Passage 3 (Questions 11 - 15)While the central otherworldly concerns of the Taoist religion have led some commentators to assert that Taoism is a "religion without religious texts," nothing could be further from the truth. The key texts of Taoism may lack the same coherence and historicity of the Talmud or the Qur’an, but there are nonetheless various works that have profound influence, and no small authority among nearly all Taoist sects.It goes without saying that the Tao Te Ching is the central work of all Taoist religion. Despite two and a half millennia of debate over its origins, authorship, and date of origin, it remains the foundational work of Taoist philosophy and a central component of Taoist ritual. So important is this work that even commentaries on it (themselves many hundreds of years old) have become important religious texts themselves.If the Tao Te Ching lays down the foundational ideas of Tao and Te themselves, the practical application of these ideas in life is more fully explored in the Zhuangzi and the I Ching. The Zhuangzi, much like the Tao Te Ching, has an ancient origin (ca. 400 AD) shrouded in no small amount of legend. Supposedly written partly by Zhuangzi himself and later expanded by his disciples, the work eschews the abstract poetry of the Tao Te Ching. Instead, it uses more down-to-earth parables and short dialogues to help readers bring their lives into alignment with the concept of tzu-jan, or naturalness, in their daily lives. It also encourages following the Tao of the elements.Unlike the Zhuangzi, or any other Taoist text, the I Ching predates the Tao Te Ching by centuries. The system of fortune-telling described in the I Ching dates to somewhere in the 12th century BCE. The I Ching is meant to guide practitioners in choosing the right action based on some understanding of the current situation and the future. Early in Taoist development, Taoist scholars adopted the I Ching as their own and advocated it as a central text through which one could meditate on the right way. The cosmological notions at the foundation of the I Ching became so intermingled with Taoist cosmology and Yinyangism over time that by the 16th century there was no meaningful distinction for most practitioners.Finally, in addition to these three core texts, scholars in the fourth and fifth centuries AD attempted to collate all major texts, commentaries, manuscripts, and apologies into a single collection. This work came to be known as the Tao Tsang, typically translated as “Treasury of Tao” or “Taoist Canon.” The Tao Tsang was collected and re-collected many times over the centuries, but scholars generally recognize four major Tao Tsangs. The first, compiled circa 400 AD, consisted of a bit more than a thousand scrolls and developed the tripartite division that would remain through future efforts. The second and third Tao Tsangs expanded the collection to nearly 5000 separate scrolls, and the fourth and final Tao Tsang of 1444 in the Ming Dynasty settled the compilation at just under 5300 works.The Tao Tsang (all four major compilations) divides its constituent works into three broad categories, typically termed “grottoes,” each of which is split into a dozen chapters. The three grottoes are concerned with meditation, rituals, and exorcisms, with meditation always considered the highest and most pure set of writings. When someone is working to be initiated as a Taoist master, the grotto of meditation includes the writings used in the final phase of training. Question 12Suppose archaeologists discover a previously unknown text that discusses Taoist themes and advocates for the practice of Taoist rituals. The author would be least likely to believe which of the following about this text? A.Such a text would have been incorporated into the Tao Tsang if the compilers had known of it.B.The text may have been written at about the same time as the I Ching.C.Any discussion of cosmology included in the new text may have significant overlap with important themes of the I Ching and Yinyangism.D.It may have been considered an important religious text in its own right if it were an influential commentary on the Tao Te Ching.