The Tao Te Ching (www.chinapage.org 
), literally "the classic of harmony and the Way" is the fundamental text of Taoism. Its origins lost in the series of cultural purges that make up Chinese history, it is known to predate the invention of paper. In fact, its form exhibits many of the features of an oral tradition, which suggests it may predate writing too. The work's parallels with the Bhagavad Gita and explicit criticisms of Confucian thought, its relationship with Chuang Tse and Sun Tse, and its distinction from the disciplines of Zen are subjects of some controversy.
The author of the Tao Te Ching is popularly known as Lao Tse, which is both "the old philosopher" and "the old philosophy". Lao Tse is also a title for the book. Many myths, religions, cults, yogas, and martial disciplines have sprung up around Lao Tse, but the text is most relevant here as a philosophical treatise.
The meaning of the thing is very difficult to summarize. Ancient Chinese does not translate easily into modern Chinese as the meanings of the various pictograms have evolved, undocumented, over the millennia. Translation into English presents more problems, as English and Chinese involve very different maps of what's happening. And its sheer antiquity has burdened the work with plentiful copying errors, editorial remarks, revisions and misunderstandings. Worst of all, most folk that quote Lao Tse are selling something.
But, these caveats accepted, the TTC's premise seems to be that only harmony can endure. It then goes on to describe patterns by which harmony can be fostered and leveraged. There's a lot more in the work than this, and you're best off making up your mind about it yourself.
-- Peter Merel
The common story of Tao Te Ching told of how Lao Tse wrote Tao Te Ching for a border general before he left the border of the civilized world in ancient China, which suggests it did not pre-date writing. Then again, this story is widely considered apocryphal..
The "before paper" part is true, though, since China invented paper around 100 A.D. That date is also well after the enormous cultural purge that destroyed most Chinese books and history, including anything that was firmly known about the Tao Te Ching's origins.
Moreover, Lao Tse is only "old master" by literally word for word translating it. Many texts mentioned Lao Tse to have the name Lao Yi, Lao being his surname, calling him Lao Tse is a kind of honorary, like Kung Fu Tse or Chuang Tse. Then again, Lao Tse being also the earliest recorded use of "tse" ("tse" means son, seed, or master), the honorific may postdate the origin of text. No-one knows.
A well known known taoist martial art is called Tai Chi See Taichi Fight Is Called Tuiso.
From having read both the Chinese "original" and many English translations, I can honestly say that this is the best description of the Tao Te Ching I have ever seen. It is definitely worth keeping in mind that there is always more to the TTC than what any one translation can hold. -- Taral Dragon
The only translation I've ever read is John Heider's The Tao Of Leadership - but, wow! Definitely one of the wisest, most insightful works on Leader Ship I've ever read (interestingly enough, the other is written by a Christian: James Hunter's The Servant - corny writing, but some nuggets are in there). The Tao Of Leadership should be required reading for anyone who ever finds themself responsible for leading a group of people in an endeavor (in particular, leading a group of software developers in a project). -- Randy Stafford
If you are interested in different translations of the Tao Te Ching, you might enjoy Meta Tao. -- Erik Meade
In my opinion, one of the strengths of the Tao is its ability to be applied on a large number of knowledge-domains. In the first half of the 90s, I was heavily invloved in the first (original) IRC-implementation and I then wrote The Tao of IRC. You may enjoy it at www.irc.org . -- Ove Ruben Olsen
It was also applied to the art of picking up chicks in Tao Of Steve.
Robert G. Henricks' translation of the Te Tao Ching (sic) ISBN: 0679600604 is unique in that it is translated from the second oldest (168 b.c.e.) original copy yet discovered.
One of the striking features of the Ma-wang-tui texts of Lao-tzu in fact is that they are much more "grammatical" than later editions, using many more grammatical particles than later editions, but for that very reason being grammatically much more precise. His comments and notes on the Chinese are invaluable for an English-speaking student.
He has since translated the older (300 b.c.e.), Guodian Laozi discovery ISBN: 0231118163.
-- Mike Mann
My understanding is that Chinese became less morphological and relied more heavily on grammar and grammatical particles as time passed, which should mean that dropping particles wouldn't have been a question of precision, but of correctness -- and that they should have been used increasingly as the language evolved. Which then suggests that the "later" editions using fewer particles might in fact have been copies of versions even earlier than the date of the "more grammatical Ma-wang-tui" texts.
Was this in fact somehow ruled out? -- Doug Merritt
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