Author: Lao Tzu
Lao Tzu (old man)'s biography is to be found in the pages of the greatest work of Chinese history, the Shin chi of Ssu-ma Chien, dating from the beginning of the first century b.c. In Ssu-ma, Lao Tzu emerges as an older contemporary of Confucius, a native of Li Village in the State of CHu, and is said to have been historian in charge of the archives of Chou. Finally disenchanted by the decline of Chou, Lao Tzu resolved to depart. When he reached the Pass, its keeper requested him to write a book on the Tao before retiring from the world, and the work we now call the Tao Te Ching was the result. Lao Tzu then departed, making his exit from history riding on a blue water-buffalo. No one knows, Ssu-ma concluded, what became of Lao Tzu thereafter.
