Lu Xiujing claimed that his Canon list included dozens of texts that 'had yet to be revealed,' meaning they existed in the heavens but had not yet been revealed by the Lord Lao or other gods to mortals

The concept of Canon is 'fuzzier' in Daoism than in Christianity because there have been several different Daoist Canons throughout history rather than a single authoritative version

The current Daoist Canon (gifted to Arizona State University by the Chinese Daoist Association) is the most recent version, consisting of over 1,500 texts filling 49 volumes

No complete scholarly English translation of the entire Daoist Canon exists; the closest available is Stephen Bokenkamp's 'Early Daoist Scriptures,' which is merely a small sampling from each major early tradition

The earliest edition of the Daoist Canon was the smallest, and Daoists continually added to the Canon over the centuries, with later editions including new commentaries on earlier texts

During the Song Dynasty reign of Emperor Hong, he ordered a major expansion of the Dao Zong and attempted to print it using woodblock technology, a then-uncommon practice despite Chinese Buddhists having printed scriptures for at least 300 years

By the year 1016, the Daoist Canon had grown to over 4,300 scrolls, which would have required approximately 70,000 woodblocks to be carved, corresponding to about 140,000 pages

The father of Neo-Confucianism, Zhu Xi, famously believed that using printed texts made students lazy and caused them to undervalue knowledge, a concern ironically parallel to how the internet was discussed in the early 2000s

Gutenberg invented his movable-type printing press around 1440, but Chinese had been printing since the late 600s using woodblock rather than movable-type technology

Daoist monks of the Qingyong Temple in South Central China still print scriptures using traditional woodblock techniques, with about 20,000 blocks in their library

Emperor Hong's project to print the expanded Daoist Canon was never completed because the Jurchen confederation swept down from the northeast, conquered the top half of China, and carried away the entire imperial court including Emperor Hong

After the Ming Dynasty consolidated power, the emperor ordered compilation of a new Daoist Canon (Jiajing Daozang, named after the era it was compiled in), which was also called the Ming Canon and was used from 1444 until 2003

The official copy of the Ming Canon was destroyed during the Boxer Rebellion in 1900 when gunfire destroyed the temple where it was held, representing the second time the Daoist Canon was nearly destroyed entirely

The Ming Canon was the longest-lasting Daoist Canon until 2003, when the Chinese Daoist Association released a new edition called the Jiangxi Daozang

The 2003 Jiangxi Daozang edition included texts discovered in tombs and document stores in Dunhuang, China, making it contain the oldest known versions of the Daodejing and other historically important texts despite being the newest Canon edition

Practically speaking, no new texts were added to the Daoist Canon after 1600, not because Daoists stopped writing scriptures but because later texts were either produced by less influential schools, schools farther from the capital, or were simply not known to those compiling the Canon

Daoism does not have a centralized doctrinal authority figure or convene councils to unify doctrine because Daoism teaches multiple valid methods to align oneself with the Dao, making doctrinal uniformity unnecessary

Texts were selected for inclusion in the Daoist Canon based on their age and general popularity, with older texts being more likely to be agreed upon as essential, and with non-Daoist works like the Mozi (teachings of the philosopher Mo-zi) making their way into the Canon because they were recognized as important to tradition

Buddhist-style sutras and tantric rituals made their way into the Daoist Canon, demonstrating the cross-pollination of religious traditions in Chinese religious history

Scholar Geoffrey Kotick notes that many texts in the Daoist Canon are not strictly Daoist in character, including general works on astrology or magic