Chinese Works Not Translated

7/28/2019 Chinese Works Not Translated

1/14

2/3/13 Columbia College Today

www.college.columbia.edu/cct_archive/jan04/columbia250_2.php

Contact CCT Advertise with CCT University College Alumni Home

Provost Alan Brinkley

Columbia250:Save the Date!

Living Legaciesof ColumbiaCollege

Emanuel Ax '70Honored WithHamilton Medal

Dean's ScholarshipReception

Homecoming 2003rnold Beichman '34:

The Pen Is MightyKeeping Up With

Jones

round the QuadsBookshelf

First Person:A Young Lion'sYear inWashington

Letters to theEditor

ObituariesWithin the Family

Scott Sartiano '97

Previous || This Issue || Next

COLUMBIA'S 250TH ANNIVERSARY

An earlier issue of Living Legacies (Columbia magazine, Fall 2001)told the story of Columbias precocious start in Chinese and

Japanese studies at the turn of the 20th century. Thepost-WorldWar II incorporation of Asia in the Colleges Core Curriculum was

an equally unprecedented development, but a natural extension ofColumbias pre-warinitiatives in general education, anticipated in

the 1930s by founding fathers of Contemporary Civilization andHumanities like Harry J. Carman and Mark Van Doren. In this issue,

we lay out the new story of Asia in the Core in several dimensions,including curricular development, the philosophy and practice of

multicultural education and major contributions to the translationand publication of classic Asian texts.

Wm. Theodore de Bary 41, 48 A.M., 53 Ph.D., 94 D. Litt. (Hon.)For the Living Legacies Committee of Columbia250

DISPUTATIOUS LEARNING:ASIAN HUMANITIES AND CIVILIZATIONS AT

COLUMBIA

As Wm. Theodore de Bary 41 notes, Almost from the beginning,

proponents of the Core Curriculum were conscious of its initial

Western focus and anxious to extend its horizons.

The introductory Asian civilizations and humanities courses, which

are modeled on the Colleges signature Core courses in

Search ColumbiaCollege Today

Need Help?

CCT Home

This Issue

Previous Issue

CCT Masthead
http://www.college.columbia.edu/cct_archive/jan04/first.phphttp://www.college.columbia.edu/cct_archive/jan04/first.phphttp://www.college.columbia.edu/cct_archive/jan04/first.phphttp://www.college.columbia.edu/cct_archive/jan04/quads1.phphttp://www.college.columbia.edu/cct_archive/jan04/features5.phphttp://www.college.columbia.edu/cct_archive/jan04/features4.phphttp://www.college.columbia.edu/cct_archive/jan04/features3.phphttp://www.college.columbia.edu/cct_archive/jan04/features2.phphttp://www.college.columbia.edu/cct_archive/jan04/features1.phphttp://www.college.columbia.edu/cct_archive/jan04/features1.phphttp://www.college.columbia.edu/cct_archive/jan04/features1.phphttp://www.college.columbia.edu/cct_archive/jan04/columbia250_2.phphttp://www.college.columbia.edu/cct_archive/jan04/columbia250_2.phphttp://www.college.columbia.edu/cct_archive/jan04/cover.phphttp://usearch.cc.columbia.edu/help/http://document.seek1.submit%28%29/http://document.seek1.submit%28%29/http://www.college.columbia.edu/cct_archive/jan04/columbia250_1.phphttp://www.college.columbia.edu/cct_archive/jan04/http://www.college.columbia.edu/cct_archive/jan04/features1.phphttp://www.college.columbia.edu/cct_archive/jan04/http://www.college.columbia.edu/cct_archive/jan04/http://www.college.columbia.edu/cct_archive/jan04/http://www.college.columbia.edu/cct_archive/jan04/credits.phphttp://www.college.columbia.edu/cct_archive/jan04/credits.phphttp://www.college.columbia.edu/cct_archive/nov03/http://www.college.columbia.edu/cct_archive/jan04/http://www.college.columbia.edu/cct_archive/http://www.college.columbia.edu/cct_archive/http://usearch.cc.columbia.edu/help/http://document.seek1.submit%28%29/http://www.college.columbia.edu/cct_archive/jan04/features1.phphttp://www.college.columbia.edu/cct_archive/jan04/http://www.college.columbia.edu/cct_archive/jan04/columbia250_1.phphttp://www.college.columbia.edu/cct_archive/jan04/profiles1.phphttp://www.college.columbia.edu/cct_archive/jan04/family.phphttp://www.college.columbia.edu/cct_archive/jan04/obituaries.phphttp://www.college.columbia.edu/cct_archive/jan04/letterseditor.phphttp://www.college.columbia.edu/cct_archive/jan04/first.phphttp://www.college.columbia.edu/cct_archive/jan04/bookshelf1.phphttp://www.college.columbia.edu/cct_archive/jan04/quads1.phphttp://www.college.columbia.edu/cct_archive/jan04/features5.phphttp://www.college.columbia.edu/cct_archive/jan04/features4.phphttp://www.college.columbia.edu/cct_archive/jan04/features3.phphttp://www.college.columbia.edu/cct_archive/jan04/features2.phphttp://www.college.columbia.edu/cct_archive/jan04/features1.phphttp://www.college.columbia.edu/cct_archive/jan04/columbia250_2.phphttp://www.college.columbia.edu/cct_archive/jan04/columbia250_1.phphttp://www.college.columbia.edu/cct_archive/jan04/cover.phphttp://www.college.columbia.edu/cct_archive/jan04/http://www.college.columbia.edu/alumni/http://www.college.columbia.edu/index.phphttp://www.columbia.edu/http://www.college.columbia.edu/cct_archive/ads/index.phpmailto:[email protected]


