  It is not clear whether the Guodian bamboo manuscripts were copied from one source and meant to be read as one text divided into three parts, whether they were “selections” from a longer original, or whether they were three different texts copied from different sources at different times (for a nuanced discussion, see Boltz 1999). There is one important clue, however. The “A” and “C” texts give two different versions of what is now part of chapter 64 of the Laozi, which suggests that they came from different sources. One scholar at least has suggested a chronology to the making of the Guodian Laozi bamboo slips, with the “A” group being the oldest of the three, copied around 400 B.C.E. (Ding 2000, 7–9).