Dialogue of Civilizations: Lao Tzu in German translation for two hundred years

Commentary on the Tao Te Ching of Lao Tzu (Hans Georg Müller, 1995). Profile picture

How can we connect various civilizations with distant regions and huge differences to form a community of human civilizations that are united in solidarity? Judging from the history of lao tzu's transmission of the German-speaking world in the west for nearly two hundred years and its great influence, China's traditional culture plays an important role in promoting the collision of civilizations, dialogue, mutual learning and integration.

Every four Germans have a copy of Lao Tzu in their hands.

The foreign translation of Lao Tzu began around 1750, first by missionaries into Latin, and then into French, English, German and so on. According to Walfoe's 2010 Bibliography of Western Taoism, as of 2010, various translations of Lao Tzu involved 643 in 36 languages. Among them, there are 104 German translations, second only to the number of English translations.

The german-speaking translation of Lao Tzu from French to Lao Tzu in 1827 has taken nearly two hundred years, and it has taken exactly a century and a half since the birth of the first German full-length translation of Strauss in 1870. In the past two hundred years, the excellent translation of Lao Tzu in the German-speaking world has emerged in an endless stream, and even during Hitler's rule, German scholars in exile have been working in this field. Since the 1990s, the translation and dissemination of Lao Tzu has shown a trend of diversified development, and the main body of translation and the readership have become increasingly diverse, gradually penetrating into the lives of the general public, forming today's grand situation of "almost every four Germans have a copy of Lao Tzu".

The rich Chinese imagery in Lao Tzu is flexibly handled

Lao Tzu was widely disseminated in German-speaking areas and had such a long vitality for two reasons:

First, the translator will be able to understand China and Germany. For example, the theologian Strauss not only had a deep knowledge of German literature and philosophy, but also was proficient in Old Chinese. His translations are concise, accurate, and highly advanced, with detailed annotations that are easy for German readers to understand. The Russian translation of Lao Tzu by the Russian writer Lev Tolstoy was adapted from this translation. During his mission in Qingdao, the missionary and sinologist Wei Lixian was taught by Lao Naixuan, director of the late Qing Dynasty Beijing Normal University, who had a profound foundation in traditional Chinese studies and advocated translating Chinese classics from the perspective of traditional Chinese culture. His translations not only retain the poetic rhythm of the original text, but also accurately convey the philosophical ideas of Lao tzu, and have always been a must-read masterpiece for Chinese and German scholars to study and translate Laozi.

Second, the translation goes with the flow. The original semantics of Lao Tzu are esoteric and obscure, and if you blindly pursue loyalty to the original text, it will inevitably lead to the consequences of German readers in another culture who cannot read, are unwilling to read, and no one reads. Therefore, under the principle of doing our best to be faithful to the original text, taking into account the strategy of following the local customs is one of the important reasons for the success of the German translation of Lao Tzu. For example, Strauss's interpretation of Lao tzu's "Tao" as Jesus Christ, although related to his cognitive limitations as a theologian, itself conformed to the subjective needs of the Christian church at the end of the 19th century to try to save the declining Christian theology, and made it easier for German readers of the time to understand and accept Laozi's philosophical ideas. Wei Lixian's translation was able to quickly set off a "Taoist fever" in Germany and even Europe, on the one hand, because Lao Tzu's philosophical ideas became a cure for the mental wounds of Europeans after World War I; on the other hand, Because Wei Shi borrowed the two terms SINN (meaning) and LEBEN (life) used by Faust in Goethe's Faust to translate Laozi's "Tao" and "virtue", cleverly linking Christian theological texts, well-known German masterpieces, and classical Chinese philosophy.

In addition, the translators have flexibly handled the rich Chinese imagery in Lao Tzu, which is also an important strategy to clear the barriers between Chinese and Western cognition. For example, some translations translate the "gate" of "The Gate of All Wonders" and "Gate of Xuanmu" into Schoβ (the abdomen of a pregnant woman), some translate the "mother" of "Mother of All Things" and "Mother of Heaven and Earth" as Ursprung (Origin), translate the "Root" and "Zao" of "The Root" and "Deep-Rooted Root" as Grund (Foundation), Ursprung, and translate the "Valley" of "Valley for the World" as Talniederung (the low of the valley), and so on. These examples either replace images that are incomprehensible to German readers with other images with similar symbolic meanings in German, or simply translate the symbolism of the original image directly. This kind of translation strategy of following the local customs solves the problem of semantic inequality under the two cultural backgrounds, which is convenient for readers to understand and is more conducive to the dissemination and acceptance of translations.