2/14


www.college.columbia.edu/cct_archive/jan04/columbia250_2.php 2

Cores emphasis on reading primary texts discussed in small

classes, realized this ambition in an achievement that has

benefited not only Columbia but American higher education atlarge.

No one is better equipped to tell the story of Columbias Asian Core

courses than de Bary, John Mitchell Mason Professor of the

University and Provost Emeritus. A leading scholar of Asiancivilizations, de Bary, chair of Columbias Asian program since

1949, has published more than 25 books on Confuc ianism,Buddhism and other Asian traditions, and has been co-editor of

many of the volumes that now are used in Columbias Asian Corecourses, as well as on college campuses across the United States.

De Bary has received the Great Teacher Award (1969), the LionelTrilling Book Award (1983) and the Mark Van Doren Award for

Great Teaching (1987). He has been the director of the Heyman

Center for the Humanities since its inception. Most recently, deBary has written on civil society and human rights in Asia, with

many of these works translated and published in China, Japan andKorea.

By Wm. Theodore de Bary 41

Columbias course in Contemporary Civilization, begun in 1919, hadled the way to a new curriculum, and the parallel Humanities coursehad just been added in 1937, when Columbias teachers beganthinking about the inclusion of Asia in the Core Curriculum.Professor (and later dean of the College) Harry Carman (Americanhistory), Mark Van Doren and Raymond Weaver (English literature),Burdette Kinne (French), Moses Hadas (Greek and Latin) and JamesGutmann 18 and Charles Frankel (philosophy) were among thosewho foresaw this need as early as the mid-1930s.

Thus, like CC and Lit Hum, Columbias Asian Humanities andCivilizations courses were the outgrowth of an educational visionthat went beyond the academic specialties of its early proponents.These scholars thought of themselves as responsible, not only forscholarship in their own fields, but for the broader education ofyoung people at a formative stage in their lives as citizens andmore broadly as human beings.

Though Asia only came into focus for many with World War II,academias preoccupation with the war actually delayedimplementation of the early vision. Thus, it was only in 194849that Hadas and Herbert Deane 42 (political science) could give apilot Oriental Colloquium. That neither instructor was anOrientalist (or Asia spec ialist) demonstrates scholars willingnessin those days to venture beyond their own fields aventuresomeness already shown by the CC and Humanities staffs,

who were drawn from many fields.

College students in that experimental colloquium also were non-specialists. They included John Hollander 50, a poet and laterSterling Professor of English at Yale; John Rosenberg 50, laterTrent Professor of English and Comparative Literature; and JasonEpstein 49, who became a writer, editor and publisher at RandomHouse.

Change has been taking place all along, and if not all of it

has been for the good, by no means has all of it been forthe worse, either.


3/14



Professor Wm. Theodore de Bary '41 in the Starr East Asian Library.PHOTO: ARNOLD BROWNE '78

In 194950, Oriental Humanities (later called Asian Humanities)followed, and in 195051, Oriental Civilizations. TraditionalOrientalism, which had been dominated by language study on thegraduate level, was at a low ebb in those days, so the aims andmethods of the new program derived from the educat ionalphilosophy and practice of general education in the College, whichemphasized the reading and discussion of source materials in smallclasses. In the 1960s, Columbia added Asian Art Humanities andAsian Music Humanities, so that the Asian Core program included afull complement parallel the required Western Core courses.

