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ChiDragon
USA
2870 Posts |
 Posted - 02/07/2010 : 10:34:59 PM
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Thank you, Nina...
I do appreciate your unbiased editing without altering the authenticity of its meaning.
You know, I always felt safer to have it in sino-English with less words. But now, despite our differences, I feel much safer because you are willing to help me to make it more comprehensible in English. Thanks again.
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CD speaks doesn't know.
TTC knows doesn't speak. |
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ChiDragon
USA
2870 Posts |
Posted - 03/28/2010 : 10:56:00 AM
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Lines 3 and 4 of Chapter 1
3. 無，名天地之始﹔
3. None, named at the origin of heaven and earth.
3. Invisible was the name given to Tao at the origin of heaven and earth.
4. 有，名萬物之母。
4. Exist, named as mother of all things.
4. Visible was the name given to Tao as mother of all things.
Lines 3 and 4 of Chapter 40
3. 天下萬物生於有，
3. tian xia wan wu sheng yu you,
3. All things of the world came from Exist.
3. All things of the world came from Visible.
4. 有生於無。
4. you sheng yu wu.
4. Exist came from None.
4. The Visible came from Invisible.
The you and wu in lines 3 and 4 of Chapter 40 are in sync with the same philosophy of lines 3 and 4 of Chapter 1.
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CD speaks doesn't know.
TTC knows doesn't speak. |
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Bao Pu
Canada
101 Posts |
Posted - 03/31/2010 : 11:25:54 AM
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Hello David,
I have a few comments...
quote:
[i]Originally posted by david[/i]
[br]1. Why does Henricks or others not ask, 'why does DDJ1 have so many 'ye' when that is not the norm'? Was this variation of DDJ1 meant to tell us the meaning from the get go with where to stop a thought or apply an emphasis? Is there an influence on that person who decided to use 'ye' so much... did that person feel this was 'right' to do? It's the same argument as saying buddhism influenced punctuation... someone influenced this usage of 'ye'.
I'm of the opinion that the Ye's present in chapter one probably "should" be there. There are a number of other chapters that have a lot of Ye's that Wang Bi's text has dropped. For example, chapters 2, 9, 16 and 64. I think the idea was "the shorter the better," perhaps to get the number of characters close to the "5000" it was supposed to have. This had the side-effect of increasing the number of valid interpretations.
quote:
3. This emphasis to you-yu still does not answer one question; why this emphasis if that word combination never exists anywhere else in the DDJ?
I don't see a real emphasis here, but there's no a priori reason to assume that it MUST appear elsewhere to be the true reading. The DDJ seems more interested in pointing to desirelessness, (or better, "fewer desires"), so perhaps we should not expect to find You Yu more often. Personally, I find the Chang Dao (or Heng Dao) in the first line more peculiar, since referring to Dao in this was doesn't appear elsewhere 
EDIT: LOL! I just noticed how old the post I replied to is. Oh well.
Good health, harmony and happiness,
Bao Pu |
Edited by - Bao Pu on 03/31/2010 11:29:18 AM |
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ChiDragon
USA
2870 Posts |
Posted - 04/03/2010 : 12:19:00 PM
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Bao Pu: "I'm of the opinion that the Ye's present in chapter one probably "should" be there. There are a number of other chapters that have a lot of Ye's that Wang Bi's text has dropped. For example, chapters 2, 9, 16 and 64. I think the idea was "the shorter the better," perhaps to get the number of characters close to the "5000" it was supposed to have. This had the side-effect of increasing the number of valid interpretations."
As far as I know, the DDJ was never intended to have a fixed number of 5000 characters. It was just happens to be around five thousand. All the copies of the DDJ were just hand copies of the different scholars. The style of writing changes as time goes by. Each scholar has his own style of writing to fit his taste. Hence, I did not see the added character 'ye' has any significance of side-effect.
As you indicated, the later scholars had dropped the 'ye' in some of their chapters, it is because 'ye' really did not serve any purpose, therefore, it can be with or without.
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CD speaks doesn't know.
