Daozang

English

Alternative forms

• Tao Tsang (Wade–Giles)

Etymology

From the Hanyu Pinyin romanization of the Mandarin pronunciation of Chinese 道藏 (dàozàng, literally “Repository of the Way”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˌdaʊ̯ˈzæŋ/, /-t͡sæŋ/
• Rhymes: -æŋ
• Hyphenation: Dao‧zang

Proper noun

the Daozang

1. (Taoism) An extensive canon of Taoist writings, consisting of around 1,500 texts covering various topics.
   • 2005 August 1, Franciscus Verellen, Kristofer Schipper, The Taoist Canon: A Historical Companion to the Daozang, University of Chicago Press, →ISBN, pages 1—2:

     Similar Daozang 道藏 (Repositories of the Tao) had been compiled by earlier Chinese dynasties, always under the authority of the Son of Heaven himself. […] Today, only the above-mentioned Ming Daozang has survived. […] The Ming Daozang remains the last. […] Although the philosophical texts of Laozi 老子, Zhuangzi 莊子, and others, together with their numerous commentaries, figure prominently in the Daozang, they do not amount to more than some 200 titles.

   • 2012 June 20, Louis Komjathy, The Daoist Tradition: An Introduction, Bloomsbury Publishing, →ISBN, page 237:

     While I have indicated the ways in which different Daoist scriptures were emphasized in different Daoist movements, no discussion of Daoist texts would be complete without the Daozang (Tao-tsang, Daoist Canon), the primary textual collection of the Daoist tradition from the late medieval period forward. […] Such collections received the designation of Daozang, which literally means “storehouse of the Dao” (see Komjathy 2002; Schipper and Verellen 2004). […] The received, Ming-dynasty Daozang in total consists of 1,487 texts (see Schipper and Verellen 2004; also Komjathy 2002).

   • 2012 November 2, ASU News, “Rare Daoist canon comes to ASU Libraries”, in ASU News‎^[1], archived from the original on 2024-08-17:

     The vast literature of the Daoist canon, or Daozang, survives in a Ming Dynasty edition of some 1,500 different texts. Compiled under imperial auspices and completed in 1445 – with a supplement added in 1607 – many of the books in the Daozang concern the history, organization, and liturgies of China's indigenous religion. A large number of the works deal with medicine, alchemy, and divination.