While the number and variety of Asian Core courses grew, Columbiabegan to recruit and train additional staff so that the number of

sections could be increased. Militating against this, however, wasthe increasing trend toward academic specialization anddepartmentalization of instruction. Though designed along the linesof the Core Curriculum, the Asian courses lacked the staffnecessary to make them a required part of the Core. Without alarge pool of scholars, expansion of the staff and sections for theAsian program was limited and slow. Nevertheless, with the arrivalof Ainslie Embree in Indian studies, and the extension of theprogram at Barnard under John Meskill, gradual progress was made.Provost Jacques Barzun 27 and Deans Lawrence Chamberlain of theCollege and Millicent McIntosh of Barnard were instrumental insupporting these efforts. Barbara Miller, a Barnard student whocame up through the program, became a distinguished addition to

the staff in Sanskrit studies and contributed man translations and


4/14



The true greatness of

great books lies in

their pivotal quality their ability to focus onkey issues and expose

the mind to crucialalternatives.

Irene Bloom, who succeeded Meskill at Barnard, became a leader inthe joint Barnard-Columbia program after the 1990s.

The 1990s presented both fresh opportunities and more problems.One opportunity resulted from a recommendation of the Colleges1988 Commission on the Core Curriculum that all students satisfy aMajor Cultures requirement; that is, study outside the scope ofthe Western Core. Asian Civilizations and Humanities courses areamong the options offered. This, and the subsequent expansion ofthe College enrollment, have c reated greater demands for additional

sections of the basic Asian courses demands exceeding the staffavailability.

In response, the University Committee on Asia and the Middle East(successor to an earlier Committee on Oriental Studies) set up a1998 summer workshop to train graduate student preceptors andraised funds for two post-doctoral teaching fellowships. Thesehave enabled a few more sections, though far short of what isneeded.

The term general education, as itgained currency in the mid-20th century,originally referred to the reform of

university education, which had becomedominated by departmental specializationand by the elective system that lentitself to the same trend. The history ofthese movements tells us somethingabout why general education, whetheras a term or as a practice, is somewhatanachronistic and should be replaced

with core curriculum. At the same time, however, the recent riseof multicultural education underscores the need for equipping thatcentral core with multicultural dimensions.

The original educational challenge arose from the sense of bothcivilizational crisis and a new intellectual opportunity followingWorld War I. The great aim (or at least the great ideologicalslogan) of that war had been to make the world safe fordemocracy, yet the devastation of Western Europe, the high costto Britain and unsolved postwar problems left many people

wondering whether civilization itself, much less democracy, couldsurvive.

One response to these twin challenges was the development at theCollege of the War and Peace Issues course that addressed thecivilizational crisis against the background of historicaldevelopments that shaped the issues. (John Herman Randall 18sThe Making of the Modern Mind, a basic CC text in the 1920s and1930s that placed modern problems in a historical context, becamewidely used in courses modeled on CC that proliferated in Americancolleges.) Given the focus of the War and Peace Issues course oncontemporary problems in relation to basic civilizational values, it ishardly surprising that the course was rechristened ContemporaryCivilization. Moreover, with its hope and concern for theestablishment of a new world order based on the peacefulresolution of human problems, it is not stretching things to say thatthis central concern of the course was civility in its broadestsense.

The topical treatment, the concern for values and ideas, thecontemporary interest combined with historical background and,


5/14



a ove a , e use o c a eng ng source rea ngs as e as s orclass discussion became defining characteristics of ContemporaryCivilization. Another defining characteristic was that it wasrequired of all students, a break from the dominant elect ive system.

The justification was civic. Along with the inescapable trend towardacademic specialization, the College believed it should educatestudents to deal in an informed way with problems of contemporarysociety. Preparation for leadership and citizenship was undoubtedlyamong the courses aims, but the method of personal engagementwith urgent contemporary problems through active class discussion(rather than just lectures) was almost an end in itself. In otherwords, the discussion method promoted active civil discourse oncivility learning by doing.


6/14



A viable core can

Clockwise from top left: Moses Hadas, Herbert Deane '42, DonaldKeene '42 and Mark Van Doren.PHOTO, LOWER RIGHT: JOE PINEIRO

These shared moral and social concerns, along with a sense of

corporate responsibility, justified limiting students freedom ofelect ion while also, it is important to add, limiting the facultysfreedom to teach their own specialties. In the interests ofeducation, the faculty had to subordinate their personal researchinterests to the needs of a common curriculum, taught in a collegialfashion.

