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A.C. Graham, tr. Chuang-tzŭ: The Inner Chapters. Indianapolis and Cambridge, Mass.: Hackett, 2001. x + 293 pp - Harold D. Roth, ed. A Companion to Angus C. Graham's Chuang tzu: The Inner Chapters. Society for Asian and Comparative Philosophy, Monograph 20. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2003. 243 pp.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 March 2015

Paul R. Goldin
Paul R. Goldin*
Affiliation:
Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, 847 Williams Hall University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA
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Extract

With the publication of these two books, A.C. Graham's classic translation of Chuang-tzu is finally available in the form that he intended. The first edition, published in 1981 by Allen & Unwin, has long been out of print, and, as Roth explains (If.; cf. also 184), it was relieved, against Graham's wishes, of several dozen textual notes that he had compiled. These were issued in 1982, by the School of Oriental and African Studies (University of London), as a sixty-five-page typescript with the title Chuang-tzu: Textual Notes to a Partial Translation. But this pamphlet was not well distributed, and most libraries do not own it. Hackett and Hawai'i are to be hailed, therefore, for bringing both the translation and the textual notes into general circulation, and at very reasonable prices.

Type
Reviews
Information
Early China , Volume 28 , 2003 , pp. 201 - 214
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Study of Early China 2003

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References

1. Cf. Lin, Shuen-fu, “Transforming the Dao: A Critique of A.C. Graham's Translation of the Inner Chapters of the Zhuangzi ”, in Hiding the World in the World: Uneven Discourses on the Zhuangzi, ed. Cook, Scott, SUNY Series in Chinese Philosophy and Culture (State University of New York Press: Albany, 2003), 275 Google Scholar.

2. Swann, Nancy Lee (1881–1966), Pan Chao: Foremost Woman Scholar of China, Michigan Classics in Chinese Studies 5 (Ann Arbor, 2001)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, with a new introduction by Susan Mann; and van Gulik, R.H., Sexual Life in Ancient China: A Preliminary Survey of Chinese Sex and Society from ca. 1500 B.C. till 1644 A.D., Sinica Leidensia 57 (Leiden: Brill, 2003)Google Scholar, with a new introduction by Paul R. Goldin.

3. Compare the objections to Graham's “tampering with the source text” in Lin, 276ff.

4. Feng, Kuan, Chuang-tzu che-hsileh lun-wen chi (Peking: Chung-hua, 1962)Google Scholar; Xiaogan, Liu, Classifying the Zhuangzi Chapters, [tr. William E. Savage], Michigan Monographs in Chinese Studies 65 (Ann Arbor, 1994)Google Scholar.

5. “‘Ik’ zei de gek, ‘I’ Mencius, ‘I’ Laozi, ‘Zhuang Zhou’ Zhuangzi,” in Linked Faiths: Essays on Chinese Religions and Traditional Culture in Honour ofKristofer Schipper, ed. de Meyer, Jan A.M. and Engelfriet, Peter M., Sinica Leidensia 46 (Leiden: Brill, 2000)Google Scholar, 10n5. Roth himself has made the greatest strides in trying to associate these schools with real people; see “Who Compiled the Chuang Tzu?” in Chinese Texts and Philosophical Contexts: Essays Dedicated to Angus C. Graham, ed. Rosemont, Henry Jr., Critics and Their Critics 1 (La Salle, Ill.: Open Court, 1991), 79–128 Google Scholar, who argues that the “Syncretists” were related to the scholarly group surrounding Liu An (d. 122 b.c.), which composed the Huai-nan-tzu and, so Roth contends, compiled the Chuang-tzu. Cf. also Roth, 's Original Tao: Inward Training and the Foundations of Taoist Mysticism, Translations from the Asian Classics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), 198ff Google Scholar.

6. Not considering “Pu erh” , in Ch’i-yu, Ch’en , Lü-shih ch’un-ch’iu chiao-shih (Shanghai: Hsüeh-lin, 1984), 17.1124 Google Scholar, which tells us that “Yang Sheng honored the self” this does not necessarily refer to Yang Chu. Similarly, “Hsien hsüeh” ; in Ch’i-yu, Ch’en, Han Fei-tzu hsin chiao-chu (Shanghai: Ku-chi, 2000)Google Scholar, 19.50.1134f., seems to refer to Yang Chu (“He would not exchange a single hair on his shin even for the greatest benefit to the world” , but does not mention his name. The image of the hairy shins, incidentally, would probably have been taken in the light of the famous legend that Yü lost his shin-hair while working to control the floods; this is told in several ancient texts, including the Chuang-tzu (Graham, 276).

