The translation and dissemination of the Three Character Sutra in history
Speaker: Dong Xiaobo Speech Venue: Nanjing Normal University Speech Time: June 2022
Dong Xiaobo is a professor at the School of Foreign Chinese of Nanjing Normal University, a doctoral supervisor, a specially invited researcher of the China Academy of Rule of Law Modernization, the chief expert of the Jiangsu International Rule of Law Dynamic Research Center, the vice president of the China Legal English Teaching and Testing Research Association, and the vice president of the Jiangsu Comparative Law Research Association. His research interests include the history of exchanges between Chinese and Western civilizations, legal linguistics, legal translation, language strategy and planning, and cross-cultural communication.
Mongolian education, that is, Mongolian education, refers to the primary stage of children's education, which is an important stage of traditional education in ancient China. Among the world's earliest ancient civilizations, China is the only country where ancient civilizations have survived, and scholars believe that one of the important reasons is that ancient Chinese Mongolian studies have shaped the excellent cultural quality and moral accomplishment of the entire nation, and have been able to inherit the flame of Chinese civilization from generation to generation.
The most amazing thing about ancient Chinese Mongolian studies is its series of Mongolian teaching materials that have been precipitated over time, including the Three Character Classic, the Hundred Family Names, the Thousand Character Text, the Thousand Family Poems, and so on. These Mongolian classics were gradually formed and perfected in the course of Thousands of Years of Mongolian Education, through the change of dynasties and the addition and deletion of successive generations of literati. The synthesis of various educational contents is the consistent compilation idea of ancient Mongolian textbooks, so the small Mongolian textbooks contain very rich educational information and have a variety of educational functions, such as cultivating children's excellent moral character, extensive cultural knowledge, and solid poetry skills. Such books are not only tools for educating children in ancient society to read and write, including the humanities and the world, but also can be said to be the encyclopedia pocket books of ancient Chinese society.
In the reading room of the rural bookstore in Jiazhai New Village, Jiazhai Town, Chiping District, Liaocheng City, Shandong Province, a child is selecting a reading book of the "Three Character Classic". Photo by Zhao Yuguo/Guangming Photo
In the history of foreign cultural exchanges in ancient times, Chinese civilization has been in a leading position for a long time, actively and actively disseminating and influencing the surrounding areas. In ancient times, for many countries and peoples, China was always a place of cultural interaction. In the process of foreign exchanges and dissemination of this culture, ancient Mongolian studies played an important historical role. As one of the most representative works in traditional Chinese Mongolian readings, the Three Character Classic not only has the typical characteristics of Chinese Mongolian readings, but also is a concentrated embodiment of Chinese culture. Since the Southern Song Dynasty, it has been passed down for more than 700 years. The Three Character Classic, with more than 1,000 words, is catchy and contains a wide range of traditional Chinese education, history, astronomy, geography, ethics and morality to some folklore. As a Mongolian classic, the Sanzijing has been translated into many languages and circulated overseas, and is one of the representatives of Chinese culture in ancient times." Studying the ancient Mongolian educational ideas contained in the Three Character Classic, as well as its translation and dissemination process, can provide effective reference experience for telling Chinese stories well in contemporary times. This is where our lecture begins.
Author, content and educational ideas of the Three Character Classic
Regarding the "Three Character Classic", Mr. Zhang Taiyan, a master of modern Sinology, once said, "If you are a young man, then today's textbook is as far as the "Three Character Classic". This means that the textbooks he came into contact with at that time were far inferior to the Three Character Sutra in terms of educating children.
