Is Alfred Huang a reliable translator?

[morning dew]

31 minutes ago, Harmen said:

 

It has a bit of an awkward title: 'Das wahre Buch vom südlichen Blütenland'.

https://www.amazon.de/Das-wahre-Buch-südlichen-Blütenland/dp/3720528235

 

Ah, I take it that it hasn't made it into the English language. 

 

'The true book of the Southern Flowerland': that's an interesting title (if Google translate has made an accurate job).  

Edited October 21, 2017 by morning dew

[Harmen]

6 minutes ago, morning dew said:

 

Ah, I take it that it hasn't made it into the English language. 

 

'The true book of the Southern Flowerland': that's an interesting title (if Google translate has made an accurate job).  

 

It is a not often mentioned alternative title of the Zhuangzi:

 

In 742, the Zhuangzi was canonized as one of the Chinese Classics by an imperial proclamation from Emperor Xuanzong of Tang, which awarded it the honorific title True Scripture of Southern Florescence (Nanhua zhenjing 南華真經).

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhuangzi_(book))

 

Wilhelm's version has not been translated to English.

[morning dew]

That's fascinating. I had no idea it was also called that.

 

This was interesting as well, I thought. I didn't realise your book had to be Confucian to be considered a classic:
 

Quote

though most orthodox scholars did not consider the Zhuangzi to be a true "classic" (jing 經) due to its non-Confucian nature. 

 

[Harmen]

1 minute ago, morning dew said:

That's fascinating. I had no idea it was also called that.

 

This was interesting as well, I thought. I didn't realise your book had to be Confucian to be considered a classic:
 

 

 

Within the realm of Confucianism that was a prerequisite. But that doesn't mean that there were no non-Confucianist jings: Daoism also has its jings, like the Daodejing and several more. Jing 經 elevates the status of a book, it distinguishes the title from ordinary books, shu 書. The bible is also a jing (Sheng Jing 聖經).

[morning dew]

24 minutes ago, Harmen said:

 

Within the realm of Confucianism that was a prerequisite. But that doesn't mean that there were no non-Confucianist jings: Daoism also has its jings, like the Daodejing and several more. Jing 經 elevates the status of a book, it distinguishes the title from ordinary books, shu 書. The bible is also a jing (Sheng Jing 聖經).

 

Yeah, that's a good point. I wonder why old ZZ didn't get the 'classic' title.  

Edited October 21, 2017 by morning dew

[Harmen]

7 minutes ago, morning dew said:

 

Yeah, that's a good point. I wonder why old ZZ didn't get the 'classic' title.  

 

Hmmm.....maybe because ZZ did not talk about Confucius in a way that the later confucianist preferred? Or maybe a ZZ jing would put the book on the same level as the DDJ while the two are different in content. I don't know. 

[Starjumper]

On 10/19/2017 at 2:32 AM, Harmen said:

Alfred Huang is a Confucianist (he told me - or at least he was when he wrote his translation). So that is why his translation mostly follows the Confucian view of the Yijing and mentions Wen Wang and Confucius a lot. But the Yi is much older than Confucianism and by now we know that translating yuan heng li zhen 元亨利貞 as

 

That is interesting and good to know.  So, me being a Taoist, I wonder if you can recommend some good version in English which is written by a Taoist master who knows English, rather than a European type scholar.

[Harmen]

6 minutes ago, Starjumper said:

 

That is interesting and good to know.  So, me being a Taoist, I wonder if you can recommend some good version in English which is written by a Taoist master who knows English, rather than a European type scholar.

 

No :-) 1. I don't believe in daoist 'masters' (those who call themselves that probably aren't); 2. daoists don't necessarily have a better understanding of the Yi or the early Chinese language, which leads to 3. any translation that is written by a daoist carries an agenda that will influence the translation. Whether you like it or not, the academics are more likely to produce reliable translations of the Yi than those with a philosophical or religious inclination.

[Starjumper]

17 minutes ago, Harmen said:

 

No :-) 1. I don't believe in daoist 'masters' (those who call themselves that probably aren't); 2. daoists don't necessarily have a better understanding of the Yi or the early Chinese language, which leads to 3. any translation that is written by a daoist carries an agenda that will influence the translation. Whether you like it or not, the academics are more likely to produce reliable translations of the Yi than those with a philosophical or religious inclination.

 

I'm in full agreement about Taoists who call themselves masters!  About the only thing that would piss off my chi kung teacher, who was a most powerful Chinese (see I didn't say Taoist) wizard, was if someone called him master.

