The Classics (LingShu)

[Guest guest]

At 11:42 AM 1/3/05 -0800, Z'ev wrote:

>

>Thomas,

> Paul Unschuld's Nan Jing would be a good investment. The material in

>the Jia yi jing/Systematic Classic of Acupuncture and Moxabustion is

>probably the best source of Ling Shu material in English at this point.

> You get get the classics such as the Ling Shu in French (Van Nghi

>version), but it will be translated to English in the spring 2005.

 

(Z'ev's message seems to imply there's no currently available LingShu in

English.)

 

The translation " Yellow Empero's [sic] Canon Internal Medicine " , by Andrew

and Nelson Wu (China Science & Technology Press, 1997 ISBN 7-5046-2231-1),

contains the LingShu, as well as the SuWen.

 

The translation is often wordier than the original, and I've found several

errors (in parts of the SuWen). Upside: it includes (intersperses it,

paragraphwise) the original Chinese text -- modernized form of

(simplified) characters. It purports to be the Bing Wang version.

 

Given dictionaries, and perhaps someone who can give one the pinyin/sound

of the characters, one can do analysis of the original text with this book.

 

It's informative to compare different translations (e.g. Ni's, Veith's and

Wu's of SuWen) with the original. The translations routinely involve

substantial 'interpretation', that is, they widely differ from each other,

reading different meanings into the (somewhat succinct and cryptic) original.

 

 

[Guest guest]

It is intersting that you should mention this.

 

When Paul Unschuld gave a seminar in San Diego two years ago, I brought

all of my available Su Wen and Ling Shu translations with me, from Ilza

Veith to Wu, including Henry Lu, Maoshing Ni, and others as well (one a

translation from a Korean version of the Ling Shu). All were fairly

obscure and very different. We went through all of them, comparing

each author's translation. Part of his seminar was given over to

making the point that without glossaries and voluminous commentaries,

that the text would be difficult to understand. One of the handouts

was several pages from his translation of the Su Wen with commentaries,

and I must say the difference in clarity of the text was like night and

day.

 

I didn't consider these translations to be of good enough quality to

recommend. However, as you note, this will depend on one's language

skills.

 

I remember getting the Wu version of " The Yellow Empero's Classic " . It

was said on the cover to be " Englished " instead of translated. A

suitable red flag for me as to the contents inside! (I can just hear

the comments: " you can't judge a book by looking at the cover " ).

 

 

 

On Jan 3, 2005, at 10:56 PM, wrote:

 

> (Z'ev's message seems to imply there's no currently available LingShu

> in

> English.)

>

> The translation " Yellow Empero's [sic] Canon Internal Medicine " , by

> Andrew

> and Nelson Wu (China Science & Technology Press, 1997 ISBN

> 7-5046-2231-1),

> contains the LingShu, as well as the SuWen.

>

> The translation is often wordier than the original, and I've found

> several

> errors (in parts of the SuWen). Upside: it includes (intersperses it,

> paragraphwise) the original Chinese text  -- modernized form of

> (simplified) characters. It purports to be the Bing Wang version.

>

> Given dictionaries, and perhaps someone who can give one the

> pinyin/sound

> of the characters, one can do analysis of the original text with this

> book.

>

> It's informative to compare different translations (e.g. Ni's,

> Veith's and

> Wu's of SuWen) with the original. The translations routinely involve

> substantial 'interpretation', that is, they widely differ from each

> other,

> reading different meanings into the (somewhat succinct and cryptic)

> original.

>

>