At present, there is still controversy in the academic circles about the author of the Three Character Classic. According to one theory, the "Three Character Classic" was written by the Ningbo scholar Wang Yinglin during the Song and Yuan Dynasties, and it is said that the "Three Character Classic" was a textbook compiled in his later years to educate the children of his own ethnic group. The historical Wang Yinglin was one of the "three great masters of the Zhejiang Eastern School during the Song and Yuan Dynasties" and was a famous scholar, educator and politician at that time. The General Catalogue of the Four Libraries once recorded: "(Wang) Ying Lin Bo Cha Cha a lot, in the Song Dynasty rarely compared. The second theory believes that the author of the Three Character Classic was Ou Shizi, a scholar from Nanhai (present-day Shunde) in Guangdong at the end of the Song Dynasty. At present, this statement was first seen in Huang Zuo's "Guangzhou Character History" of the Ming Dynasty: "Ou Shi, Zi Zheng Uncle ... The Three Character Sutra is also written by the appropriate writer. The modern scholar Tan Shuyu also once said, "The public saying has seen the ancient book, and the excerpts of historical events as of the fifth dynasty were written by Yi Lao in guangdong at the end of the Song Dynasty." In addition to the above two most common statements, some scholars believe that the author of the Three Character Classic is Li Zhen of the Ming Dynasty or the anonymous family of the early Ming Dynasty. Books such as Etymology and Hanyu Da Dictionary support Wang Yinglin's writings, but also retain some different opinions. The version of the "Three Character Classic" that is in circulation today has been deleted and revised by Mr. Zhang Taiyan, a master of traditional Chinese studies during the Republic of China period, and the historical facts of the Yuan, Ming, Qing, and Republic of China periods have been added.
Picture of the "Three Character Classic" (revised edition) cultural reader materials
Regardless of who the original author is, the three-character sutra is easy to understand, with the education of children's literacy as the main context, extending to all kinds of comprehensive knowledge, including literature, history, philosophy, human ethics, etc., covering the five elements of "benevolence, righteousness, wisdom and faith" in Confucian thought. After the baptism of time, it is even more brilliant. As an ancient Chinese enlightenment book with the nature of a reference book for children's literacy and literacy, its language is popular and simple, and the form adopts the format of "three words and one sentence", which is suitable for recitation, full of rhythm and musical beauty. It is worth mentioning that the "Three Character Classic" introduces many inspirational stories, which are of great educational significance, although some of them have long been widely circulated, but they have new meanings when placed in the context of "three words and one rhyme".
The whole book of the "Three Character Classic" can be divided into six parts, arranged in order, reflecting the author's good intentions in the study and education of children in ancient times. Based on Confucianism, the book devotes a great deal of space to educating children to learn the way of dealing with the world advocated by ancient Confucians, including respecting the elderly and the young, social order, loyalty and filial piety, and so on.
The first part is specifically from the "beginning of man" to "ignorance". It is about the importance of education and learning for children's growth, and the timely and correct methods of acquired education can make children grow into "practical materials through the ages".
The second part of the text, from "Being a Son of Man" to "Second Sight and Hearing", expounds the important position of etiquette in ancient Chinese society, filial piety to parents, respect for teachers, and this part is the most typical and well-known story of Huang Xiang and Kong Rong.
The text of the third part ranges from "knowing a certain number" to "people are the same". Teaching the basic cultural common sense of ancient times and the common sense of famous things in life, involving all aspects of ancient life, in concise language, in the form of understanding numbers, through the ancient people's many common sense of life that should be known. There are cultural terms about numbers, and they are related to "Gang Chang", "Season", "Orientation", "Crop", "Livestock", "Emotion", "Music", "Clan" and "Morality".
The fourth part of the text ranges from "Fan Xun Meng" to "and Lao Zhuang", introducing ancient Chinese classics and reading orders. When introducing cultural classics, the content of this part is mainly based on ancient Chinese classics such as the I Ching, the "Three Traditions of Spring and Autumn" and other historical works, and Confucian classics such as the Analects and Mencius.
The fifth part of the text goes from "Jingzi Tong" to "Ruo Shu Shu", which can be regarded as a minimalist outline of the general history of China. It outlines the major historical events of ancient Chinese society and the changes and changes of dynasties, and shows the whole picture of ancient Chinese history in the form of songs.
The text of the sixth part ranges from "mouth and recitation" to "should be forced". Only by laying a solid foundation of "ruling the world" from an early age can we make a difference when we grow up, "from the top to the king, down to the Zemin", among which classic stories such as Sun Jing's hanging beam, Su Qin's thorn stock, Che Yin nangying, Sun Kangyingxue and other classic stories persuade people to learn from it, and emphasize the importance of learning hard work to beginners, so that learners can understand the truth of diligence and eagerness to learn, and use this to inspire future generations.