TTC knows doesn't speak. |
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Bao Pu
Canada
101 Posts |
Posted - 04/03/2010 : 2:20:06 PM
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quote:
[i]Originally posted by ChiDragon[/i]
[br]Bao Pu: "I'm of the opinion that the Ye's present in chapter one probably "should" be there. There are a number of other chapters that have a lot of Ye's that Wang Bi's text has dropped. For example, chapters 2, 9, 16 and 64. I think the idea was "the shorter the better," perhaps to get the number of characters close to the "5000" it was supposed to have. This had the side-effect of increasing the number of valid interpretations."
As far as I know, the DDJ was never intended to have a fixed number of 5000 characters. It was just happens to be around five thousand. All the copies of the DDJ were just hand copies of the different scholars. The style of writing changes as time goes by. Each scholar has his own style of writing to fit his taste. Hence, I did not see the added character 'ye' has any significance of side-effect.
As you indicated, the later scholars had dropped the 'ye' in some of their chapters, it is because 'ye' really did not serve any purpose, therefore, it can be with or without.
Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that it originally was supposed to have 5000 characters. But somehow it got to be referred to as the book of 5000 words, so I could imagine later copiers taking out somewhat unnecessary characters, like the Ye's. I'm not sure, but it might be that the Ye's were more necessary if one was writing a text to be silently read, rather than memorized to be passed-on orally.
Good health, harmony and happiness,
Bao Pu |
Edited by - Bao Pu on 04/03/2010 2:21:30 PM |
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Nina
USA
6402 Posts |
Posted - 04/03/2010 : 6:37:07 PM
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quote:
[i]Originally posted by Bao Pu[/i]
I'm not sure, but it might be that the Ye's were more necessary if one was writing a text to be silently read, rather than memorized to be passed-on orally.
That's a great point, Bao Pu.
Maybe the ye's seemed so apparent to the later scholars that they felt no need to include them. Or maybe they dropped them because they didn't like where they were - they disrupted the ideas those guys were trying to read into the DDJ.
Here's something I found about the 5000 characters:
With the discovery of the Dao De Jing (Tao Te Ching) on Silk, some long discussed problems were resolved. Now we know that the title, Dao De Jing (Tao Te Ching), was formed only after the time of Emperor Jin of the Han Dynasty (156-141 B.C.). "Jing" means "canon" or "Scripture," so dao (tao) and De became a canon later than many Confucian canons. Besides, there are 5,463 characters in the Dao De Jing (Tao Te Ching) on Silk (second century B.C.) and 5,683 characters in the text of Wang Bi (third century A.D.). Later, the text of Doist religion usually includes only 5,000 characters, for which reason the Dao De Jing (Tao Te Ching) is called also 5,000 Characters Canon.
Source: http://www.crvp.org/book/Series03/III-3/chapter_vi.htm
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ChiDragon
USA
2870 Posts |
Posted - 04/03/2010 : 7:32:47 PM
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"Later, the text of Doist religion usually includes only 5,000 characters, for which reason the Dao De Jing (Tao Te Ching) is called also 5,000 Characters Canon."
The above statement is fallacy. The reason the DDJ was called the "5,000 Characters Canon" is not because it has the exact number of 5000 characters. It has characters 5000 plus but never reached 6000. The Chinese are accustomed to rounding off numbers to the nearest zero, regardless what the remainder was.
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CD speaks doesn't know.
TTC knows doesn't speak. |
Edited by - ChiDragon on 04/03/2010 7:34:57 PM |
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Nina
USA
6402 Posts |
Posted - 04/03/2010 : 8:06:23 PM
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Thanks for the information, cd.
Can you cite your source for it?
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ChiDragon
USA
2870 Posts |
Posted - 04/03/2010 : 10:16:06 PM
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You welcome but sorry...
It may not be very convincing. One might say it was just immanent within one's cultural experience.
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CD speaks doesn't know.
