无以易之 (either with or without 也)” was not originally contained in the Laozi but rather a later addition. Mistakenly replacing 先 with 失 resulted in a confused and inconsistent text; therefore the third line was added to the text for the purpose of elaboration and clarification. Such traces of adding explanatory lines can be found elsewhere in the received Laozi. This paper also argues that the beginning of chapter 78 of the Wang Bi Laozi, as well as its counterparts in most received Laozi versions, was formed by the fusion of two textual traditions, one of which has 先 or 胜 in the second line and lacks the third line, while the other has 失 and includes the third line. The phenomenon of “textual fusion” is not uncommon during the transmission of the Laozi.