The Three Character Classic is guided by Confucianism, and its main function is that the ancients used it to lay the foundation for cultivating talents and guiding fashion. Since its inception, the "Three Character Classic", with its rich ideological content and profound cultural heritage, has soon been widely recognized by the ancients of all generations, and is known as the "Outline of the Sleeve Of Knowledge" and "a Strange Book of Ancient Times", which can be called the cornerstone of ancient Chinese education. As a classic work with enlightening minds and enlightening minds, the Three Character Classic attaches great importance to filial piety ethics, the way of honesty and family education, etc. From today's perspective, although it inevitably has the historical limitations of the feudal era, the educational significance it contains can still be said to embody the essence of traditional Chinese culture.
First, the literacy function. Education begins with literacy, which is the basis of reading and learning. According to scholars, the full text of the Three Character Classic has a total of 384 sentences and 1152 words, excluding the duplicate words, and shares 541 different words. These words have actually covered 80% of the ancient people's demand for the basic knowledge of Chinese characters, which is of important reference value for young children or other Beginners in Chinese. In the form of a three-character rhyme, the book starts from the importance of human nature, education and learning, tells the role of education in human growth, the educational responsibility of parents and teachers, and the code of conduct of people, and teaches people common sense of life.
Second, the concept of social history cultivates its function. The mainland has a long tradition of historical education, and through historical education, it has accumulated rich social knowledge and natural knowledge to achieve educational functions, and this form of "historical knowledge" type of education has long been well known to people. According to scholars' research, about a quarter of the Three Character Classics summarizes the historical evolution of the Chinese nation over thousands of years since the Three Emperors and Five Emperors, and introduces the historical documents and historical figures of ancient China. It not only talks about the theoretical basis of education and the truth of people, but also a book for history education. The "Three Character Classic" believes that "jingzi tong" can "read all histories", and puts forward the premise of history education is to be familiar with the Confucian classics and roughly grasp the important theories of the hundred schools of the sons. On this basis, we can grasp a more reliable standard, and help people clarify the direction in the process of reading history by distinguishing between good and evil and merit and fault of historical events and historical figures. In addition, the Three Character Classic also provides a way to study history: "Although history is complicated, it is read twice. History 1, Book of Han 2. Later Han III, Guozhi IV. And the scriptures, see the general commentary. "Studying history is not a disorderly approach, but a distinction between priority and subordination, grasping the main context and clarifying the direction of learning." The "Three Character Classic" advocates that we should first read four historical classics, and the four books of "History", "Book of Han", "Book of Later Han", and "Chronicle of the Three Kingdoms" are essential tools for historical study. If you have spare energy and need to continue to dig deeper, read the Zizhi Tongjian. Only through the above targeted study can we grasp the key points and earnestly improve our cultural accomplishment. This mode of learning also echoes the educational methods mentioned above. We should study with a purpose and a plan, and such learning is effective. Not only that, but history is also the foundation of a nation, and no one can forget their own history.
Third, the function of moral education. The compilation of the Three Character Classic embodied the Confucian principle of "carrying the Tao with the text", actively promoted Confucian thought, and catered to the requirements of the feudal rulers at that time. The basic Confucian ideas on education are also fully reflected in the Three Character Classic. For example, the "Three Character Classic" begins by saying, "At the beginning of man, nature is good. Sex is similar, habits are far away. Gou does not teach, sex is to move, the way of teaching, noble and specialized", which is consistent with Kong Meng's idea of "human nature is inherently good". The purpose of ancient Confucian education was to "understand people's morality" and require the talents cultivated to have both moral integrity and ability, so moral education was highly valued by the ancients. The principles of "etiquette", "benevolence", "righteousness", "filial piety", etc. constitute the content of Confucian moral education. The "Three Character Classic" clearly says that "the first filial piety, the second sight and news", believes that the first major event in life is to honor parents and respect brothers, followed by increased insight. In addition, the Three Character Sutra also teaches children that they should have a good heart and "talk about benevolence", such as "benevolence and righteousness, in love with others". This is also the inheritance of the Confucian idea of benevolence, believing that "benevolence" is the criterion of communication, and advocating friendly and harmonious social relations between people. In short, as a Mongolian teaching material deeply influenced by Confucianism, the Three Character Classic embodies the confucian concept in the stage of enlightenment education, from "transforming into the world" to "looking at humanities", emphasizing the powerful role of people's own character in the future stage of development.
Translation and dissemination of the Three Character Sutra
The Three Character Classic also occupies an extremely important place in the history of world education, and was selected by UNESCO in the "Children's Ethics Series" in 1990.
