by An Liu
After several years of close collaboration on this translation, our own views remain far from uniform. Roth continues to be a stout defender of the position that the Huainanzi is a Daoist work. He argues that despite the broad array of pre-Han sources from which it draws, in its cosmology and methods of self-cultivation, it remains squarely within a tradition of both philosophy and practice that borrows from earlier Daoist sources, including the four “Xinshu” texts of the Guanzi, the Laozi, and the Zhuangzi. In his view, these sources and the cosmology and techniques of apophatic inner cultivation that they profess are treated by the Huainanzi authors as the “root” or foundation of the entire work. This can be seen in the way the Huainanzi privileges Daoist cosmology in chapters 1 and 2 and the many and various ways in which it privileges a cosmology of the Way and the practice of inner cultivation as the root in many other chapters. While acknowledging with his colleagues that the Huainanzi regards itself as a work beyond comparison, Roth sees it as being in a tradition of Daoist syncretism that includes the three later Guanzi “Xinshu” chapters; the “Syncretist” chapters of the Zhuangzi (as identified by Graham and Liu Xiaogan); chapters 3, 5, 17, and 25 of the Lüshi chunqiu (as identified by Meyer); and the so-called Mawangdui Huang-Lao silk manuscripts, whether or not we call it—or this tradition—“Huang-Lao.”
In contrast, Meyer and Queen emphasize the Huainanzi’s own claim to be above and beyond classification. Having proposed in 1993 that the Huainanzi could be regarded as a paradigmatic work of the Huang-Lao tradition,68 Major now has adopted a more agnostic position toward the whole Huang-Lao question. With specific reference to the Huainanzi, he ultimately agrees with the internalist approach favored by Meyer and Queen.
After several decades of heated discussion, the debate over the “school” affiliation of the text by now may have played itself out. In any case, in this translation we have opted to adopt an emic view of the text; that is, we seek to understand the problem of the place of the Huainanzi in Han intellectual life in terms of what the authors of the Huainanzi themselves chose to say on this matter rather than to perpetuate further the “affiliation debate.” We believe this approach to be the best way both of analyzing the text and presenting it to our readers.
A Brief Account of This Translation Project
This project had its genesis in the early 1990s when, amid an upsurge of interest in late Warring States and early Han intellectual history, the thought occurred to a number of scholars that the time was right to attempt a complete English translation of the Huainanzi. (At about the same time, another team began work on a full French translation, which was published in 2003.)69 After a series of preliminary discussions, a collaborative project took shape, leading (with some changes of personnel) to the current team and this translation. Work on rough chapter drafts began in 1995. At that early stage, the team members agreed on principles that have guided the project throughout its course:
The translation would be complete and as accurate as it was possible to make it, with all Chinese words accounted for and nothing added or paraphrased.
The translation would use standard, highly readable English, with no jargon or esoteric vocabulary and no resort to contrived syntax.
The translation would preserve vital features of the Chinese original, such as parallel prose, verse, and aphoristic sayings.70
As our work progressed, two more principles were added to this list:
4. We would identify and pay special attention to the formal characteristics (precepts, sayings, persuasions, and so on) that distinguished some chapters and use them for guidance in assessing both the text’s rhetorical strategies and its philosophical meaning.
5. We would try to understand the text as much as possible on its own terms, as laid out in the chapter summaries and other features of the book’s postface (chapter 21, “An Overview of the Essentials”).
When the translation work was well under way, we applied for a two-year fellowship for the academic years 1996 to 1998, which was granted by the Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation. The Huainanzi Translation Project was then officially headquartered at Roth’s home institution, Brown University. Thereafter the team met at Brown three to five times each year to read and discuss drafts, work toward a common understanding of numerous Chinese terms, resolve inconsistencies, and assign tasks to move the project forward.