Lao Tzu's thought inspiration for scholars in german-speaking areas

Lao Tzu's philosophical ideas have been the source of inspiration for many German-speaking writers. German novelist and essayist Deblin's Chinese novel "Wang Lun's Three Jumps" runs through the whole text with Lao Tzu's "no action" thought, promoting the three jumps in the fate of the protagonist Wang Lun, reflecting his profound understanding of the dialectical nature of Lao Tzu's "no action" thought. The German dramatist and poet Brecht described the tree surviving the storm in his poem "Praying for the Green Tree" (1921), and in the poem "Iron" (1953), the "hard and destroyed" of the iron bracket in the hurricane contrasted with the "curve" of the wooden bracket, which is very different from the metaphorical meaning of tree and wood in Western literature, but uses Lao Tzu's philosophy of softness and strength. He also quoted Zhuangzi's "material problem" in "The Good Man of Sichuan" and "Bold Mother and Her Children", reflecting the philosophical idea of whether Lao Zhuang has a symbiosis or not. The Nobel prize winner in literature, Hesse, not only mentioned his association with Lao Tzu and his admiration for Lao Tzu many times in his works, but also applied Lao Tzu's philosophical ideas of unity of opposition to a large number of his works. For example, in Demian (1919), the protagonist Sinclair's understanding of the coexistence of good and evil, god and demon, In and Outside (1917), Elvin says that our world is made up of many opposing shores, and in Siddhartha (1922) the image of the river illustrates the unity of stillness and flow.

German philosophical circles paid even more attention to Lao Tzu. From Kant's resolute resistance to Laozi's doctrine when the German translation of Lao Tzu was not yet born, to the critical acceptance of Laozi's philosophical ideas by Hegel, Schelling, Martin Buber, etc., to the admiration of Laozi by Heidegger and Jaspers, all show the pivotal position of Lao Tzu in the field of German philosophy. Nietzsche, the founder of modern Western philosophy, and Lao Tzu, a Chinese philosopher 2400 years away from him, have paid attention to many of the same issues, and there are many views that exist in different ways. For example, although the two men's discussions of the origin of the world use completely different core concepts of "will to power" and "Tao", they are similar as the internal driving force for the development of all things, and have similar properties of eternal reincarnation and repetition. Moreover, Nietzsche's "superman" theory and Lao Tzu's infant imagery are both the initial state of cyclical, eternal reincarnation, i.e., "both the beginning and the end." Heidegger's existentialist philosophy was also greatly influenced by Laozi. He tried to translate Lao Tzu in cooperation with the Chinese scholar Xiao Shiyi, and directly quoted the original chapters and sentences of Lao Tzu in many philosophical works, as well as in letters and speeches, and also made his own interpretations of Lao Tzu's chapters and concepts such as "knowing its blackness, keeping its white", "none", and "Tao".

The organic combination of "other" and "me"

Although most of the German translations of Lao Tzu came from scholars in german-speaking areas, Chinese scholars have not been absent from its translation and dissemination. As early as 1911, The Chinese student Zhou Muxi (Muxi Chou transliteration, German name Moses Chin) completed his doctoral dissertation "Critical Thinking on Lao Tzu and His Doctrine" at the University of Berlin, which was the first doctoral dissertation in the German-speaking world to study Lao Tzu's philosophical thought, and was highly praised by the German sinologist Hanice. The Kudenhof translation, published in Frankfurt and Hamburg in 1955, was translated from the English translation of Lin Yutang. There are many versions of Lao Tzu, and the translation of Lao Tzu in the German-speaking region has always mainly referred to the Wang Bi tongben or the Heshang Gongzhu ben. In 1973, Changsha Mawangdui unearthed the "Lao Tzu" book A and B, and in 1993, the "Lao Tzu" bamboo sketch was unearthed from the Guodian Chu Tomb in Jingmen, Hubei Province, these two earlier versions caused a huge sensation overseas and set off a new "Lao Tzu fever" in the German academic circles. In 2008, Hou Cai, a professor of philosophy at the Central Party School, published in German the German book "Guodian Chu Tomb Bamboo Jane 'Lao Tzu' School Reading", which is an outstanding masterpiece of Chinese scholars taking the initiative to translate Chinese classics, and systematically presents the whole picture of the bamboo jane "Lao Tzu" to German readers.

As a representative symbol of Chinese national civilization, Chinese classics should be used as an important carrier to "tell the Chinese story well" to the world, and translation is an important means to make it a carrier. Looking at the history of the German translation of Lao Tzu, the achievements are remarkable, but there are also regrets. From the perspective of the "other", there are still many inconsistencies with the original work of Lao Tzu in the translation. Under such circumstances, in the process of foreign translation of classics and even cultural dissemination, China's academic circles should first grasp the right to speak, give out their own voices, and take the initiative to tell Chinese stories; secondly, they should vigorously carry out research on the achievements of existing Chinese foreign translations, summarize lessons learned, learn from each other's strong points, provide theoretical basis and practical guidance for future work such as foreign translation, retranslation, and revision of translations, and tell Chinese stories in a reasonable and well-founded manner; finally, we should pay attention to the organic combination of the perspective of "others" and the perspective of "ours". Translate Our classics into works that readers from other cultural backgrounds can understand, are willing to read, and have resonance, and tell Chinese stories to the world.

In short, as a bridge for cultural communication between China and foreign countries, Chinese foreign translators shoulder the important historical mission entrusted by the times. How to make chinese classics shoulder the responsibility of the times for the world to understand China, understand China, and identify with China, the foreign translation of classics has a long way to go, and there is also a great possibility.

(Author: Zhu Yubo, Head of the National Social Science Foundation Project "Research on the Translation and Dissemination of Lao Tzu in Germany and Its Echoing Dialogue with German Philosophy", Lecturer of the Information Engineering University of the Strategic Support Force, Postdoctoral Fellow of Shanghai Overseas Chinese University)