An Anthology of Chinese Discourse on Translation (Volume 1)

From Earliest Times to the Buddhist Project

Martha Pui Yiu Cheung, Lin Wusun

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781317639275
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Linguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Translation has a long history in China. Down the centuries translators, interpreters, Buddhist monks, Jesuit priests, Protestant missionaries, writers, historians, linguists, and even ministers and emperors have all written about translation, and from an amazing array of perspectives. Such an exciting diversity of views, reflections and theoretical thinking about the art and business of translating is now brought together in a two-volume anthology. The first volume covers a time-frame from roughly the 5th century BCE to the twelfth century CE. It deals with translation in the civil and government context, and with the monumental project of Buddhist sutra translation. The second volume spans the 13th century CE to the Revolution of 1911, which brought an end to feudal China. It deals with the transmission of Western learning to China - a translation venture that changed the epistemological horizon and even the mindset of Chinese people. Comprising over 250 passages, most of which are translated into English for the first time here, the anthology is the first major source book to appear in English. It carries valuable primary material, allowing access into the minds of translators working in a time and space markedly different from ours, and in ways foreign or even inconceivable to us. The topics these writers discussed are familiar. But rather than a comfortable trip on well-trodden ground, the anthology invites us on an exciting journey of the imagination.

AN ANTHOLOGY OF CHINESE DISCOURSE ON TRANSLATION, VOLUME ONE

FROM EARLIEST TIMES TO THE BUDDHIST PROJECT

PART ONE: FROM EARLIEST TIMES TO THE EASTERN HAN DYNASTY (25–220 CE)

OVERVIEW

This part comprises mainly excerpts taken from the works of some of the most influential writers living in the period that saw the first flourishing of different schools of thought in China (that is the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, roughly the eighth century to the third century BCE). These writers rarely dealt directly or explicitly with translation. But the topics they wrote on, such as the relation between language and ideas, formed the springboard for thinking about translation, and the virtues they extolled became some of the core values cultivated and cherished by translators in subsequent eras. A number of other entries, mostly historical records about how communication with neighbouring states was carried out in the Zhou Dynasty (c. eleventh century-256 BCE), throw an interesting light on the social position of the people involved in the activity of (principally) interpretation in ancient times. In addition, these records provide rich and as yet unexplored material for theorizing about translation. In accordance with the structural model set out in the Introduction, the majority of the entries featured in this section belong to the category of indirect discourse on translation (“subterranean mode”). A few belong to the category of indirect discourse on translation (“explicit mode”). As such, they serve a layering function and help to provide texture and achieve thick translation in this anthology.¹

In reading this section, readers may find the text proper surprisingly brief. Brevity is a major characteristic of the way the ancients conducted the activity called writing. Classical Chinese was extremely condensed and economical. Ancient Chinese thinkers did not write books as such. Rather, they jotted down sayings, rhapsodic or terse prose, verses, neat arguments, anecdotes and aphorisms. By the third century BCE, they composed essays on bamboo strips which were tied together and rolled up in scrolls. The scrolls were put together and authorship would be attributed to an individual or a school.

In view of this mode of composition, and a general preference for economy and conciseness, it is appropriate that the ideas of the ancient Chinese thinkers are re-presented in this anthology in the form of excerpts (of the relevant parts) rather than the entire text, even though this goes against the present-day emphasis on full quotation. Besides, any serious attempt to, as it were, “translate China” requires a considerable amount of front-loading (that is, provision of basic knowledge which cannot be assumed in a non-Chinese readership), and if texts in their entirety rather than excerpts were used, the result would be footnotes so voluminous that readers would find themselves overwhelmed by a welter of details that were not necessarily useful.

These basic points having been dealt with, it is now time to present the entries. This first part ends with the Eastern Han Dynasty. But, as we shall see, the break is more like a semi-colon than a full stop….

1

LAOZI (B. C. 570 BCE)

Laozi 老子, literally the “Old Master”, was the founder of the Taoist School of thought. A thinker in the Spring and Autumn Period (770–476 BCE), his surname was Li 李 and his personal name Er 耳, and he came from a family in what is now Henan Province. He was court librarian for a time. It was said that Kongzi 孔子 (generally known in the West as Confucius) once sought him out to ask for his views on rites. When the Eastern Zhou Dynasty (c. 770–256 BCE) went into decline, Laozi was said to have headed west through the Hangu Gate of the Great Wall, and wasnever heard of again. He was said to have authored Laozi 老子, a work bearing his name and known in later times also as 道德經 (The Book of Dao and De, or, in the Wade-Giles transliteration used by Victorian sinologists, Tao-te-ching).² Comprising just over five thousand characters, the work embodies the idea that Tao 道 (the Way)³ is the basis of all things in the universe and the Way that all things in the universe operate. The Way of the moral life is not to strive afterany one virtue or virtues, but to be at peace, serene and not aggressively assertive; to be contentand not contentious; and to return in harmony to the harmony of nature. With a profound, thoughsimple, dialectical philosophy, the work also propagates the idea that counter movement is the Tao (the Way) in motion, and that all movement and change are relative.