 

I was mainly responding to your idea that Al Huang's translation was Confucian in nature and looking for an alternative.  Maybe I should check out Wilhelm's translation after all I said about him (eating crow when it's cold ....).

 

What about the "Taoist I Ching" by Liu I Ming?

[Zhongyongdaoist]

On 10/21/2017 at 5:26 AM, Harmen said:

Hmmm.....maybe because ZZ did not talk about Confucius in a way that the later confucianist preferred? Or maybe a ZZ jing would put the book on the same level as the DDJ while the two are different in content. I don't know.

 

Harmen, thanks for the intelligence and learning of your comments, might I suggest that the reason for the late "jing" status of the Zhuanzi has more to do with the idea that early the early Han Dynasty was Huang-Lao, rather than Zhuang-Lao:

 

Quote

Harold D. Roth (1991, 1997) contends that the original meaning of Chinese Daojia (道家 "Daoism") was Huang–Lao instead of the traditional understanding as "Lao-Zhuang" (老莊, namely the Laozi and Zhuangzi texts) Daoism. Sima Tan coined the term Daojia in his Shiji summary of the six philosophical jia ("schools"). (Wikipedia, Huang-Lao)

 

and that Zhuangzi did not reach his status as being Laozi's chief disciple until much later, after the fall of the Han Dynasty, thus the Tang recognition, which you point out:

 

On 10/21/2017 at 4:31 AM, Harmen said:

It is a not often mentioned alternative title of the Zhuangzi:

 

In 742, the Zhuangzi was canonized as one of the Chinese Classics by an imperial proclamation from Emperor Xuanzong of Tang, which awarded it the honorific title True Scripture of Southern Florescence (Nanhua zhenjing 南華真經).

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhuangzi_(book))

 

A canonization which is only appropriate since the Tang Emperors were not merely Daoist Emperors, but claimed to be patrilineal descendants of Laozi himself:

 

Quote

The Li family belonged to the northwest military aristocracy prevalent during the Sui dynasty^[12][13] and claimed to be paternally descended from the Daoist founder, Laozi (whose personal name was Li Dan or Li Er),^[14] (Wikipedia, Tang Dynasty)

 

After all Zhuangzi is not uniformly anti-Confucius as I point out here:

 

 

So blaming his late "canonization" on largely justified, but not uniform perception of an anti-Confucius stance, doesn't seem completely convincing, I suggest that seeing it as possibly based on the need to canonize the Daode Jing as part of Huang-Lao, which was the official Han position until Hanwudi, just as the texts attributed to the Yellow Emperor were Jing:

 

Quote

Huangdi Sijing (黃帝四經 "Yellow Emperor's Four Classics"). (Wikipedia, Huang-Lao)

 

Because they were the basis for the underlying political philosophy of the Early Han.  For what it's worth, that is what I would suggest.

 

ZYD

[Harmen]

1 hour ago, Starjumper said:

 

I'm in full agreement about Taoists who call themselves masters!  About the only thing that would piss off my chi kung teacher, who was a most powerful Chinese (see I didn't say Taoist) wizard, was if someone called him master.

 

I was mainly responding to your idea that Al Huang's translation was Confucian in nature and looking for an alternative.  Maybe I should check out Wilhelm's translation after all I said about him (eating crow when it's cold ....).

 

What about the "Taoist I Ching" by Liu I Ming?

 Liu Yiming's Zhouyi Chan Zhen 易理闡真 in itself is okay but Cleary's translation isn't. Years ago a few friends of mine wanted to translate Cleary's book to Dutch and asked me if I had the Chinese original so they could check Cleary's translation. When I pointed them at the errors that I found in Cleary's translation they tossed it aside and worked from the original Chinese text, occasionally glancing at Cleary when in doubt or sending me an email to ask for my opinion. The problem with Cleary's translation is that he does not explain or motivate his translation and the choices that he made. Neidan terms are not explained which means that the higher esoteric meaning goes wasted on the reader. Neidan texts always need a commentary to explain the important keywords. Cleary never bothered to give these which renders his translation almost useless. Even worse, he did not translate Liu's introduction in which Liu lays the framework for his translation, including images of the Hetu and Luoshu etc. This introduction can be found here http://www.qztao.url.tw/download/周易(上).docx, for those interested.

Edited April 4, 2018 by Harmen

[Starjumper]

41 minutes ago, Harmen said:

Liu Yiming's Zhouyi Chan Zhen 易理闡真 in itself is okay but Cleary's translation isn't.

