Tao Te Ching API - urantia.dev

The API serves The Tao Te Ching (James Legge, 1891) as JSON, one passage at a time, by the reference people use. The short classic of the Tao, attributed to Laozi. It has 236 passages in 81 chapters. No key and no account.

Get a passage

# TTC 25.1
curl https://api.urantia.dev/scriptures/tao-te-ching/25.1
# A whole chapter
curl https://api.urantia.dev/scriptures/tao-te-ching/25

{
  "data": {
    "corpus": {
      "slug": "tao-te-ching",
      "title": "The Tao Te Ching",
      "translator": "James Legge",
      "year": 1891
    },
    "passages": [
      {
        "ref": "TTC 25.1",
        "division": 25,
        "text": "There was something undefined and complete, coming into existence before Heaven and Earth. How still it was and formless, standing alone, and undergoing no change, reaching everywhere and in no danger (of being..."
      }
    ]
  }
}

The slug tao-te-ching, the id tao-te-ching-legge-1891, and the prefix ttc all name this text.

References

Chapter and paragraph, TTC 25.1. Ask for 25 to get the whole chapter. GET /scriptures/tao-te-ching lists every chapter with its first and last reference.

Search

# By meaning
curl -X POST https://api.urantia.dev/scriptures/search/semantic \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"q":"your question","corpus":"tao-te-ching","limit":5}'
# By keyword
curl 'https://api.urantia.dev/works/search?q=your%20words&work=tao-te-ching'

Each passage also links to the closest paragraphs of the Urantia Papers: GET /scriptures/tao-te-ching/25.1/urantia-parallels. The world religions guide explains how the links are made, and the MCP server has the same calls for AI agents.

Source

Text: The Tao Te Ching, translated by James Legge (1891)
Source: www.gutenberg.org
License: Public domain in the United States