General Preface
to The Bedside Chinese Classics
The Four Books and The Five Classics are the funda mental core of Confucianism, which have long been part of Chinese culture together with the thoughts, values and ethics embodied in them. The Four Books includes Confucian Analects, The Works of Mencius, The Great Learning, and The Doctrine of the Mean; and The Five Classics involves The She King (Classic of Poetry), The Shoo King (Book of Historical Documents), The Li Ki(Book of Rites), The Yi King (I Ching) and The Ch＇un Ts＇ew (Spring and Autumn Annals). To some extent, theConfucius classics represented by The Four Books and The Five Classics are the source of Chinese thought and culture over thousands of years, which have shaped China as what the nation it is and the Chinese people as who they are.
We have already stepped out of the ancient times into the modern period. For various reasons, we had once intentionally given up the traditional way of studying and reading these classics. However, the spirit of the classics,lodged in the deep hidden place of each Chinese soul,has never disappeared into thin air; and the candlelight of the thought has never died off, still streaming out in the veins of Chinese people. Nowadays, there is an emphasis on the reflections of reviving Chinese culture,marching on to Chinese tradition and regaining Chinese heritage, which is of course drawn from Chinese people's recognition of the inherent cultural source. Obviously,the right way to return to traditions is to reread and study the Chinese classics our ancestors had left behind.
Naturally, today we don't review The Chinese Classics as our ancestors did for a better career. Rather, we should adopt an entirely new attitude and methods to read them in a broader context of the global culture. Legge's English version of The Four Books and The Five Classics more than one hundred years before should definitely be one of our choices. Legge's version especially enjoys its uniqueness. Besides the original Chinese characters and the corresponding English version, there is many an irreplaceable substantial critical note in every book, thus elevating his version to an academic level.
At the end of 1845, the Scottish missionary James Legge (1815-1897) went back to England from Hong Kong for illness and did not return until July 1848. On his way back to Hong Kong, Legge decided to translate Chinese classics with careful deliberation. He started with The Four Books, then The Five Classics, and then other classics in Taoism and Buddhism. In the eleven years between 1861 and 1872, Legge translated TheFour Books and The She King (Classic of Poetry), The Shoo King (Book of Historical Documents) and The Ch'un Ts'ew (Spring and Autumn Annals) in The Five Classics, which were published successively by the London Mission Society Press in Hong Kong entitled The Chinese Classics. In 1879, Legge finished translating The Yi King (I Ching) and The Li Ki (Book of Rites),which were included in The Sacred Books of the East published by the Clarendon Press in London, edited by Max Müller, an expert on Comparative Religion and Orientalism at Oxford University. Thus, Legge became the first westerner to translate all the books inThe Four Books and The Five Classics on his own. More than thirty years later, the Clarendon Press had The Chinese Classics reprinted, but Legge only revised the first and second volumes. Besides The Four Books and The Five Classics, Legge also translated other Chinese classics such as The Hsiao King (Classic of Filial Piety), The Tao Teh King (Tao Te Ching), etc.
When Legge translated The Four Books and The FiveClassics, a Chinese named Wang Tao helped him a lot. Wang Tao (1828-1897) was born in Suzhou in the Daoguang period of the Qing Dynasty. He passed the imperial examination at the county level in 1845 and went to work at London Missionary Society Press in Shanghai in 1849 at the request of an English missionary Walter Henry Medhurst (1796-1857). There Wang Tao devoted thirteen years to the work of translating English books into Chinese, contributing a lot to the introduction of western learning into China. In 1862, for his support of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom (1851-1864), Wang Tao was wanted by the Qing Dynasty and fled to Hong Kong, where he got help from Legge, the then dean of Ying Wa College in Hong Kong and, in turn, he assisted Legge in his work of translating Chinese classics, hence starting a much-told story in the cultural exchanges between the East and the West.
From 1868 to 1870, Wang Tao stayed in Scotland with Legge, during which they worked together and completed the translation of such classics as The SheKing (Classic of Poetry), The Yi King (I Ching) and The Li Ki (Book of Rites). In 1970, they returned to Hong Kong, Legge resuming his work at Ying Wa College.After work, they continued to translate and write. In 1873, Legge settled down back in England and Wang Tao bought the printing equipment of the college. Next year,Wang Tao started Tsun Wan Yat Po, the first successful Chinese newspaper invested by a Chinese in the world.Wang Tao was therefore regarded as "the first Chinese newspaperman". In 1879, Wang Tao was invited to conduct investigations in Japan for four months. In 1884,he returned to Shanghai after over twenty years and became dean of Polytechnic College till his death in May 1897. It happened that Legge passed away in England in December that same year. Some 150 years ago,the two thinkers from different countries and cultural backgrounds became intimate friends for love of cultural transmission, leaving a touching anecdote in the history of cultural exchanges between the East and the West.