 

Thank you for the heads up, too bad your friends only translated into Dutch and not English, hopefully an English version will be coming out soon 

[silent thunder]

More translations!   The many voices blend together and harmonize in ways that I sense, downplay the weaknesses in each and bolster the resonant strength inherent in the underlying truths as a collective.

 

Not reading the original is... cumbersome to say the least, troubling even.  Many varied translations helps me immensely.

 

and yet, each time I get too distracted by the ineffectiveness of words, language let alone translations of words between cultures and times, eventually the following phrase manifests in my mind process.

 

'remember... the only impossibility, is to ever be separate from dao for one moment, even by the width of a hair.'

 

and then I smile and relax into it.

[Lost in Translation]

I just picked up a copy of Huang's book, edition ten. It seems quite thoughtful. The typesetting and use of color is very effective at leading the eye to the important data quickly. I also appreciate his relationship to Taoism. His bio says he was born in 1921 and still lives, so he's doing something right!

 

Recently, I finished Wilhelm/Bayne's and also very much enjoyed that. Wilhelm gives a detailed study of the individual trigrams and the structure of the hexagrams. I found that absolutely fascinating. 

[Mig]

On 4/4/2018 at 9:24 AM, Harmen said:

 Liu Yiming's Zhouyi Chan Zhen 易理闡真 in itself is okay but Cleary's translation isn't. Years ago a few friends of mine wanted to translate Cleary's book to Dutch and asked me if I had the Chinese original so they could check Cleary's translation. When I pointed them at the errors that I found in Cleary's translation they tossed it aside and worked from the original Chinese text, occasionally glancing at Cleary when in doubt or sending me an email to ask for my opinion. The problem with Cleary's translation is that he does not explain or motivate his translation and the choices that he made. Neidan terms are not explained which means that the higher esoteric meaning goes wasted on the reader. Neidan texts always need a commentary to explain the important keywords. Cleary never bothered to give these which renders his translation almost useless. Even worse, he did not translate Liu's introduction in which Liu lays the framework for his translation, including images of the Hetu and Luoshu etc. This introduction can be found here http://www.qztao.url.tw/download/周易(上).docx, for those interested.

 

Is Cleary work not good because of mistranslated terms or concepts aside of omitting important texts?

[KuroShiro]

On 4/4/2018 at 5:24 PM, Harmen said:

 Liu Yiming's Zhouyi Chan Zhen 易理闡真 in itself is okay but Cleary's translation isn't. Years ago a few friends of mine wanted to translate Cleary's book to Dutch and asked me if I had the Chinese original so they could check Cleary's translation. When I pointed them at the errors that I found in Cleary's translation they tossed it aside and worked from the original Chinese text, occasionally glancing at Cleary when in doubt or sending me an email to ask for my opinion. The problem with Cleary's translation is that he does not explain or motivate his translation and the choices that he made. Neidan terms are not explained which means that the higher esoteric meaning goes wasted on the reader. Neidan texts always need a commentary to explain the important keywords. Cleary never bothered to give these which renders his translation almost useless. Even worse, he did not translate Liu's introduction in which Liu lays the framework for his translation, including images of the Hetu and Luoshu etc. This introduction can be found here http://www.qztao.url.tw/download/周易(上).docx, for those interested.

 

This translation by Cleary is in my wish list, this is good to know, thanks.

 

OK then, could you please consider translating it to English?

 

[Harmen]

On 30-5-2018 at 10:34 PM, Mig said:

 

Is Cleary work not good because of mistranslated terms or concepts aside of omitting important texts?

 

Both. A few examples. At hexagram 1 he translates 此进阳火之卦，造命之学，所以行健而用刚道也 as 'This hexagram represents the advance of yang , whereby the science of building life acts with strength and uses the path of firmness.' But the text does not talk about yang but about 阳火, 'yang Fire'. Also his translation of 造命之学 as 'the science of building life' is peculiar because 造命 is a fixed expression that means 掌握命運, 'to master fate/destiny'. 

 

故当:
春而生物者，健之元也。元者，初也。阳气之初生，而万物俱皆萌甲，元何其健乎？

Cleary: "Therefore, producing things in spring is the creativity of strength.  Creation means the beginning, the first arising of positive energy . When positive energy is born, all things sprout . Such is the strength of creativity."

Cleary translates 元 as 'creativity, creation' (following his translation of the Judgment text 元亨利貞, 'Heaven creates, develops, brings about fruition and consummation') but yuan never had that meaning and it also isn't what Liu Yiming meant. This is obvious in the sentence 元者，初也 which is a 'construction' that is often used to clarify which meaning the author sees in the first character. Liu explicitly says that 元 means 初 '(to) begin' and nowhere does he talk about 'creation'.

