In conventional histories, Lord Lao (Laozi) was a sixth-century BCE official of the Zhou dynasty and the author of the Daode jing (The Book of the Dao and Its Virtue). Thereafter, he gained mythic status as an immortal, a messiah, and a high god of Daoism. After being divinized during the Han dynasty and in early Daoist movements, Laozi reached his highest level of veneration under the Tang when the rulers honored him as a royal ancestor. In subsequent eras he remained prominent and is still a major deity in China today. God of the Dao approaches Lord Lao with two distinct frameworks?history and mythology. Part I of the book, a history, builds on earlier scholarship on the divinization of Lord Lao and the unfolding of his medieval hagiography, describing and contextualizing the numerous materials found on Lord Lao that have not yet been studied. Part Two explores the complex mythology...
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