A short list of Classical Chinese reading materials

[croptoptux]

[reposted from tumblr]

Disclaimer: I put this together from my notes rather quickly, and cannot swear by the quality of the links below.

Confucianism

Kongfuzi (Confucius) 孔夫子
《論語 - The Analects》
https://ctext.org/analects

Mengzi (Mencius) 孟子
https://ctext.org/mengzi

Daoism

Laozi 老子
《道德經 - Dao De Jing》
https://ctext.org/dao-de-jing

Zhuangzi 莊子
https://ctext.org/zhuangzi

Liezi 列子
https://archive.org/details/book-of-master-lie-lieh-tzu-thomas-cleary/mode/2up

Buddhism (esp. Chan Buddhism)

Tao Yuanming 陶淵明
《桃花源記 - The Peach Blossom Spring》
https://eastasiastudent.net/china/classical/tao-yuanming-taohua-yuan/

Su Shi 蘇軾
《赤壁賦 - Ode on the Red Cliff》
https://ajmccready.wordpress.com/2014/05/05/translation-su-shi-meditation-on-red-cliff/

Bai Juyi 白居易
《長恨歌- Song of Everlasting Regret》
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Translation:Song_of_Everlasting_Regret

Du Fu 杜甫
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Du_Fu
https://allpoetry.com/Du-Fu

Li Bai 李白
https://archive.org/stream/worksoflipochine00libauoft/worksoflipochine00libauoft_djvu.txt

Wang Wei 王維 (and Pei Di 裴迪)
《輞川集 - Wheel River Collection》
https://scholarworks.iu.edu/dspace/bitstream/handle/2022/23162/Bruneel_2018.pdf?sequence=1

Additional misc. collection of the above 4 poets
https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Chinese/AllwaterWangWei.php

Hanshan 寒山
https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Chinese/HanShan.php

Platform sutra
https://www.thezensite.com/ZenTeachings/Translations/PlatformSutra_DharmaJewel.pdf

Lotus sutra
http://www.pawhitney.com/LotusSutrax.pdf

Heart sutra
https://huntingtonarchive.org/resources/downloads/sutras/02Prajnaparamita/heartsutra.pdf

Comments

[croptoptux]

The absolute worst Daodejing commentary I found in the library is the Ursula K. Le Guinn one. I can't believe someone wasted paper on this. Her primary reference was the Paul Carus translation. If what Wikipedia says is true, that guy got heckled out of the profession!

[larryhammer]

I'm not looking at* her rendering (which she was at least honest about it not being a translation -- she did actual translations of other works and did indeed know the difference) but in the past I've found her commentary on it of some use, at least for conceptualizing.


* Especially not while still theoretically engaged in my own. Le Guin was a master wordsmith and I do not want to sound like her,** because I am not her.
** Unless I'm writing fiction, in which case I would love to have even a hundredth of her craft.