Subsequently, the idea of having a required core spread widely,but one hardly need mention today that the original sense ofcorporate responsibility and faculty esprit de corps has proveddifficult to sustain. Thus the true esprit de core has often beendissipated, and today core at many places means only what isrequired, though few remember why. Usually a core amounts

only to a distribution requirement at best a methodologicalsmorgasbord and not a genuinely collegial effort to bring a rangeof disciplines to focus on questions of common concern.

This is what happened at the University of Chicago and Harvard,both of which embraced the idea of general education in the 1930sand 1940s with much fanfare. At Chicago, the program wasidentified initially with the Great Books program promoted by Robert

Hutchins and Mortimer Adler 23, but with the Great Books programspun off as a separate adult education foundation, the Universityshifted to a divisional structure tailored more to traditionaldisciplinary groupings (humanities, social sciences, etc.) and acommon core became dissipated. At Harvard, the so-called general

education program quickly became departmentalized, and DeanHenry Rosovskys reforms did little to arrest a gradualfragmentation. In effect, academic specialization reasserted itselfat both schools, general education became converted intodistribution requirements and the idea of core concerns, key issuesand classic texts addressed by all students became less central.

In retrospect, one can see that the very generality and flexibility ofgeneral education bent too readily before academias centrifugaltendencies. From this one may draw an important lessonconcerning the concept of a core. Difficult though it is to sustainagainst academic departmentalization and specialization, a coregoes to the heart of the educational enterprise the notion of a

common humanity. Though a common humanity may itself be adifficult philosophical question, if it ceases to be a question and akey issue for shared discussion, we are in deep trouble, exposed tothe divisiveness of ethnic and political conflicts.

Pract ically speaking, this is the real problem fac ing the CoreCurriculum today, not the dead hand of Eurocentric tradition or thestolid resistance of a WASP establishment. For change has beentaking place all along, and if not all of it has been for the good, byno means has all of it been for the worse, either.

The first important change in theColumbia Core came in the 1930s withthe addition of the Humanities sequence,


7/14



past nor captive to the

preoccupations,pressures, or fashions

of the moment.

which consisted of the reading anddiscussion of major Western literary andphilosophical works as well as parallelcourses in art and music. There werealways more masterworks than could beincluded in any course, and more thanenough to command attention andprovoke argument. The important thing was to have a commonreading list, a shared discourse and collegial discussion. Thisongoing, open-ended dialogue between past and present is

sometimes referred to as The Great Conversation because thegreat minds speak to each other, comment on their forbears andargue with them. Another way of putting it, with more intellectualbite, is disputatious learning.

Both the original Core courses and the Asian courses modeled onthem make use of major works, not just to learn from the past butto put before students models that challenge, stretch the intellectand exercise the moral imagination. Thus, the true greatness ofgreat books, from this educational point of view, lies not in theirperfection but rather in their pivotal quality their ability to focuson key issues and expose the mind to crucial alternatives. Far fromsettling things, they are unsettling, always open to

reinterpretation. They encourage reflective thinking, criticalanalysis and the formulation of the students own arguments. The

canon (if such it be) and the questioning of it have proceededtogether. There should be questioning and something of value thathas stood the test of time, worthy of serious consideration.Contrary to a common academic conceit, questioning alone is notenough: questioning without affirmation is sterile; affirmation

without questioning can be stultifying.1

A core in this sense refers not just to content or canon but alsoto process and method to a well-tested body of challengingmaterial, cultivated habits of critical discourse and procedures for

re-examination and redefinition. A viable core can neither be slaveto the past nor captive to the preoccupations, pressures orfashions of the moment. It should serve rather to advancestudents intellectual growth and self-awareness, cultivate theirpowers of thought and expression, and prepare them to take aresponsible part in society. The focus has differed in the two kindsof courses: on society and civility in the Civilization courses, moreon the individual and on a shared, but at the same time diverse,humanity in the Humanities courses. In either case the method hasemphasized practice in civil discourse in a collegial setting.