By early 2007, revised drafts of all the chapters were complete, and the work of writing the chapter introductions and a general introduction and of preparing the manuscript for publication continued, with the completed manuscript being delivered to Columbia University Press at the end of that year.
The principal translator or translators of each chapter are indicated, showing who did the initial draft of a particular chapter, shepherded it through the revision process, and assumed final responsibility for the finished version. Similarly, appendix A was drafted by Meyer, appendix B by Major, and appendix C by Roth with the assistance of Matthew Duperon. Notwithstanding this assignment of responsibility (and credit), we have emphasized throughout the project the collaborative nature of our work. Every draft, at the initial stage and at every round of revision, was read and critiqued by every member of the team. In that sense, each chapter, as well as this introduction, the chapter introductions, and the appendices, is the work of the entire team, and we have tried hard to ensure that the work overall reads as a uniform and seamless whole.
Conventions Used in This Work
Chapters and Chapter Sections
The earliest references to the Huainanzi indicate that the work, as submitted to Emperor Wu of the Han in 139 B.C.E., was divided into twenty-one chapters, the same arrangement as in the extant work. The original manuscript copy would have had either no punctuation or only minimal punctuation, with little or no indication of sentence and paragraph breaks, no differentiation of prose and verse, and no sections or other subdivisions within chapters. We have provided all these in our English translation.
In general, we have followed the suggested punctuation and, less often, the paragraph breaks suggested by D. C. Lau, editor of the standard edition on which we have based our translation.71 We note our departures from Lau’s punctuation and paragraph division only when they have a significant effect on how the meaning is construed.
We also have divided each chapter into sections. Although, as noted, these are not present in the original text, we believe they provide an important tool to enhance the reader’s understanding of the text and also are useful in facilitating cross-references. As we have defined them, the chapter sections are by no means arbitrary; instead, we have tried with great care to follow natural breaks in the material itself. So, for example, the topic word jin (now) might begin a section, and the conclusion-drawing word gu (therefore) might end one. In some cases, several “now–therefore” passages that are similar in theme have been grouped to form a single section. In other cases (for example, chapter 12), section breaks appear naturally in the text because passages are “capped” by a quotation from an authoritative classic. Some chapters have many sections (especially chapters 16 and 17 and also chapters 12 and 14), while others have relatively few (for example, chapters 8 and 19).
Chapter sections are numbered in the translated text in the form “8.3,” meaning “chapter 8, section 3.” We use this numbering system in the notes for cross-references (for example, to important parallel passages) within or among chapters (for example, “see 8.3”).
Format and Typography
Because parallel prose, especially, and verse are important components of the Huainanzi’s rhetorical structure, we have been careful to translate parallel prose lines and verse into parallel lines of English, indented and set line-for-line.
Words that do not appear in the Chinese text but are implied by the wording of the original or, in our judgment, are required to complete the sense of a phrase or sentence (taking care not to add anything that is not clearly implied by the text itself) are enclosed in square brackets.
/> Arrangement of Chapters and Appendices
Each of the twenty-one translated chapters is preceded by an introduction, except for chapters 16 and 17, which are very much alike in structure and content and so share an introduction.
Notes have been kept to a necessary minimum and generally cover such matters as textual emendations, such as when we disagree with D. C. Lau’s proposed changes or propose emendations of our own; explanations of terms, such as obscure words or characters that are used in unusual ways; people and places mentioned in the text, whose importance can be better appreciated through a brief identification;72 cross-references within the text and references to comparable passages in early texts; and explanations of obscure passages such as historical anecdotes that cannot readily be understood without information that supplements the original text. One way of keeping the number of notes under control was to use appendices, and the book has three. Appendix A, “Key Terms and Their Translations,” comments on and explicates a number of words, compounds, and phrases that are of special importance to the text and, in many cases, present special challenges to translators. Appendix B, “Categorical Terms,” lists and explicates terms that naturally group into categories such as “Astronomical Terms” and “Weights and Measures.” Appendix C, “A Textual History of the Huainanzi,” gives a brief account of the history and current status of Huainanzi studies in the form of a bibliographical essay.
