Ancient Confucianism books to be translated into 9 foreign languages

[Sparhawk]

I suppose that if it isn't initiated by the Chinese it wouldn't be "comprehensive"

Ancient Confucianism books to be translated into 9 foreign languages

BEIJING, July 27 (Xinhua) -- A team of international experts is to translate the essential books of Confucianism studies, "Five Classics," into nine foreign languages.

The "Five Classics," or "Wujing" in Chinese, is a body of five ancient books about Confucianism studies.

The five books are: Yijing (Classic of Changes), Shijing (Classic of Poetry), Liji (Classic of Rites), Shujing (Classic of History) and Chunqiu (Spring and Autumn Annals). The last one is said to be written by the great philosopher and educator Confucius himself.

Until now, there have been no comprehensive foreign language translations of these books.
​

 

[fkegan]

Hi Luis,

I am intrigued to see what they will put into their comprehensive translation into "foreign languages." I just noticed from Wilhelm hex 57.5 that ole Richard did not have any idea of the I Ching as used in divination. I doubt the Chinese selected academic experts will either and who knows what else they might be clueless about.

Frank

 

[Sparhawk]

An update article related to the mentioned translations:

Embracing Confucius as a way of living

 

[fkegan]

So these new translations are to be the beginning of a Confucian cultural revolution? Sounds totally ominous news though it explains what is the hope behind the translation announcement. What place will Yi Jing divination play in this? That is the question.

Frank

 

[sergio]

Hola Luis;
Thank you for the two articles.I am very excited about this project and can't wait to see the results.Just to give these books the attention and care and respect they deserve is truly inspiring.And yes,I agree we need to insert those Confucian values into our societies again-relajo pero con orden,che!
Sergio
p.s.id you check the article on John Cage?

 

[Sparhawk]

Hola Luis;
Thank you for the two articles.I am very excited about this project and can't wait to see the results.Just to give these books the attention and care and respect they deserve is truly inspiring.And yes,I agree we need to insert those Confucian values into our societies again-relajo pero con orden,che!
Sergio
p.s.id you check the article on John Cage?

Hola Sergio,

Yes, I believe that if any country needs Confucian values, with a population of over 1.3billion people, it is China (and they actually do, in many ways, as a lot of those values are ingrained in their millenarian culture). Any other place on Earth, with other cultural values and similar population pressure, would go up in smoke. Still a distinct possibility, mind you, but a Confucian way of thinking, pushed to the population, will help keeping things under a tense control. This Confucian push, BTW, is not something new. They have been at it for a number of years.

As for these new translations, I'm certainly glad they are doing them in a serious way. My comment about "comprehensiveness" was just tongue-in-cheek because, of course, a number of serious translations have been published in the West for over 100 years. Not to mention specialized scholarly dissertations and articles, etc. I wonder who would they reach in the West for help with those, the same way Western scholars have reached Chinese ones for their own translations.

As for Steve Marshall's article, yes, I did. I am in his mailing list and received the update with the new article last night. Very good and well written, as usual.

 

[sergio]

Hola Luis;
This one is from Denis Mair and it seems a propo :
http://www.yijingpoetics.net/other/confucianism.html
Sergio