TTC knows doesn't speak. |
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Bao Pu
Canada
101 Posts |
Posted - 04/04/2010 : 05:11:16 AM
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Sounds reasonable, but:
Link
Good health, harmony and happiness,
Bao Pu |
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ChiDragon
USA
2870 Posts |
Posted - 04/04/2010 : 09:32:09 AM
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oh...well....Bao pu
Anybody can write a book about anything; as long the idea was written, somebody will believe it. IMO the meanings of the DDJ doesn't change regardless how many characters were used.
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CD speaks doesn't know.
TTC knows doesn't speak. |
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david
USA
1398 Posts |
Posted - 04/04/2010 : 10:24:22 AM
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| I have seen it referenced more than once: That LATER editors (as Bao Pu conjectured and Nina showed) sought to force some versions to 5000 characters and this lent towards describing it as the 5000 word text... this isn't about just some idea someone wrote, but references to versions and texts that later editors wanted to do. I wish I could find the reference I had before, since it went into more detail and cited the time period, etc. Sects will do many things which seem unnecessary.... even try to force a text to 5000 characters. Whatever turned them on... |
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Twinner
USA
322 Posts |
Posted - 04/05/2010 : 5:34:35 PM
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I've always thought Chapter One was very simply reminding us that although we can put a name to the Tao, at least those parts that we can see, there is more to it than meets the eye. Simply put...
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
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searching
United Kingdom
947 Posts |
Posted - 05/18/2010 : 04:04:18 AM
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 A very enlightening link from Bao Pu.
Thank you.
Helpful in more ways than one. |
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david
USA
1398 Posts |
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searching
United Kingdom
947 Posts |
Posted - 05/18/2010 : 3:09:48 PM
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Great!
Thanks David, much appreciated. |
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ChiDragon
USA
2870 Posts |
Posted - 07/18/2010 : 2:24:27 PM
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Chapter 1 -- Revised again due to more acknowledged.
1. Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao.
2. A name that can be named is not an eternal name.
3. Invisible was the name given to Tao at the origin of heaven and earth.
4. Visible was the name given to Tao as the mother of all things.
5. Hence, when Tao is always invisible, one would grok its quale.
6. When Tao is always visible, one would observe its limitation.
7 These two come from one origin but differ in name,
8. Both are regarded as fathomless; the most mysterious of the mysterious;
9. The gate of all changes.
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CD speaks doesn't know.
TTC knows doesn't speak. |
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lienshan
Denmark
659 Posts |
Posted - 07/27/2010 : 04:24:37 AM
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quote:
[i]Originally posted by ChiDragon[/i]
lienshan...
Where are the verbs in these two lines....???
If a comma was placed after the first character of these two lines, how would you translate them.
3. 無，名天地之始﹔
4. 有，名萬物之母。
3. wu2, ming2 tian1 di4 zhi1 shi3;
4. you3, ming2 wan4 wu4 zhi1 mu3.
If so, then the hypothetical chapter 1 edition looked like this (8 lines of 8 characters):
dao4 ye3 ke3 dao4 fei1 heng2 dao4ye3
ming2 ye3 ke3 ming2 fei1 heng2 ming2 ye3
wu2 ye3 ming2 tian1 di4 zhi1 shi3 ye3
you3 ye3 ming2 wan4 wu4 zhi1 mu3 ye3
gu4 heng2 wu2 yu4 yi3 guan1 qi2 miao4
heng2 you3 yu4 yi3 guan1 qi2 jiao3 ye3
liang3 zhe3 tong2 chu1 yi4 ming2 tong2 wei4
xuan2 zhi1 you4 xuan2 zhong4 miao4 zhi1 men2
The first character of each line make this line:
dao4 ming2 wu2, you3 gu4 heng2 liang3 xuan2
How would you translate them. |
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ChiDragon
USA
2870 Posts |
Posted - 07/27/2010 : 10:44:39 AM
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lienshan.....
Please do not contaminate this thread. Thank you....
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CD speaks doesn't know.
TTC knows doesn't speak. |
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Nina
USA
6402 Posts |
Posted - 07/27/2010 : 6:56:00 PM
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Don't be such a fuddy-duddy, CD.
Contamination? LOL
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Tao Te Ching, Chapter 1
