c. 400 BC–c. 201 BC
Composition of the Daodejing
Religion · Chinese traditions · Daoist traditions · Texts and transmission
Collections of sayings attributed to Laozi circulated and took shape during the fourth and third centuries BCE. Bamboo manuscripts from a Guodian tomb dated around 300 BCE provide material evidence of this transmission. The textual chronology does not establish the biography of a single author.
Precision, calendar, and review
- Start
- year · approximate
- End
- year · approximate
- Dating in the source document
- ca. 400–201 a. C.
- Calendar and convention
- Historical-era years; the source calendar is not identified. No conversion of days is assumed.
- Year zero
- The scale goes from 1 BCE to 1 CE without year zero. Changing era names changes labels only.
- Documentary review
- 2026-09-04
Reading the date: duration of a process.
Sources
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (opens in a new tab)
Source provenance and scope
- Publication date
- 2001-12-15
- What this date describes
- The cited source or edition; it may postdate the historical event.
- Source updated
- 2025-10-22
- Bibliographic date checked
- 2026-09-23
- Date evidence
- Declared in the cited source’s publisher metadata.
The correspondence between this reference and individual claims has not yet been itemized.
This record is an editorial synthesis. Consult the sources to check claims and their limits. Chronological relationships alone do not establish causation.