Historically, the Three Character Classic spread to countries outside Of China, beginning with the Ming Dynasty. Specifically, the spread of the Three Character Sutra overseas began in the 16th century AD, and the earliest foreign language "Three Character Classic" was translated in Latin by the famous Italian missionary Luo Mingjian. In 1579, Luo Mingjian came to Macao, China to study Chinese, his first contact was the "Three Character Classic", he deeply felt the cultural value of the "Three Character Classic" and its inspiration to the Western cultural circles, from 1581 began to translate, and sent the translation back to Italy. Although the book was not published at the time, his pioneering work remains in the memory of history.
The "Three Character Classic" was also introduced to Japan relatively early, roughly in the Edo period (1603-1868) in Japan, the Chinese merchant ships to Japan brought various versions of the "Three Character Classic", according to Ishikawa Matsutaro's "Classification Catalogue of Objects in the Lecture Hall Bunko Shelf and Solving the Problem", the "Catalogue of Guangyi Books" published by Yonglu in the fifth year (1692) has listed the "Three Character Classic" and the "Commentary on the Three Character Classic" by Chen Hanxun in Fujian Province. The Japanese scholar Shunichiro Tsurushima saw as many as 8 kinds of "Three Character Sutras" that were stereotyped in Japan during the Edo period. From the end of Edo to the beginning of the Meiji period, the "Three Character Classic" was popular in Japan and had a major impact, and a large number of imitations of the Japanese "Three Character Classic" emerged, according to the Japanese educator Eiichi Katano, there were about 20 imitations of the Japanese "Three Character Classic". From the perspective of the history of sino-Japanese exchanges, this phenomenon is no accident, and it is also the inevitable result of Japan's long-term commitment to the study of Chinese language and sinology.
The Three Character Sutra was introduced to Russia along with the cultural exchange activities between China and Russia. At the beginning of the 18th century, the Russian government sent students and missions to China many times. The first Russian translation of the Three Character Sutra was translated by Luo Suoxin, a student of the second class of the Mission, in about 1740. The first edition of the Russian translation of the Three Character Sutra was published in 1779 by the Imperial Russian Academy of Sciences in Petersburg, translated by Alexei Leontiev, a student of the third class. The second edition of the Russian translation of the Three Character Sutra was published in 1829 by the Petersburg Genz Press, translated by Bhikshurin, the foreman of the ninth class and known as the "father of Sinology" in Russia. Since the 1830s, the Three Character Sutra has been widely disseminated throughout Russian society, and the curriculum of the Chinese language major of the Oriental Department of Kazan University and the University of Petersburg has listed the Three Character Classic as a primary reading. The Chinese Pavilion founded by Russian businessmen in Kyakhta in 1832 and the training in Kazan before the 12th class of the Russian Mission in Beijing entered China in 1839 also used the "Three Character Sutra" as a training material.
Morrison portrait profile picture
Historically, there were two main peaks in the spread of the Three Character Classic to Europe and the United States. The first peak period occurred in the late Qing Dynasty, when a large number of missionaries entered China, and in the process translated a large number of traditional Chinese texts, including the Three Character Classic. At that time, the translators of the Three Character Classic were mainly Morrison, Pei Zhiwen, Ou Deli and Zhai Lisi. The second peak period is that after the reform and opening up, the unprecedented prosperity of Sino-Western exchanges, the pace of Chinese culture going out has been accelerating, as a traditional Chinese Mongolian classic, the "Three Character Classic" has gradually become more well-known to more people during this period.
At the beginning of the 19th century, the Three Character Classic spread to Britain, the United States and France with the exchange of Chinese and Western cultures. Morrison, the first Protestant missionary from the West to Chinese mainland, published the English edition of Spring and Autumn in China in 1812, including the Three Character Sutra and the University. At Morrison's initiative, the China Series, published the Three Character Sutra in 1835 by the American missionary Pei Zhi Cultural creation, bringing it to the United States. In 1864, Julian, a French Jewish sinologist and academician of the Académie de France, edited and printed the Latin edition of the Three Character Sutra in Paris, France. He also likes to use the traditional Chinese method to use the "Three Character Classic" and "Thousand Character Text" as a song-style enlightenment reading material as the basic teaching materials for students to learn Chinese.
