<P> <I> Tao Te Ching, </I> also commonly known as <I> Lao Tzu, </I> is perhaps the most important of Chinese classical texts, with an unparalleled influence on Chinese thought. This bilingual edition consists of two parts. The English text in Part One is a reprint of the earlier translation of the so-called <I> Wang Pi</I> text, first published by Penguin Books in 1963. Part Two is the fresh translation of a text which is a conflation of two manuscripts of the <I> Lao Tzu, </I> dating at the latest from the early Western Han and discovered at Ma Wang Tui in December 1973. The result is a text with a fuller use of particles, free from the scribal errors and editorial tampering of subsequent ages.</P>