Almost from the beginning, proponents of the Core Curriculum wereconscious of its initial Western focus and anxious to extend its

horizons. This consciousness is reflected in the title, Introductionto Contemporary Civilization in the West, and the original syllabusof the honors course, Classics of the Western World. West inthe original Core courses signified an acknowledgment ofinadequacy and limitation, not an affirmation of Eurocentrism. Andno sooner had the Humanities course been added to the Core in1937 than leaders of the movement (e.g., Carman and Gutmann,though neither was an Asianist) began to agitate and plan forcounterpart courses in Asian civilizations and humanities, whichwere added as soon as practicable after World War II.

West in the original core courses signified an

acknowledgment of inadequacy and limitation, not an
http://www.college.columbia.edu/cct_archive/jan04/columbia250_2.php#foot1


8/14



Almost all Asian classics

a rma on o urocen r sm.

Donald Keene '42 (left) and Burton Watson '50PHOTO: WILLIAM IRWIN/IRWINPHOTO.COM

The way in which this was done is highly significant for todaysdebate on multiculturalism. Its focus was on core concerns,humanity and civility, and the method of instruction put a premiumon collegial discussion (that is, civil discourse). It did not assumethe superiority of Western ways or values or the primacy of aEuropean canon, but rather acknowledged the presence of othermajor civilizations of great depth, complexity and longevity as wellas comparable discourses on perennial human concerns.

This assumption of parallel discourses had no difficulty gainingconfirmation from the Asian works themselves, but without a singleAsian tradition (in the sense of pan-Asian), some judgment hadto be exercised in identifying major traditions for a one-yearcourse; in our case, we identified Islamic, Indian (including bothBuddhist and Hindu), Chinese, Japanese and, later, Koreancivilizations. That judgment, however, was almost made for us,given our prior and most fundamental assumption concerning thenature of any tradition or canon: that it be self-defining and self-confirming. Thus it was not for us to find Asian counterparts toWestern classics but only to identify what Asians themselves hadrecognized as works commanding special respect, either throughenduring appeal or irrepressible challenge.

Within each major tradition, this is primarily an internal dialogue,independent of external involvement (except to the extent that,from at least the 17th century onward, many Western writers haveembraced what the Islamic, Indian, Chinese and Japanese traditionshave long esteemed). Thus, in the Islamic tradition, Al Ghazali andIbn Khaldun have based themselves on the Qurn and commented

on the great Sufis, while European writers since the Middle Agesalso have recognized the stature of Al Ghazali and, more recently,Ibn Khaldun. In the Indian tradition, the Upanishads and Ramayanatake up the discourse from the Vedas, the Gita from theUpanishads, and Shankara from both. And in China, Mencius drawson Confucius, Hsun Tzu comments on both Confucius and Mencius,the Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu confront the Confucians, and so on.Almost all Asian classics relate to each other as major players intheir own league, members (even if competitors) of their owndiscursive company.

Enough of the original discourse must bereproduced for this internal dialogue to


9/14



relate to each other asmajor players in their

own league, members(even if competitors) in

their own discursive

company.

The Asian Core Curriculum

By the late 1960s, with theaddition of courses in Asian ArtHumanities and Asian Music

Humanities, the Asian coreprogram included a fullcomplement of courses thatparallel the required WesternCore courses. Columbiastudents now have access to asequence of one-year coursesthat represent the four majorAsian traditions:

Introduction to Major Topicsin Asian Civilizations: the MiddleEast and India (Fall);Introduction to Major Topics inAsian Civilizations: East Asia(Spring).

Colloquium on Major Texts.Readings in translation anddiscussion of texts of MiddleEastern, Indian, Chinese andJapanese traditions. (This year-long course parallels LiteratureHumanities.)

Introduction to the Musics ofIndia and West Asia (Fall);

meaningfully. To recognize and judge theadequacy of one writers representationof another requires familiarity with theother. The same is true of the literary.Indeed, in any domain, the genre, voiceand medium of expression enters stronglyinto the judgment of what is a classic orcanonical.

The Asian Core includes courses in humanities, civilizations, music

and art, so Columbias overall program is less bibliocentric than thediscussion thus far might lead one to believe. But it is in thediscussion of classic texts that one can most easily observe thekind of internal give and take that should be incorporated in the

larger discussion of a core. Including one or two such Asian classicsin a world civilization, history or literature course is almost worsethan including nothing at all. It is tokenism, and even if such acourse is equally and uniformly sparing in its representation of allcultural artifacts, it is only tokenism on a grander and moredangerous scale. If ones initial framework is Western civilization orhumanities course, the addition of just one or two Islamic, Indian orChinese works will almost always be prejudicial, no matter how

innocently intended, for the work, bereft of context, will inevitablybe read in a Western frame of reference. Even if the instructorcompensates by lecturing about the breadth and variety of thenon-Western culture, the information still comes second-hand, andthe student must depend on the instructors word.