In addition, the first Chinese-English translation of "Two Chinese Poems" published by The British diplomat and professor of Sinology at Cambridge University, Zhai Lisi, included the Three Character Classic and the Thousand Character Text. In 1900, when a retranslation of Zhai Lisi's Three Character Classic was introduced, he said in the preface that the importance of the Three Character Classic is self-evident for "outsiders who wish to master the Chinese written language and develop the habit of thinking in Chinese... If foreign students imitate the practices of Chinese children and memorize the whole book, they can master the Chinese" well. The main purpose of Zhai Lisi's translation of the Three Character Classic is not to translate, but to focus on how to learn Chinese, and in this sense, his translation of the Three Character Classic is more like a Chinese learning textbook.
After the reform and opening up, the main popular translations of the "Three Character Classic" are "The Three Character Classic: The Three Characters in English " The Thousand Characters " co-authored by Wang Baotong and Li Li " , Ma Zhiyi 's "The Three Characters Classic" (TheThree-CharacterPrimer), Zhao Yanchun's "The Three Characters Classic" (TheThree WordPrimer) and "The Story of the Three Character Classic" co-authored by Yu Hui and Ai Meixia. （TalesfromtheThreeCharacterClassics）。
The English translation process of the Three Character Classic lasted for about two hundred years, and its development process showed the following characteristics: First, the identity of the translator changed, most of the translators were Western missionaries to China, and then they were transformed into domestic translators who took the initiative to translate to the outside world; The second is the improvement of translation quality and the increase in the number of translations. Through comparison, it can be seen that the translations of foreign missionaries in the late Qing Dynasty did make great contributions to the spread of Chinese culture to the outside world, but due to the limitations of understanding Chinese culture and the difficulty of understanding the original work, the translation was not very smooth, and the understanding of the original work was not in place, resulting in problems such as the meaning of the text and the immateriality of the mud.
Here are a few examples.
In the history of cultural exchanges between China and the West, the British missionary Robert Morrison (1782-1834) was a pivotal figure. As far as the materials currently available are concerned, Morrison was the first person to translate the Three Character Sutra into English, and the English translation of the Three Character Sutra was based on an earlier version, and the translation used the method of paraphrasing, without literal translation of word-to-word, sentence-to-sentence, and without the original Chinese. Morrison uses the original two sentences as a unit, and the corresponding English translation of each sentence is placed in the same paragraph. For example, the Three Character Sutra opens with a few sentences: "At the beginning of man, nature is good. Sexual proximity, habit is far away", its English translation is as follows: Inthebeginningofman, hisnatureisgood. Theoperationofnatureisimmediate； Ofcustom, remote. It can be seen that morrison's translation, although it strives to be neat, is not very effective. Looking at the English translation alone, the reader will find that its semantic meaning is relatively vague, and there are certain problems in understanding. For example, the use of the adjectives "immediate" and "remote" needs to be considered, because the "sexual similarity, habit is far away" in the original text refers to the variation of human nature, rather than the orientation concept of "far" and "near" as understood by the translator. Moreover, "xi" is the root cause of human nature mutation, and it is inaccurate to translate it as "custom" that indicates customs and habits.
Moreover, when Morrison translated the Three Character Sutra, he did not fully understand the meaning of the original text, so there were many errors in the translation. For example, his translation of "the end of primary school, to the fourth book" deviates greatly from the meaning of the original text, and he translates "end" as "Hiao-king (aworkonfilialpiety)" and "Filial Piety". Another example is his translation of "young and learn, strong and strong." Shangzhijun, Lower Zemin", it is translated as "Ifinyouthyoulearn, inmanhoodyouwillbefitforaction. Youwillhaveaccesstoyoursuperiors, andbeabletobestowblessingsonyourinferiors", where the translations of "superiors" and "inferiors" are also very different from the original text.
He was the first American missionary in history to come to China. The English translation of the Three Character Sutra in Pei Zhiwen is very different from Morrison's. Morrison takes the two sentences of the original text as a constituent unit, and its corresponding English is placed in the same paragraph; The Pei Zhi text is composed of a sentence in the original Chinese language, and the English translation of each sentence is a line of its own, a total of 178 lines, regardless of paragraphs, and the number of lines is marked with Arabic numerals every five or ten. We also take the opening sentences of the Three Character Sutra as an example here, and the translation of the Peizhi text is: Menattheir birth, arebynatureradicallygood; Here, Pei Zhiwen seems to faithfully translate the word "ben" in "sexual goodness", but there is also some controversy. Because some scholars believe that "ben" means "original", but the translator understands it as "fundamental". That is to say, the original meaning may mean that "human nature is originally good", but the translation means "human nature is fundamentally good", which is not accurate enough from the translation.
