Deqing and Daoism: A View of Dialogue and Translation from Late Ming China

Any dialogue conducted via mutually unintelligible languages constitutes no more than a dialogue of the deaf. Yet intelligibility in dialogue at the most basic linguistic level seems to have provoked little extended discussion in China, even though in practice getting one’s ideas across was plainly a major concern, in the late Ming period (1368-1644). Whilst Buddhists of the period had ceased in any real sense to act as translators of fresh Buddhist materials into Chinese from other languages, we do find an essayist with things to say about translation. This was Hanshan Deqing (1546–1623), a major Buddhist monk of the age. Yet his essays are not readily to be found in his Buddhist writings, but in the preface to his annotations to the Daoist classic Daode jing. It is therefore within the context of dialogue with another rival tradition that his remarks were made, and so they have a particular relevance for those with an interest in the conduct of inter-religious dialogue in the Chinese tradition.