Governance-oriented State Translation Program in the Yuan Dynasty

Abstract

ABSTRACT Translation among different ethnic languages has always played a political and cultural role throughout the history of China. Its importance can be comparable to the translation of the Buddhist Scriptures in the Tang and Song dynasties and, to a certain extent, it is deemed to surpass the scientific and technological translation wave in the late Ming and early Qing dynasty in terms of duration, number of participants, and number of translated works. However, it has not drawn much scholarly attention. The present paper aims to investigate translation among different ethnic languages in the Yuan dynasty from the standpoint of the ‘state translation program’. The analysis will be conducted, from four aspects, namely the nomination of translation officials, the selection of texts to be translated, the establishment of translation institutions at the national level, and the cultivation of translators. The results of our study show that the governors of the Yuan dynasty enhanced translation as a method of state governance by embedding translation officials in the administrative machinery, setting up cooperative state translation agencies, selecting materials to be translated and training national translators in a systematic manner.