According to historical records, the Eight Emperors annotated the Tao Te Ching. Among them, Notes of the Four Emperors has been lost and cannot be verified. Annotation works handed down from generation to generation by four emperors.
1. Li Longji, Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty, was the first emperor to annotate the Tao Te Ching.
Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty was the ninth emperor of the Tang Dynasty. During his 45 years in office, his admiration for Laozi and Taoism reached its peak. In 735 and 755, Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty annotated the Tao Te Ching twice. For the first time, he used Laozi, the official book on the river, to annotate it. Twenty years later, he was dissatisfied with the book and re-annotated it with Wang Bi's book. In order to make the annotation of Tao Te Ching known to the world for a long time, Xuanzong of Tang Dynasty declared to the world that the purpose of annotation was to "care about the body and the country", which meant that Tao Te Ching was essential for self-cultivation and governing the country. This note has been engraved on stones all over the country. There are still tablets of Tao Te Ching left by the Tang Xuanzong era in Taiqing Palace in Lu Yi, Henan, Yixian in Hebei, Xingtai, Jiao Shan in Zhenjiang, Jiangsu and zhouzhi county in Shaanxi. Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty was a quiet emperor who ruled the country by Tao. He was in power for more than forty years, which greatly developed the politics, economy and culture of the Tang Dynasty and created a prosperous and immortal "Kaiyuan Shi Sheng" in the history of China. ?
2 ? Song Huizong's moral truth.
In the first year of Zheng He (1 1 18), in August, Song Huizong issued a decree to publish his Interpretation of Virtue throughout the world. From a scholar's point of view, Song Huizong's interpretation of Tao Te Ching has many subtleties. Song Huizong wrote a passage at the beginning of Taoist Collection: "Everyone who is Taoist is * * *. Virtue, the heart is complacent. Tao, eternal and harmless. Virtue, the persistence of a gender "; At the beginning of "The Classic of Virtue", it said: "If there is no square body in Tao, there will be some loss in virtue. There is no virtue in the name of harmony, and there is virtue in the name of difference. " It can be said that every sentence is wonderful and the opinions are exquisite. Song Huizong, the eighth emperor of the Song Dynasty, reigned for 25 years at the age of 54. The so-called "Emperor Daojun, the founder", although worshiping Daoism all his life, did not rule the country by Daoism like Tang Xuanzong and brought prosperity to the country, but he was a master in many fields such as painting, calligraphy and tea ceremony. Perhaps this "gifted scholar emperor" used all the inspiration from the Tao Te Ching on his cool love art. When Song Huizong was in office, he promoted the painter to the highest position in the history of China, and established the Hanlin Painting and Calligraphy Institute, which used painting as a promotion examination method in the imperial examination, and inspired many novel creation stories with poetry as the theme. Song Huizong's original thin gold calligraphy is beautiful, elegant and sharp, unparalleled in the world, and no one can surpass it so far. Song Huizong is also good at tea art, and is the author of Daguan Tea Classic, which is one of the classics of China tea science highly praised by tea people in past dynasties. ?
3 ? Zhu Yuanzhang, Emperor Taizu of Ming Dynasty, is the true moral classics.
In his sixth year as emperor, he personally noticed that the Tao Te Ching was promulgated all over the world. The founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty spared cattle from childhood, wanted to eat a meal, and worked as a monk. He is a humble monarch, but he has many unique understandings of Tao Te Ching. He said, "There is still a way to go. Heart is the road, and road is the heart. It is extraordinary to be able to persist. " He called Tao Te Ching "the root of all things, the Lord of kings and the treasure of his subjects, not the art of elixir". It means that Tao Te Ching reveals the root of all things in the universe, is the best teacher of the rulers and the most precious spiritual wealth of the people, and respects the status and significance of Tao Te Ching to a considerable height. At the beginning of Ming Taizu's accession to the throne, the policies of tax exemption, expenditure reduction, education promotion and anti-corruption were all related to his love of studying the Tao Te Ching, which was mentioned in his imperial notes. However, Zhu Yuanzhang did not insist on governing the country by Tao. Later, a decree was issued to abolish the reading of the Tao Te Ching and the Book of Changes by officials and people, respect Zhu as the ancestor, and implement Confucianism with the "three cardinal guides and five permanent members" as the official culture in the true sense. Zhu Yuanzhang knew righteousness and Taoism, but contrary to the era of conquering the world and protecting the world, Zhu Yuanzhang could not let Laozi's people-oriented thoughts such as equality, fraternity, democracy, humanity and human rights spread among his subjects. We don't know whether the deep reason why Zhu Yuanzhang abolished Taoism and Yi-ology was that he was afraid of cultivating talents like Liu Bowen and endangering the Ming Dynasty. ?
4 ? Fu Lin, the ancestor of the Qing Dynasty, annotated the Tao Te Ching.
Shi Zuqing was the third emperor in the Qing Dynasty and the first emperor in the Qing Dynasty to make Beijing his capital. The 6-year-old emperor ascended the throne, 14-year-old was autocratic, and the 23-year-old emperor was deeply rooted and brilliant. He made outstanding achievements from governing the country and securing the country to poetry and calligraphy, and also made very accurate comments on the book Tao Te Ching. 13, the ancestor Shunzhi of the Qing Dynasty completed the book Imperial Annotation, and made a preface for it. On the one hand, he explained his reasons for imperial annotation, on the other hand, he also greatly praised Laozi's "ruling the country with his heart". He said in "Preface to the Emperor's Virtue": "The book of Laozi is not a theory of nihilism, and the discussion of tactical numbers is a note, and it is also used in daily life and the way of governing the country, or it is not different." After the emperor shunzhi acceded to the throne, with the help of his mother, Empress Wen of Xiaozhuang, he used Laozi's people-oriented thought to develop agricultural production, reduce exorbitant taxes and miscellaneous fees, rectify official management, advocate economy, broaden his horizons and recruit talents, and made great achievements in all aspects. It created a prosperous time for the Qing Dynasty and laid a good foundation for the prosperous time of Kanggan. ?
According to historical records, the other four emperors who wrote the Tao Te Ching and its annotations were:
Liang Wudi's Lao Zi Shu Shu and Lao Zi Yi Shu Shu Outline;
The Righteousness of Laozi and the Private Notes of Laozi by Emperor Liang Jianwen;
Liang Yuandi's Lao Zi is sparse;
Wei Xiaowen's Notes on Lao Zi and Lao Zi Yi Shu, etc.
Unfortunately, the original notes have long been lost.
For more than 2,000 years, Laozi's theory of Avenue, as a classic thought of governing the country and keeping the country safe, has had a great influence on emperors of past dynasties, as can be seen from the four imperial notes. The four emperors of Laozi are the king of Zhongxing, the founding king, the emperor of entrepreneurship and the master of art. Their use of Laozi determines the success or failure of the dynasty and the historical position of the individual. ?