Taoism began to be officially recognized as a religion around the year 440 AD, but it has been around a lot longer than that. Lao-tse (LAOdsuh), the first great writer of Taoism, was largely revered as a sort of deity of Taoism. I say sort of because the idea of a personified deity or deities is foreign to Taoists. Lao-tse was originally searching for a way to stop the feudal (although maybe futile too) conflicts that tore his homeland apart. He succeeded, the result was his book Tao-te-Ching (DAO DE JEENG). Lao-tse died somewhere around 530 BC. Taoism became one of the three major religions of China, along with Buddhism and Confucianism. In 1911, the Ch'ing Dynasty ended, and state support for the religion was stopped. The religion's heritage steadily declined until the Communist victory in 1949; then, the tolerance for Taoism was restricted until it was almost zero. Monks were put to hard labor, temples were destroyed, and treasures were plundered. The religion was pretty much being destroyed until 1982; but, since then, some of the religion's heritage and tolerance have been restored.