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Of the parents of Lao-tzŭ and of his early years I have not found any record in Chinese books; but Pauthier says that according to historic data his father was a poor peasant who had remained a bachelor up to his seventieth year, when he married a peasant woman of the unromantic age of forty years.ssss1 Whatever were his circumstances, however, I think we may conclude that Lao-tzŭ was in early life a diligent student of the past history and the institutions of the country, and his obtaining office at the court of Chou was probably a consequence of his learning and abilities.

As to the nature of this office I cannot agree with Pauthier and Julien in calling it that of historiographer, or keeper of the State Archives. The word tsang (藏) means a granary or storehouse, and in a note to a passage in the Li-chi, or Record of Ceremonies, it is explained as the Imperial or National Museum.ssss1 The Shou-tsang-shĭ (守藏史) would accordingly be the officer in charge of the Museum, and we must remember that when Confucius went to the Capital of Chou to Lao-tzŭ, he saw in the palace the portraits of the early kings, along with many other relics of antiquity, which possessed him strongly with an idea of the magnificence of the first princes of the dynasty.ssss1 Dr. Legge also, I find, translates the expression by “Treasury-keeper.”ssss1 The legend in the Records of Spirits and Fairies states that Lao-tzŭ was in the time of king Wên a Shou-tsang-shĭ and under king Wu a Chu-hsia-shi (柱下史),ssss1 this latter term meaning assistant historiographer; and it is not improbable that he may have actually held both these offices in succession under king Ting (定) or king Chien (簡), who reigned in the 6th century B.C.