No one can prescribe a fixed orminimum number of classics forsuch a multicultural program.Nevertheless, one could offer asa rule of thumb that at least fiveor six such works are necessaryto establish the context of any

particular discourse, assumingthat the works are well chosenand suggest not only atraditions range of possibilitiesbut also how it has grown anddeveloped. For unless adiscourses cumulative nature its continuities, discontinuitiesand mature syntheses areadequately represented, areaders tendency is to seeindividual works as embodyingsome static cultural essence

rather than being landmarksalong the way.

In a multicultural education thatserves human commonality aswell as cultural diversity, bothcontent and method may vary. Acore program, however, shouldgive priority to the repossession(both sympathetic and critical)of a given societys main culturaltraditions, and then move on toa similar treatment of other


10/14



n ro uc on o e us cs oEast Asia and Southeast Asia(Spring).

Masterpieces of Islamic andIndian Art (Fall); Masterpiecesof Art in China, Japan andKorea (Spring).

Such a multicultural

perspec tive can then

.that time and resources allow, itwould consider still othercultures that, for a variety ofreasons, have not played such adominant role in world history sofar. (In the East Asian context, Iwould certainly point to Korea inthis respect.)

At least two other general principles seem applicable to thiseducational approach. One is that it is best, if possible, for theprocess to extend to more than one other culture, so that there isalways some cultural triangulation. Such a multicultural perspectivecan then predominate over simplistic we/they, self/other,East/West comparisons. Thus, Columbias Asian humanities courseincludes readings from several major Asian traditions, which allowsfor significant cross-cultural comparisons quite apart from thosestudents naturally make between their own and any single Asiantradition.

A second principle is that any such treatment should give priorityto identifying central concerns. I have suggested civility and

humanity (to which the common good or commonality couldwell be added) as basic categories or core concepts. A main reasonfor using original texts has been to proceed inductively to askwhat are the primary questions being addressed in each reading,what are the defining concepts and values, in what key terms areproximate and ultimate concerns expressed? Such questions maywell be open-ended, but at this stage of learning and forpurposes of cross-cultural discussion we should be looking for

centers of gravity, points of convergence, common denominators.2

Why? Because as a matter of educational coherence, it is best towork from some center, however tentatively constructed, to theouter reaches of human possibility. For purposes of establishing civildiscourse, some working consensus, initially t radition-based but

increasingly multicultural, is needed.

The priorities and sequence just proposed would, it seems to me,be applicable to almost any cultural situation. Other peoples settheir own priorities, so one naturally expects each tradition toconfront its own classics first, and then move on to ingest others.Indeed, one would concede this as of right that in Chinasschools, for instance, Chinese civilization would have priority; inIndia, Indian; and so forth. Starting from the premise that everyperson and people needs its own self respect, as well as a minimumof respect from others, each must have a proper self understanding to come to terms with its own past. This is essential not only toits own cultural health but to healthy relations all around.

The key to success in such an endeavor is how well one identifiescore human issues and how one selects texts that illuminate them.This requires constant reflect ion, re-examination and dialogueamong world traditions. But as each tradition participates in thismulticultural discourse, we can hope to expand gradually thehorizons of civil discourse and the scope of shared values, whichwill be key to the solution of our common global concerns about theenvironment, human rights and world peace.

Translation has been an issue for theCore Curriculum from the beginning,whether the works translated were

referred to as classics, important
http://www.college.columbia.edu/cct_archive/jan04/columbia250_2.php#foot2


11/14



simplistic we/they,self/other, East/West

comparisons.

Readings in Asian Humanitiesand Civilizations

A main feature of ContemporaryCivilization and the Humanitiescourses is the reading anddiscussion of source materials.

To provide these for the majorAsian traditions was achallenge, eventually met bymyself (the chair of theprogram) and collaborators intwo book series: a Sourcesseries (for use in AsianCivilizations courses) andTranslations from the AsianClassics (for Asian Humanitiescourses), all published byColumbia University Press.

books, Great Books, or major texts.Under whatever rubric they were offered,these books, it was said, were ones anyeducated person ought to have read

as if what it meant to be educatedcould be taken for granted in those days,even though education itself was undergoing rapid change.

