Sun Tzu's Thirteen Chapters
Jan-Chih Wang1-932002-54-5
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PREFACE
Sun Tzu was the contemporary of Confucius (551-479 B.C.), the exact time of his life was unknown. Sun was his family name, and Wu was the given name. The word “Tzu” was used in ancient time to address a respected scholar-philosopher. He wrote a book of thirteen chapters, which has been called as Sun Tzu’s Thirteen Chapters, or simply Sun Tzu. It was mentioned in the History of Han [Dynasty], authored by Ban Gu (31-92 A.D.), as Sun Tzu Bing Fa (Sun Tzu’s Methods for Using Military Forces), which has been followed by most commentators of later times. It was during the time of Emperor Sheng Zong (r. 1068-1085) of Song Dynasty that Sun Tzu the man was venerated as Martial Sage, and the book as the Martial Classics. The book has been translated into English as Sun Tzu: the Art of War, or Sun Tzu’s Art of War. I have read twelve of them, and found a surprisingly large number of differences.
In the English language there are many words which have different and even opposite meanings: A man may run fast, he may also stand fast, and when he fasts, he does not eat or drink. In the Chinese language, there are a much greater number of similar cases. One paragraph in the text of Sun Tzu, when translated by Lionel Giles, it is “Do not swallow the bait offered by the enemy.” In another translation, it reads “Do not eat food for their soldiers.” Almost each of all the Chinese words may have several meanings. The appropriate one is dependent on its association with other word, phrase, sentence, paragraph, or even the context of the chapter. The world bing (兵) is probably one of the most widely used words in the Thirteen Chapters. At different places it may have more than ten meanings. (Please see Note I-1). But all through R. L. Wing’s translation, the only word he used is ‘strategy’. He made a very loose generalization of the Thirteen Chapters, while most other translators tried to make as close as they reasonably could to the appropriate meanings of those words.
Sun Tzu’s work cannot be treated the same way as I-Ching (易經) or Lao Tzu’s Tao Teh Ching (道德經) has been translated. Those books of philosophy are full of ambiguities, while Sun Tzu is a book of exactness intended to teach rulers and generals how to gain and safeguard the interests of their state. Throughout the Thirteen Chapters, the author put emphases in most exact terms such as: You must do this, and you must do that; do this you will win, and do that you will lose.
For various reasons, all the Chinese classics are terse and short. The full text of Sun Tzu has only 6028 words. And the total number of the Chinese characters in use is only 770. Among so many words, we find bing (兵) 64 times, the word sheng (勝, victory or triumph) 78 times, bi (必, must or certain) 47 times, not to mention those grammatical expletives such as 之，乎，也，者，etc., some of them may show more than 200 times. B. H. Liddell Hart said in his foreword to Samuel Griffith’s translation of Sun Tzu: The Art of War that “that one short book was embodied almost as much about the fundamentals of strategy and tactics as I had covered in more than twenty books.” Readers will realize how powerful those 770 words are, and how many different interpretations can each translator lead to. The ideas are so comprehensive and the text is so short. Naturally, the work of translating them must be handled with extreme care.
Furthermore, in the course of two millenniums, before or even after printing was invented, the Thirteen Chapters were copied by hand. Countless copies show numerous variations in the texts. Some of them were simply caused by copyist errors. Others might be influenced by the annotator’s political, social, and philosophical background. Another important factor was the progressive changes in the written language. During Sun Tzu’s time, the writing style of the Chinese language was the Great Seal. It was replaced by the Small Seal in the Third Century B.C. Today, only scholars of etymology and calligraphy have knowledge in these two types. Then, during the reign of the First Emperor of the Qin Dynasty (221-210 B.C.) the li (隸) or the Clerical Type was promulgated. This type was much easier to write and to read. In the following centuries it was gradually refined to become the Standard Style of today. Because of all these factors, numerous variations in the texts existed until about 1,000 years later the texts were collated into two groups in Song Dynasty (960-1276): the Martial Classics texts and the Eleven Commentators texts. Each of the two still contains differences. Then in later times, more and more scholars tried to make their own collations. Some of them were helpful in reducing the variations; others were contributing to the confusion. In order to make reasonable choices of words from varied texts, this translator has tried an approach by following the basic principles of Sun Tzu and by making cross-references from other parts of the book. For the convenience of so doing, the ancient non-paragraphed and un-punctuated texts of each chapter are arbitrarily separated in lines referred to as paragraphs which are marked by Arabic numerals, and Chapters by Roman numerals. For example, VII-13 indicates Chapter VII, Paragraph 13.
Between the two major sources, there are more than one hundred differences in the texts. Two thirds of them are minor, that do not differ in meaning, and thirty-five of them mean different ideas. Reasons for making the choice in this translation, are marked by **, and are explained in the Note section of each Chapter. The one * mark indicates note in general. After the notes, this translator has made a summary of his own reflections from reading of that chapter, with his humble hope that might bring up revealing comments and inspiring criticisms from readers, so that we all may learn more insights from this ancient work.
Finally, a note will be made on the spelling of proper nouns and those words that can hardly be translated into plain English language. For about the past two hundred years those spelling works have been gradually formed into certain systems, such as the Yale and the Wade systems. At present time, there are two widely used systems: one in Taiwan using the phonetic symbols; the other called the pin-yin system in China Mainland by taking the English alphabet and assigning the letters with sounds some similar and some different from English pronunciation to form its own alphabet for phonetic spelling. In this translation of Sun Tzu, the pin-yin system is followed.
However, in many of the Chinese books translated into Western languages since the Eighteenth Century, certain words, especially proper nouns, have become firmly used. For instance, Confucius in pin-yin would be Kong Fu Zi, Yellow River would be Huang He, and Sun Tzu would be Sun Zi. In this translation, some of the names are following the well established traditional usage, and others are following the pin-yin system, with the Chinese word follows in a bracket.
In a Chinese dictionary of collegiate level, it covers about 8,000 words. Chinese words are all of single syllable sound, and there are only 417 sounds. As one sound has four tones (different pitches), there are 1,668 tones, and each tone represents a number of words. Since 430 of the tones do not represent any word, the 8,000 words are represented by 1,238 tones. Take the sound wu for example, the first tone of wu has eight words; the second tone, 12; third, 14; and the fourth, 20. Wu (武) is the given name of Sun Tzu; it is also the name of the Wu (吳) State, and the family name of Wu (伍) Yuan who brought Sun Tzu to the King of Wu State. But in written Chinese, these three wu’s are different words. It is rather confusing for English readers. Hopefully, this brief explanation may render a little help.