Nonstandard Romanizations
In order to avoid the ambiguity caused by words that have different Chinese characters but are spelled identically in romanization, we used the following nonstandard romanizations:
The state of Wei ; the state of Wey
The state of Han ;the state of Hann
The Di “barbarians,” the Dii “barbarians,” and the Dee “barbarians”
The Zhou dynasty, but Djou , last king of the Shang dynasty
Terms Not Translated
While we have made every effort to avoid cluttering our pages with untranslated Chinese terms, we inevitably had to leave untranslated a number of words that simply have no good English equivalent. These include some words pertaining to measurement, such as
li, a linear distance equal to about one-third of a mile or about 500 meters
mu (or mou), a measure of area equal to about one-sixth of an acre or about 0.067 hectare
Other words of linear measure, such as ren, zhang, and pi
Words for units of weight, such as jun and dan (for all these, see “Weights and Measures” in appendix B)
The names of the five notes of the pentatonic scale, gong, shang, jue, zhi, and yu
The names of some musical instruments, such as the se and the qin, often but, in our view, inappropriately translated as “lute” or “zither”
The names of the ten heavenly stems and the twelve earthly branches and their sexagenary combinations
Some technical terms, notably qi, which we sometimes translate as “vital energy” when it is clearly used in a context of Daoist self-cultivation or related topics but which we more often leave untranslated
Citations
Editions
We take as our standard edition the work of D. C. Lau, Huainanzi zhuzi suoyin (A Concordance to the Huainanzi), Chinese University of Hong Kong, Institute of Chinese Studies Ancient Chinese Text Concordance Series (Hong Kong: Commercial Press, 1992), cited as HNZ. When we accept Lau’s emendations, we do so without comment, but when we depart from his text, we explain why in the notes. Our standard form of reference to all the concordances in the ICS Ancient Chinese Text Concordance Series is to chapter/page/line in the form 10/83/19. Our standard reference text of the Huainanzi for collected commentaries is by Zhang Shuangdi , Huainanzi jiaoshi , 2 vols. (Beijing: Beijing University Press, 1997), cited as Zhang Shuangdi 1997.
References to Other Works
Classical works are usually referred to by standard divisions of chapter and verse, without reference to any particular edition—for example, Odes 96, stanza 2; Laozi 55; and Zuozhuan, Duke Cheng, year 18. Where an exact page and line reference is called for, unless otherwise indicated, we cite editions of pre-Han and Han works in the ICS Ancient Chinese Text Concordance Series (all edited by D. C. Lau and published in Hong Kong by the Commercial Press [Shangwu yinshuguan]) whenever they are available. Citations take the form of the abbreviated title plus chapter/page/ line—for example, LieZ 2/6/20. Cited works (with publication dates) include
BSSZ Bing shu si zhong zhuzi suoyin (1992)
CC Chuci zhuzi suoyin (2000)
GZ Guanzi zhuzi suoyin (2001)
HFZ Hanfeizi zhuzi suoyin (2000)
SWZ Hanshi waizhuan zhuzi suoyin (1992)
LieZ Liezi zhuzi suoyin (1996)
LH Lunheng zhuzi suoyin (2008)
LSCQ Lüshi chunqiu zhuzi suoyin (1994)
LY Lunyu zhuzi suoyin (1995)
LZ Laozi zhuzi suoyin (1996)
MoZ Mozi zhuzi suoyin (2001)
MZ Mengzi zhuzi suoyin (1995)
SY Shuo yuan zhuzi suoyin (1992)
WZ Wenzi zhuzi suoyin (1992)
XZ Xunzi zhuzi suoyin (1996)
YZ Yanzi chunqiu zhuzi suoyin (1993)
ZGC Zhanguoce zhuzi suoyin (1992)
ZZ Zhuangzi zhuzi suoyin (2000)
Encyclopedia and Standard Histories
The Huainanzi is frequently quoted in the Taiping yulan (Imperially Reviewed Encyclopedia of the Taiping Era, 984 C.E.), cited as TPYL (in any standard edition; it is not included in the ICS Concordance Series).