The British diplomat and sinologist Zhai Lisi wrote the "Three Character Classic" The opening few translations are: Menattheirbirtharenaturallygood.Theirnaturesaremuchthesame, theirhabitsbecomewidelydifferent. Zhai Lisi interprets the whole text in a paraphrased way, that is, using literal translation and interpretation to translate, although it is more accurate to convey the original meaning, but in a strict sense, his translation is similar to the "Three Character Classic" There are differences in the characteristics of the text, so it is impossible to reflect the poetic characteristics of the original text. In addition, in the translation of "sexual similarity, xi is far away", the translator translates "xi" as "habit", but the word "xi" here does not only refer to habits, but also emphasizes the importance of acquired cultivation on human nature. Therefore, it is not accurate to use the word "habit" alone.
After the reform and opening up, Chinese scholars have successively translated the "Three Character Classic" and disseminated its ideology and culture to the outside world, and judging from the results, they have successfully reconciled the differences between Chinese and Western cultures, and have gone further and more successfully on the road of external dissemination. For example, Professor Zhao Yanchun's English translation of the "Three Character Classic", for the opening sentences, his translation method is: Manonearth, Goodatbirth.Thesamenature, Variesonnurture. It can be seen that Zhao Yanchun's translation retains the rhyme of the original text, three words into sentences, catchy. He translated "sexual similarity, habit is far away" as "Thesamenature, Variesonnurture", emphasizing that human nature is the same at the beginning, but the acquired cultivation method is different, resulting in changes in human temperament, and more faithfully conveys the educational idea of "sexual proximity and distance".
In terms of phonological translation, the Three Character Sutra has three words and one sentence, four sentences and one section; The rhythm is harmonious and catchy. Therefore, in the conversion from Chinese to English, it is difficult to maintain the same sense of phonology as the original text. Professor Wang Baotong's translation of the "Three Character Classic" adds rhymes that are not in the original text, adding a sense of rhythm in the translation. We also begin with "At the beginning of man, nature is good ( shan ) . (a rhyme) sexually similar, habits far away (yuan). (b rhyme) Gou is not taught, sex is qian. (a rhyme) the way of teaching, you are dedicated (zhuan). (b rhymes)" a few sentences as an example. Wang Baotong's translation is:
Atfirstmankind（a）
Iskindatheart.（b）
Withnaturealike
Buthabitsapart.（b）
Theuntaughtchild（a）
Willgoastray.（c）
It’sbesttokeephim
Alongtherightway.（c）
Istoattachtheutmostimportance.
The original text includes a total of 24 words, the sentence has a clear "abab" rhyme, Wang Baotong's translated version contains more than 30 words, basically interlaced rhyme, there is a certain degree of sound beauty and shape beauty. From the perspective of vocabulary selection, "Three Character Classic" is an introductory reading of literacy, its text is relatively simple, less strokes, easy to recite, Wang Baotong considers that the "Three Character Classic" translation of the reader has similar needs, so the words selected when translating are relatively simple, mostly single-syllable and two-syllable vocabulary, easy to recite, write and remember.
brief summary
Ancient Chinese classics are not only the treasures of Chinese civilization, but also the spiritual wealth of the whole world. As a precious cultural heritage of the Chinese nation, the "Three Character Classic" contains rich Confucian educational ideas, and the role of the "Three Character Classic" is to guide children, teach the truth of being a person, establish a correct world outlook, outlook on life and values, and under the premise of clarifying its historical limitations, its ideological value and cultural charm are unique.
I think that by continuously carrying out research on the translation and dissemination of traditional Chinese cultural classics such as the "Three Character Classic", we can help us better tell Chinese stories, spread excellent Chinese culture, further display the characteristics of Chinese culture, and promote exchanges between Chinese and foreign cultures.
Guangming Daily (2022-08-13 10th edition)
Source: Guangming Network - Guangming Daily