Laozi has had a profound influence on the Chinese thought tradition,and has attracted overa hundred English translations in addition to translations into other foreign languages.

(Headnote prepared by Luo Xinzhang, translated by Jane Lai)

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¹ Thick translation is the overall translation policy set by the editor for this anthology. See Introduction (II) for an explanation of the cultural politics embodied in the concept of thick translation. As for the manoeuvres of thick translation and the risks they entail, these are discussed in the rest of the Introduction.

² In the first half of the twentieth century, there was much discussion about the date and authorship of this work. The general view was that the work itself should be placed at a period about a little over two centuries after Kongzi. With the archaeological finds of the 1970s and 1990s, however, the theory has been advanced that there were actually two persons named Laozi (one being an older contemporary of Kongzi and the other living a few hundred years later) and two books bearing the name Laozi as title, with the older one comprising two thousand characters and the newer one five thousand characters. For details about this theory, see Yin 2001. Nevertheless, even today it is the Laozi described in the headnote above that still exists in the popular imagination and cultural consciousness of the Chinese people. And it is the Laozi with five thousand characters that has exerted the greater influence on Chinese thinkers throughout the ages.

³ It should be noted that 道 is more popularly known in the West by its Wade-Giles spelling as Tao rather than its pinyin spelling Dào. Many people nowadays are still familiar with Fritjof Capra's modern classic The Tao of Physics (Boulder, Colo.: Shambhala, 1975). The word Tao is also included in major dictionaries such as Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, New Edition (2003:1695), Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 11_th ed. (2003:1277), and Concise Oxford Dictionary, 10th ed. (1999:1464). For this reason, even though the pinyin system of spelling is used in this anthology, Tao will be retained, and so will “Taoist” and “Taoism”. However, the pinyin spelling (Dào) will be used if the character 道 appears in contexts other than those related to Taosim. More particularly, for Buddhist monks with this character in their religious names, the pinyin spelling will be used (for example Dao An 道安).

1

LAOZI (B. C. 570 BCE)

Laozi 老子, literally the “Old Master”, was the founder of the Taoist School of thought. A thinker in the Spring and Autumn Period (770–476 BCE), his surname was Li 李 and his personal name Er 耳, and he came from a family in what is now Henan Province. He was court librarian for a time. It was said that Kongzi 孔子 (generally known in the West as Confucius) once sought him out to ask for his views on rites. When the Eastern Zhou Dynasty (c. 770–256 BCE) went into decline, Laozi was said to have headed west through the Hangu Gate of the Great Wall, and wasnever heard of again. He was said to have authored Laozi 老子, a work bearing his name and known in later times also as 道德經 (The Book of Dao and De, or, in the Wade-Giles transliteration used by Victorian sinologists, Tao-te-ching).² Comprising just over five thousand characters, the work embodies the idea that Tao 道 (the Way)³ is the basis of all things in the universe and the Way that all things in the universe operate. The Way of the moral life is not to strive afterany one virtue or virtues, but to be at peace, serene and not aggressively assertive; to be contentand not contentious; and to return in harmony to the harmony of nature. With a profound, thoughsimple, dialectical philosophy, the work also propagates the idea that counter movement is the Tao (the Way) in motion, and that all movement and change are relative.

Laozi has had a profound influence on the Chinese thought tradition,and has attracted overa hundred English translations in addition to translations into other foreign languages.

(Headnote prepared by Luo Xinzhang, translated by Jane Lai)

THE CONSTANT WAY (TAO)
From Chapter 1, Tao-te-ching 道德經(Late Spring and Autumn Period, c. early fifth century BCE)

The Way [Tao 道] that can be spelt out [tao 道] is not the constant Way [Tao 道].⁴ The name that can be named is not the constant name. Nothingness is the name of the beginning of the world. Substance is the name of the mother of all things.⁵ … .

(Text prepared by Luo Xinzhang, translated by Martha Cheung)

COMMENTARY

(1) Tao is the key concept in the Taoist school of thought, one of the most impor...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Advisers
• Dedication
• Acknowledgements
• Map: Lands of the Silk Road: Eastern Aspect at the Beginning of the 21st Century
• Chronology of Chinese Dynasties
• Conversion Table: Pinyin to Wade-Giles
• About the Editor
• About the Translators
• Table of Contents
• Introduction
• Part One: From Earliest Times to the Eastern Han Dynasty (25–220 CE)
• Part Two: The Buddhist Project
• Biographies of Persons Mentioned in the Text
• Works Cited
• References
• Title Index
• Name Index
• General Index