 

夏而长物者，健之亨也。亨者，通也，阳气之通畅。阳气通畅，而万物俱皆发旺，亨何其健乎？

"Developing things in summer is the growth of strength. Development is extension, the expansion of positive energy. As positive energy expands, all things develop and flourish. Such is the strength of development."

亨 is a character that it difficult to translate but Liu explains which meaning he sees in it by saying 亨者，通也: 亨 means 通, 'to go through'. It does not mean 'growth' and is also not what Liu meant. Cleary's translation of 阳气 (litt. 'yang Qi')  as 'positive energy' is ridiculous and sounds very New Age-ish.

 

I could go on but I don't want to spend more time on this. The most important flaw of Cleary's translation is the lack of annotation. You need to know what Yang Fire and Yang Qi etc. mean in the context of neidan texts to understand what Liu Yiming is trying to say.

[Harmen]

On 1-6-2018 at 12:00 AM, KuroShiro said:

 

This translation by Cleary is in my wish list, this is good to know, thanks.

 

OK then, could you please consider translating it to English?

 

 

No 

[Mig]

18 hours ago, Harmen said:

 

Both. A few examples. At hexagram 1 he translates 此进阳火之卦，造命之学，所以行健而用刚道也 as 'This hexagram represents the advance of yang , whereby the science of building life acts with strength and uses the path of firmness.' But the text does not talk about yang but about 阳火, 'yang Fire'. Also his translation of 造命之学 as 'the science of building life' is peculiar because 造命 is a fixed expression that means 掌握命運, 'to master fate/destiny'. 

 

故当:
春而生物者，健之元也。元者，初也。阳气之初生，而万物俱皆萌甲，元何其健乎？

Cleary: "Therefore, producing things in spring is the creativity of strength.  Creation means the beginning, the first arising of positive energy . When positive energy is born, all things sprout . Such is the strength of creativity."

Cleary translates 元 as 'creativity, creation' (following his translation of the Judgment text 元亨利貞, 'Heaven creates, develops, brings about fruition and consummation') but yuan never had that meaning and it also isn't what Liu Yiming meant. This is obvious in the sentence 元者，初也 which is a 'construction' that is often used to clarify which meaning the author sees in the first character. Liu explicitly says that 元 means 初 '(to) begin' and nowhere does he talk about 'creation'.

 

夏而长物者，健之亨也。亨者，通也，阳气之通畅。阳气通畅，而万物俱皆发旺，亨何其健乎？

"Developing things in summer is the growth of strength. Development is extension, the expansion of positive energy. As positive energy expands, all things develop and flourish. Such is the strength of development."

亨 is a character that it difficult to translate but Liu explains which meaning he sees in it by saying 亨者，通也: 亨 means 通, 'to go through'. It does not mean 'growth' and is also not what Liu meant. Cleary's translation of 阳气 (litt. 'yang Qi')  as 'positive energy' is ridiculous and sounds very New Age-ish.

 

I could go on but I don't want to spend more time on this. The most important flaw of Cleary's translation is the lack of annotation. You need to know what Yang Fire and Yang Qi etc. mean in the context of neidan texts to understand what Liu Yiming is trying to say.

 

Thank you very much, it is very helpful and I understand what you are saying. I guess most of translations especially Daoist, there is a lack of annotations, explanations or even interpretations. I appreciate you input. Thanks

[Taoist Texts]

20 hours ago, Harmen said:

You need to know what Yang Fire and Yang Qi etc. mean in the context of neidan texts to understand what Liu Yiming is trying to say.

If you would know what these things are, you would not need Liu or any other book for that matter. Just saying.

[Harmen]

1 minute ago, Taoist Texts said:

If you would know what these things are, you would not need Liu or any other book for that matter. Just saying.

 

That's like saying "If you know how to cook you don't need recipes."

[Taoist Texts]

exactly)

[Harmen]

16 minutes ago, Taoist Texts said:

exactly)

 

Ok. I know how to cook but I don't know how to make moussaka. If I don't need recipes how am I going to make the perfect moussaka?

[Taoist Texts]

1 hour ago, Harmen said:

Ok. I know how to cook but I don't know how to make moussaka.

 

 the lead in the homeland of water has only one taste.

[Harmen]

1 hour ago, Taoist Texts said:

 

 the lead in the homeland of water has only one taste.

 

The Secret of the Golden Flower does not teach me how to make moussaka.