In the early 20th century, the elimination of Western classical

languages Greek, Latin and Hebrew from college requirementswas followed by a widespread desire to continue reading of theclassics, st ill thought essential for educated gentlemen, intranslation. When this change occurred, defenders of the classicallanguages objected that something would inevitably be lost if theclassics were not read in the original. That there would indeed besome loss could hardly be doubted, but John Erskine (Class of1900), an early proponent of reading the classics in translation,didnt consider the loss overwhelming. How many people read theBible in the original? he asked.

Indeed, Mark Van Doren, who subsequently became a leadingproponent of the Humanities curriculum, insisted that one test of areal classic was that it could survive translation. He meant, ofcourse, that such a work dealt importantly with issues, concernsand values so pertinent to, and so perennial in, human life that anywork addressing them in a challenging way would not becomeobsolete. This is true of Latin and Greek classics translated intoEnglish, French or German, and it is no less true of the quick ascentand commanding position of Shakespeare in non-English literaturesand cultures.

Nor is this true only of the West. Classics of several Asiantraditions have survived translation within Asia. Chinese workstranslated into Korean and Japanese have become accepted asclassics in their adoptive lands, just as Greek and Latin worksbecame classics within many European cultures. The same, of

course, has been true of Indian works translated into South andEast Asian languages and, now, Western works esteemed asclassics in Asia.

To say this, however, is not todismiss translation as a minorissue. The standing of classics inone tradition may compel ourattention, but the availabilityand quality of translations hasclearly influenced Humanitiescourses. To a degree greaterthan most people today are

aware, enough had beentranslated from Asian languagesso that major works, alreadywell-known in 19th- and early20th-century West, had longsince challenged Westernthinkers.

Nevertheless, Asian translationswere not complete orsatisfactory for the purposes ofgeneral education when AsianHumanities and Civilizations was


12/14



Sources of Japanese Tradition

(1958, revised 2001), TheSources of Chinese Tradition(1960, revised 1999), TheSources of Indian Tradition(1958, revised 1988) and TheSources of Korean Tradition

(1997). These two-volume sets,originally intended for Columbia

students, now are used oncampuses across the UnitedStates and abroad; they areamong the longest and best-selling titles in the ColumbiaUniversity Press catalogue. Inthe 1990s, the Committee onAsia and the Middle East(successor to an earlierCommittee on Oriental Studies)began a major revision andexpansion of all eight volumes ofthe Sources series, includingthe two on the Korean tradition.

With assistance from theCarnegie Corporation and in the1960s from the United StatesOffice of Education, theTranslations series wereexpanded, so that to date morethan 150 titles have beenpublished for use in generaleducat ion on Asia. DonaldKeene 42 and Burton Watson50 were major contributors tothis effort.

An essential part of the AsianHumanities and Civilizationsinstructional program from itsinception has been thecommittees publicat ion oftranslations and teaching aidsconducted under the directionof its Publication Committee.Royalties from the Sources andTranslations series have beenreturned to the Oriental StudiesFund, which has continued to

support publications of use tothe teaching of Asia in the CoreCurriculum.

.Enough good translations wereavailable to launch a worthwhileprogram, but there were manygaps. A major problem also facedthe extension of the programbeyond a select few in an honorscolloquium the lack ofaccessible translations, notheavily burdened with scholarly

annotation, that were suited tothe general reader.

Fortunately, help wasforthcoming from young scholarswhose translations were toestablish a new standard, notonly for scholarly excellence butalso for accessibility. First,Donald Keene 42 compiled his

Anthology of Japanese Literature

(1955), which made Japaneseclassic writings available in aconvenient, low cost form, albeitat the cost of abridgement ofworks better read in whole.Keene later made up for thislimitation by translating wholeworks only partly translated intheAnthology. Most notable hasbeen his translation of KenksTsurezuregusa, published asEssays in Idleness in theTranslations from the OrientalClassics series, which waslaunched specifically to meet theneeds of the Asian Humanitiescourse. Next came his translationofMajor Plays of Chikamatsu,and subsequently the dramaChshingura. With follow-upwork from Keenes students,Royall Tyler and Karen Brazell,Keenes translations of N playsin hisAnthologyhave beensubstantially supplemented bycompetent, inexpensivepaperback translations. IvanMorris, before his untimely deatha teacher of Asian Humanities,translated the Pillow Bookof SeiShnagon, a Japanese classiconly excerpted in KeenesAnthology. These translationshave become standard works

and virtual classics of the translators art.

