Vol. 13:2 (2018) ► pp.317–336
The historical development of jiao 教 in Chinese and its impact on the concept of ‘religion’ in English scholarship
This article contends that the traditional Chinese concept of jiao (teaching) has, through translation, greatly influenced the conceptual development of ‘religion’ in English-language scholarship. The article first demonstrates how the historical development of jiao in Chinese reveals numerous previously neglected patterns of Chinese spirituality. Using Friedrich Schleiermacher’s and Max Müller’s viewpoints, the article suggests the significance of translation in redefining a concept via the particularity of foreign culture. It then examines how James Legge, Jan Jakob Maria de Groot, William Edward Soothill, Bertrand Russell, and Ernest Richard Hughes and K. Hughes redefine religion in their translations of jiao. Highlighting jiao and religion as fluid categories via scholars’ translations and debates, my article challenges simplistic assumptions about Western supremacy in Sino-Western acculturation. It affirms the traditions and translations of jiao as powerful agents for shaping and enriching the meanings and phenomena of religion in the globalizing dynamics of human cultural interactions.
Article outline
- Introduction
- Jiao 教: Rediscovering spiritual teachings in Chinese history
- The impact of jiao on the concept ‘religion’: A history of translation and conceptual development from Legge to the Hughes
- Redefining religion via “extensive contact with the foreign”: Theory of translation and comparative study of language and religion in the nineteenth century
- Conceptualizing and developing religion via translating jiao: The scholarship from Legge to the Hughes
- Conclusion
- Notes
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References
https://doi.org/10.1075/tis.00018.che
References
Note on references to early and dynastic Chinese sources:
References to the texts below are drawn from the database of Chinese Text Project 中國哲學書電子化計劃. 2006–present. Available at: ctext.org/zh.