Laozi

Laozi ("Old Master") is the name traditionally given to the author of the Tao Te Ching, a short, aphoristic Chinese text on the Tao ("the Way") that became foundational to philosophical and religious Taoism. According to a biography written some centuries later by the historian Sima Qian, he was an older contemporary of Confucius (traditionally placed in the sixth century BC) who worked as a court archivist in the state of Zhou before travelling west and, at a border pass, writing the book down at a guard's request. Modern scholarship generally treats this biography as legend: the text itself is usually dated some centuries later than Confucius, and may be a compilation of accumulated sayings rather than the work of one person, real or otherwise.