This article highlights a formerly unnoted difference between the received and the excavated Guodian 郭店 versions of the Laozi 老子, which reveals an interesting change in the use of Light/Darkness symbolism through the evolution of the text: while the received Laozi uses both metaphorical schemes to roughly the same extent, the presumably earlier Guodian Laozi lacks almost all of the “bright” references that appear in later recensions, thus constituting a much “darker” version of the text. An interesting feature of the language of many Daoist texts is their atypical idealization of Darkness and Obscurity, which contrasts with the positive connotations of Light and Clarity in virtually all great philosophical traditions.
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