Although many Chinese classics already had been translated, mostnotably by James Legge and Arthur Waley, and were indispensableto the Asian Core program, many other Chinese classics remainedeither untranslated or unavailable in a form suitable for students. Inresponse, Burton Watson 50s translations of Chinese classics

conve the diversit and ran e of the Chinese and what


13/14



Questioning without

affirmation is sterile;affirmation without

questioning can bestultifying.

subsequently became the East Asian tradition. Watsons earlyversions of alternative ancient Chinese classics Mo Zi (Mo Tzu),Xun Zi (Hsn Tzu), Zhuang Zi (Chuang Tzu), and Han Feizi quickly made available in paperback by Columbia University Press,became standard items on Humanities reading lists, and indeed seta new standard for Chinese translations for the general reader.Watsons translating range, versatility and virtuosity also wasapparent in his renderings of the Records of the Grand Historian bySima Qian (Ssu-ma Chien), the Vimalakirtiand Lotus sutras, andhis anthology, the Columbia Book of Chinese Poetry all of which

made their way on to the Asian Humanities reading list.

The biggest translating challenge came with the Neo-Confuciantradition, which was a response to the challenge of Buddhism andDaoism. The key texts are mostly the commentaries of Zhu Xi (ChuHsi) on the Confucian classics, and commentaries often are farmore difficult reading than the original works. For this reason, manyinstructors avoid the Neo-Confucian texts in favor of more literaryworks (of which there is an almost unlimited supply). But theseNeo-Confucian texts were the operative classics that shapedintellectual and ethical traditions of China, Japan and Korea fromthe 13th to the 20th centuries, and avoiding them is like ignoringeverything in the West after Dante.

A similar problem presented itself withmedieval Islamic and Indian traditions. Itis not an easy dilemma to resolve,considering, for example, the lack of asuitable translation of Shankara-charyascommentaries on the Brahma Sutras. Tosome extent, excerpts can address thisdeficiency. Students have access toShankara in the Sources of IndianTradition, and to Zhu Xi in new translations included in the secondedition of the Sources of Chinese Tradition. Still this is acompromise better than nothing but less than satisfactory.

The Asian Core program has produced a major translator of Indianthought and literature. Barbara Miller, who began as a Barnardundergraduate taking Oriental Humanities, went on into graduatestudies in Sanskrit. She composed accessible translations of theBhagavad Gita, the Shakuntala of Kalidasa, The Love Song of theDark Lord (Gita Govinda) and the lyric poetry of Bhartrihari. Beforeher premature death, Barbara established herself as not only aprime contributor to the Asian Humanities program but also aleading figure in Indian and Sanskrit studies.

Thus, while an Asian Humanities program can rely on the inherentgreatness of certain works recognized as classics, still their ability

to survive translation (in Van Dorens terms) depends on havingskilled translators able to convey their contents in terms meaningful

enough to new audiences in changing times and different cultures.

Yet, there will never come a time when all translation is finished forall eligible texts, since there will never be a complete, definitive andfinal rendering of the original meaning of such texts. Dealing asthey do with pivotal issues, subject to different interpretations,and expressing themselves in highly suggestive, expandable ways,these works may always be brought to life in new renderings.Readers who wonder how much of a gap may exist between theoriginal and translation can look at alternative translations to get asense of common ground and lines of difference. They have


14/14


recourse, too, to scholarly expertise, but since specialists differamong themselves as much as translations do, this is not a perfectsolution.

It remains true, however, that, though any translator is welcome totake up the challenge and offer his own interpretation, not alltranslations meet the need equally well. We in the Asian Core cancount ourselves fortunate in having had an especially able group oftranslators, whose great translations almost match the great worksthemselves.

Footnotes:

1 See Eastern Canons: Approaches to the Asian Classics,editedby Wm. Theodore de Bary and Irene Bloom (New York: ColumbiaUniversity Press, 1990), pp. 25-26. [back]

2 See the topics for discussion suggested for each major workincluded in the Guide to the Asian Classics,3rd edition (New York:Columbia University Press, 1989). [back]

Previous || This Issue || Next
http://www.college.columbia.edu/cct_archive/jan04/features1.phphttp://www.college.columbia.edu/cct_archive/jan04/http://www.college.columbia.edu/cct_archive/jan04/columbia250_1.phphttp://www.college.columbia.edu/cct_archive/jan04/columbia250_2.php#ref2http://www.college.columbia.edu/cct_archive/jan04/columbia250_2.php#ref1

Documents

Chinese Works Not Translated