7. Tr. Lau, D.C., Mencius (New York: Penguin, 1970), 114 and 187Google Scholar.

8. Hsien-Ch’in chu-tzu hsi-nien , 2nd edition (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1956)Google Scholar, § 80.

9. “Fan lun” , in Wen-tien, Liu , Huai-nan Hung-lieh chi-chieh , ed. Feng I, and Hua, Ch’iao , Hsin-pien Chu-tzu chi-ch’eng (Peking: Chung-hua, 1989), 13.436 Google Scholar.

10. Graham provided no supporting reference, however, and I am unable to find any passage in Fung”s book that says this. The closest statement is “the Lü-shih ch’un- ch’iu gives several accounts of ideas which were probably handed down from Yang,” A History of Chinese Philosophy, tr. Bodde, Derk (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1952), I,137 Google Scholar. There is a world of difference between this opinion and Graham's reporting of it. Incidentally, Roth also takes these essays as Yangist (216n39).

11. Yü-chiang, Wu Mo-tzu chiao-chu , ed. Ch’i-chih, Sun Hsin-pien Chu-tzu chi-ch’eng (Peking: Chung-hua, 1993), 12.47.687Google Scholar.

12. The best work in English, if not any language, is Cook, Scott, “The Lüshi chunqiu and the Resolution of Philosophical Discourse,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 62.2 (2002), 307–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13. Journal of Asian Studies 42.3 (1983), 617 Google ScholarPubMed. Ames is referring to Watson, Burton, tr., The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu, Records of Civilization: Sources and Studies 80 (New York and London: Columbia University Press, 1970)Google Scholar; and idem, Chuang Tzu: Basic Writings Translations from the Oriental Classics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1964)Google Scholar.

14. Wandering on the Way: Early Taoist Tales and Parables of Chuang Tzu (New York: Bantam, 1994)Google Scholar.

15. Compare Graham's judgment of the translation by Herbert A. Giles, in “Two Notes on the Translation of Taoist Classics” (Roth, 141f.): “In fact of course this extraordinary style, which drifts inconsequentially between sense and nonsense with an air of perfect confidence, is an invention of translators.” Cf. also Roth, “Colophon,” 183. Graham did not provide any bibliographic details; he was evidently referring to Chuang-t: Mystic, Moralist, and Social Reformer, 2nd edition (Shanghai: Kelley & Walsh, 1926)Google Scholar. Excerpts from Giles's translation are published in the more popular Musings of a Chinese Mystic, ed. Giles, Lionel (New York: E.P Dutton, 1909; rpt. as Teachings and Sayings of Chuang Tzŭ, Mineóla, N.Y.: Dover, 2001)Google Scholar.

16. This is almost identical to the bibliography in Graham, 's Festschrift: “Bibliography of the Writings of Angus C. Graham,” Chinese Texts and Philosophical Contexts: Essays Dedicated to Angus C. Graham, ed. Rosemont, Henry Jr., Critics and Their Critics 1 (La Salle, Ill.: Open Court, 1991), 323–28 Google Scholar. The difference is that Roth includes “Two Notes on the Translation of Taoist Classics” (an article from 1991 that has also been anthologized as Chapter 4 of the Companion), and provides full details of publication for other late items that were listed as “forthcoming” in the earlier bibliography.

17. Brooks, E. Bruce and Brooks, A. Taeko, The Original Analects: Sayings of Confucius and His Successors, Translations from the Asian Classics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998)Google Scholar, is another recent publication with arguments that depend on elaborate and formally unverifiable scenarios.

18. Note that Jane M. Geaney has recently taken issue with Graham's reconstructions of this material as well; see “A Critique of A.C. Graham's Reconstruction of the ‘Neo-Mohist Canons,’” Journal of the American Oriental Society 119.1 (1999), 1–11 Google Scholar.

19. The reference “G3” is to Graham's Later Mohist Logic, Ethics and Science (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1978)Google Scholar.

20. At the same time it must be said that these notes are not particularly useful for college students or other readers unacquainted with classical Chinese—a point that instructors should consider if they hope to use Roth's Companion in college courses. Most of the notes take the form “ Wang Shu-min” (Roth, 26), which means that Graham followed Wang Shu-min, who suggested emending chih to wang. Only very advanced students will know what to do with this kind of information.