ABSTRACT
The idea of a middle way between the opposites is to be found also in China, in the form of Tao. The concept of Tao is usually associated with the name of the philosopher Lao-tzu, born 604 bc. But this concept is older than the philosophy of Lao-tzu. It is bound up with the ancient folk religion of Taoism, the ‘way of Heaven’, a concept corresponding to the Vedic rta. The meanings of Tao are as follows: way, method, principle, natural force or life force, the regulated processes of nature, the idea of the world, the prime cause of all phenomena, the right, the good, the moral order. Some translators even translate it as God, not without some justification, it seems to me, since Tao, like rta, has a tinge of substantiality.