In the more than 150 years since the first edition of Legge's The Chinese Classics was published, some Chinese classics including The Four Books and The FiveClassics have been rendered into English, but Legge's version remains to be a standard, serving as the most authentic canon for westerners to understand the Oriental civilization and Chinese culture, as well as the Chinese national ethics. And without any shadow of a doubt, its meaning as a milestone has been clearer as time goes by.Since returning to England, Legge had been a professor of Sinology at Oxford for more than twenty years.His translation of Chinese classics and his teaching career have played a vital role in the establishment of Sinology as a discipline and had a positive effect on the development of Western Sinology. Legge's contribution is a milepost in transmitting the Eastern learning to the West and in the cultural exchanges between the East and the West.
Today, with the inevitable trend of globalization and the increasing international communication, the exchanges between the East and the West are much more expanded. However, there are still some barriers impossible to surmount in the communication, and,in a sense, we are confronted with the same problems Legge once had more than a hundred years ago. For example, how should one deal with the differences and conflicts in different civilizations, what attitude should one adopt in face of heterogeneous civilizations, and the like. In addition, for a nation with a long traditional culture like ours, such problems as how to handle the differences and conflicts between modern civilization and ancient traditions and how we modern people should communicate with traditions still exist. Therefore, in rereading Legge's translation of The Chinese Classics and reviewing his academic achievements, I'd like to cast my eyes on the starting point of Legge's epoch-making work to learn about his attitude and position in dealing with China, Chinese culture and the traditional Chinese classics represented by The Four Books and The FiveClassics.
In the age when Legge decided to translate Chinese classics, China did not have an equal position in its communication with the West. Western countries started their communication with China by resorting to force in the war, so they were more active and commanding,while China was passive and weak. In this case, Legge deserves our particular respect and praise because he had always adopted an objective, modest, prudent and unbiased attitude in his translation and research of Chinese classics. His sense of equality and tolerance set a good example in world cultural exchanges.
Undoubtedly, Legge's equal and objective attitude towards Chinese classics has a lot to do with his identity of being a faithful Christian missionary, which had shaped his character and integrity. He started to study and translate Chinese classics in order to spread Christianity better in China. In the second volume of the first edition ofThe Chinese Classics, Legge pointed out the necessity to translate Chinese Confucius classics,stating that this was an important way for other countries in the world to learn about China and that missionaries could acquire more wisdom and improve their future work by learning these classics.[1]Of course, apart from his religious purpose, the real motive lies in Legge's keen desire to understand China and Chinese culture. In his diary, Legge once expressed his attitude to Chinese culture: instead of being a philosopher, he treated China from the perspective of philosophy; he longed to understand Chinese language, history, literature, ethics and social reality because China was a great story for him.[2]Clearly, the best way for Legge to know Chinese language, history, literature, ethics and social reality is to read and study Confucius classics. Dr. Joseph Edkins(1823-1905) had similar expression that Confucius classics were to the Chinese people what the Bible was to Christians，Shakespeare to English majors and the Koran to Moslems.[3]
Legge is also remarkable in that he could update his knowledge with the furthering of his research and translation in more than thirty years, his comment on Confucius being a typical example. In the Preface to the first edition of The Chinese Classics, Legge was critical of Confucius, but in the revised edition of 1893,he corrected his attitude. This time, he expressed his heart-felt respect for Confucius with more careful words for fear of his superficial understanding and inaccurate expression: "I hope I have not done him injustice; the more I have studied his character and opinions, the more highly have I come to regard him. He was a very great man, and his influence has been on the whole a great benefit to the Chinese, while his teachings suggest important lessons to ourselves who profess to belong to the school of Christ."[4]
Needless to say, there have been extensive, profound investigations and research in the academic circles of both the West and China concerning Legge's significance and great influence in the establishment and development of Western Sinology, the introduction of Chinese learning to the West, and the history of cultural exchanges between the East and the West. However, when Legge's version of The Four Books and The Five Classics is being revised and published, when Legge's study and translation of Chinese classics are being reviewed and summarized, apart from paying tribute to Legge and inheriting traditional culture, it's also necessary to highlight his attitude and position in reading, studying and translating The Chinese Classics. In other words,his equal and unbiased attitude, his modest and prudent gesture as well as his objective and tolerant position still offer enlightenment and reference in reading and studying The Four Books and The Five Classics,whether they be the westerners from different cultural backgrounds or the contemporary Chinese readers who have been more or less distanced from their traditional culture.
Scholar on Classic Chinese Literature
Professor and Ph.D Supervisor
College of Literature, Liaoning University
XIONG MING
2016
(Translated by Ruoshui)
[1]See James Legge: The Chinese Classics, Vol.2, 1st edition. Hong Kong: London Mission Society Press, 1861.p.95.
[2]See Lauren F. Pfister, "Some New Dimensions in the Study of the Works of James Legge (1815-1897): Part I", SinoWestern Cultural Relations Journal, xii 1990, PP.30-31, Note 10.
[3]See Joseph Edkins. Dr. James Legge. North ChinaHerald, 1898-04-12.
[4]James Legge, "Prolegomena", The Chinese Classics: witha Translation, Critical and Exegetical Notes, Prolegomena,and Copious Indexes. Vol. I, 2nd edition, Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1893. p.111.