Sacred texts
Six classic texts from different traditions, each in a single named translation that is in the public domain. Read them here in full, search them, bookmark passages with private notes, or draw a passage at random.
- Tao Te Ching (The Tao Teh King) · Laozi (attributed)Eighty-one short chapters on the Way and its virtue, attributed to Laozi.Translated by James Legge (1891) · Taoism · 81 chapters
- The Dhammapada · Traditionally attributed to the BuddhaVerses of the Buddha's teaching, one of the best-known texts of the Pali canon.Translated by F. Max Müller (1881) · Buddhism · 26 chapters
- The Song Celestial (Bhagavad-Gîtâ) · Traditionally attributed to VyasaKrishna and Arjuna on the battlefield of Kurukshetra, in Arnold's verse rendering.Translated by Sir Edwin Arnold (1885) · Hinduism · 18 chapters
- Meditations (The Thoughts of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus) · Marcus AureliusThe private notes of a Roman emperor on Stoic philosophy and living well.Translated by George Long (1862) · Stoicism (philosophy) · 12 books
- Psalms · Various (traditionally David and others)The hundred and fifty psalms of the Hebrew Bible, in a modern public-domain translation.Translated by World English Bible (Michael Paul Johnson and volunteers) (2020) · Judaism and Christianity (Hebrew Bible) · 150 psalms
- Proverbs · Traditionally attributed to Solomon and othersShort sayings of wisdom from the Hebrew Bible, in a modern public-domain translation.Translated by World English Bible (Michael Paul Johnson and volunteers) (2020) · Judaism and Christianity (Hebrew Bible) · 31 chapters
Search the texts
Finds passages containing all the words you type. This is choosing by theme, not a random draw: the results are the passages that match, in book order.
How a random passage is drawn
Opening a book at random for guidance, bibliomancy, is an old practice across many traditions. Here a draw is chosen by the server with a cryptographic random number generator, saved to your journal before it is shown, and kept with how it was chosen, so a refresh or retry cannot replace it.
What one passage is depends on the book, so a draw is a readable piece of text: a whole chapter of the Tao Te Ching, a whole psalm, a stanza of the Gita, a section of the Meditations, and a single verse of the Dhammapada and of Proverbs, shown with the verses either side of it.
Weighting. With several books chosen, a draw can make every passage equally likely, so a long book like Proverbs (915 verses) comes up far more often than the Tao Te Ching (81 chapters); or make every book equally likely, then pick a passage within it. The two give different odds, and the setting is saved with each draw.
Avoid repeats leaves out passages you have drawn before from the chosen books. When every one has been drawn, the draw says so and allows repeats again.
Drawing again. If you draw again with the same settings, the first passage is not replaced: both stay in your history and the new one is marked as a redraw of it.
Your own book. If you open a physical book at random, you can record what you found. It is saved exactly as you type it, marked as drawn from your own copy, and is not checked against any edition.
The passage of the day is drawn once each day (midnight UTC) from every passage, and is the same for everyone.
A random passage is a prompt for reflection. Nothing here claims that a draw is guided or that it predicts anything.
Editions and rights
Each text was transcribed from the source below and lightly normalised (footnote markers and markup removed, line breaks tidied; spelling kept; each book lists its changes). Translators’ notes and commentary are not included.
Tao Te Ching (The Tao Teh King), trans. James Legge
The Sacred Books of the East, vol. 39 (The Texts of Taoism, part I), Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1891
Translation published 1891; translator James Legge died 1897. Public domain worldwide (life+70) and in the US (published before 1929).
The Dhammapada, trans. F. Max Müller
The Sacred Books of the East, vol. 10, part I, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1881
Translation published 1881; translator F. Max Müller died 1900. Public domain worldwide (life+70) and in the US (published before 1929).
The Song Celestial (Bhagavad-Gîtâ), trans. Sir Edwin Arnold
The Song Celestial; or, Bhagavad-Gîtâ (from the Mahâbhârata), Trübner & Co., London, 1885
Translation published 1885; translator Sir Edwin Arnold died 1904. Public domain worldwide (life+70) and in the US (published before 1929).
Meditations (The Thoughts of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus), trans. George Long
The Thoughts of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, translated by George Long (first published 1862); PG #15877 transcription of a later printing (printing not identified in the file)
Translation published 1862; translator George Long died 1879. Public domain worldwide (life+70) and in the US (published before 1929).
Psalms, trans. World English Bible (Michael Paul Johnson and volunteers)
World English Bible, 2020 stable text edition (eBible.org eng-web USFM)
Dedicated to the public domain by its publishers. copr.htm: "The World English Bible is in the Public Domain. That means that it is not copyrighted. However, "World English Bible" is a Trademark of eBible.org." They ask that a changed text not be called the World English Bible; only markup was removed here.
Proverbs, trans. World English Bible (Michael Paul Johnson and volunteers)
World English Bible, 2020 stable text edition (eBible.org eng-web USFM)
Dedicated to the public domain by its publishers. copr.htm: "The World English Bible is in the Public Domain. That means that it is not copyrighted. However, "World English Bible" is a Trademark of eBible.org." They ask that a changed text not be called the World English Bible; only markup was removed here.