For the standard histories of the Former Han period, we cite the following editions:
Han shu Han shu buzhu (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1983)
Shiji Shiji (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1959)
Frequently Cited Works
The following works are cited frequently and therefore always in abbreviated form.
Ames 1994 Roger T. Ames, The Art of Rulership: A Study in Ancient Chinese Political Thought (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1983; repr., Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994)
Csikszentmihalyi 2004 Mark Csikszentmihalyi, Material Virtue: Ethics and the Body in Ancient China (Leiden: Brill, 2004)
Graham 1982 A. C. Graham, Chuang-tzu: The Seven Inner Chapters and Other Writings from the Book Chuang-tzu (London: Allen & Unwin, 1982)
Hawkes 1985 David Hawkes, The Songs of the South: An Ancient Chinese Anthology of Poems by Qu Yuan and Other Poets (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1959; repr., Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1985)
Knoblock 1988 John Knoblock, Xunzi: A Translation and Study of the Complete Works, 3 vols. (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1988)
Knoblock and Riegel 2000 John Knoblock and Jeffrey Riegel, The Annals of Lü Buwei: A Complete Translation and Study (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2000)
Le Blanc 1985 Charles Le Blanc, Huai-nan Tzu: Philosophical Synthesis in Early Han Thought: The Idea of Resonance (Kan-ying) with a Translation and Analysis of Chapter Six (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1985)
Le Blanc and Mathieu 2003 Charles Le Blanc and Rémi Mathieu, eds., Philosophes taoïstes, vol. 2, Huainan zi: Texte traduit, présenté et annoté, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade (Paris: Éditions Gallimard, 2003)
Legge 1895 James Legge, trans., The Chinese Classics, 2nd rev. ed. (1895; repr., 5 vols. in 4, Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1960)
Mair 1997 Victor Mair, Wandering on the Way: Early Taoist Tales and Parables of Chuang Tzu, new ed. (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1997)
Major 1993 John S. Major, Heaven and Earth in Early Han Thought: Chapters Three, Four and Five of the Huainanzi, SUNY Series in Chinese Philosophy and Culture (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993)
Rickett 1985 W. Allyn Rickett, Guanzi: Political, Economic, and Philosophical Essays from Early China, vol. 1 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1985)
Rickett 1998 W. Allyn Rickett, Guanzi: Political, Economic, and Philosophical Essays from Early China, vol. 2 (Pr
inceton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1998)
Roth 1992 Harold D. Roth, The Textual History of the Huai-Nan Tzu, Monographs of the Association for Asian Studies, no. 46 (Ann Arbor, Mich.: Association for Asian Studies, 1992)
Roth 1999 Harold D. Roth, Original Tao: Inward Training and the Foundations of Taoist Mysticism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999)
Vankeerberghen 2001 Griet Vankeerberghen, The Huainanzi and Liu An ’s Claim to Moral Authority (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001)
Waley/Allen 1996 Arthur Waley, The Book of Songs, new ed., edited with additional translations by Joseph R. Allen (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1937; New York: Grove Press, 1996)
Wallacker 1962 Benjamin E. Wallacker, The Huai-nan-tzu, Book Eleven: Behavior, Culture and the Cosmos, American Oriental Series, vol. 48 (New Haven, Conn.: American Oriental Society, 1962)
We, the members of the Huainanzi translation project team, and our associates in this work, hope that we have been able to carry out this project in conformity with the preceding principles. Above all, we hope that this translation will have the effect of stimulating further new scholarship on the fascinating and rich book of Liu An, the Master of Huainan.