Items12The creator’s order
  1. 1XuanzangXuanzangBorn Apr 6, 602For the Cheng Weishi Lun, Xuanzang combined several Indian commentaries into one Chinese work. His student Kuiji later recalled suggesting that the team bring them together. That decision gave readers a way to approach the arguments in one text, with a scholar’s judgment about which interpretations…0
  2. 2KumārajīvaKumārajīvaThe Chinese Lotus Sutra associated with Kumarajiva became a text that readers across East Asia could study and recite. The sutra had already been translated into Chinese, so its reach also tells a story about the life a particular version can have after it leaves the translator’s hands.0
  3. 3Hunayn ibn IshaqHunayn ibn IshaqHunayn compared manuscripts when translating Galen. In his account of earlier versions, he also recorded who had translated what and into which language. Read about his circle to see why some Greek medical writing reached Arabic readers through Syriac and why a new translation could start with work…0
  4. 4Ibn al-Muqaffa'Ibn al-Muqaffa'The animal fables of Kalila and Dimna traveled from Indian sources through Middle Persian before Ibn al-Muqaffa brought them into Arabic. His version gave the two jackals new readers. Comparing surviving manuscripts also shows how hard it is to recover one translator’s wording after centuries of…0
  5. 5Gerard of CremonaGerard of CremonaGerard translated Ptolemy’s Almagest from Arabic into Latin in Toledo. For a Latin reader, the result made a major work of Greek astronomy available through an Arabic tradition. The route matters because translators were carrying a text already shaped by other scholars’ choices.0
  6. 6William TyndaleWilliam TyndaleTyndale translated the New Testament from Greek into English. Wording from his work and his Hebrew Bible translations later made its way into the King James Bible. It is a particularly clear example of a translator’s language reaching readers who may never see the earlier version it came from.0
  7. 7Martin LutherMartin LutherLuther began translating the New Testament into German at the Wartburg. An edition of his Bible preserved there also carries handwritten changes by Luther and his collaborators. Those marks make the translation look like work in progress, even after readers could buy it in print.0
  8. 8Émilie du ChâteletÉmilie du ChâteletBorn Dec 17, 1706Du Châtelet translated Newton’s Principia into French and wrote a commentary. Her treatment of the tides drew on Daniel Bernoulli’s work, and her discussion of the Earth’s shape drew on Clairaut. Those additions gave French readers a way to follow what other mathematicians had made of Newton’s…0
  9. 9Yan FuYan FuBorn Jan 8, 1854Yan Fu turned Thomas Huxley’s Evolution and Ethics into Tianyan lun for Chinese readers. Looking at how he handled passages about society makes clear that a translation can do more than introduce a text. It can make that text part of a debate the original author was never in.0
  10. 10Richard Wilhelm (sinologist)Richard Wilhelm (sinologist)Born May 10, 1873Wilhelm translated the I Ching from Chinese into German. Cary F. Baynes later used his version as the basis for an English translation. It is worth following both steps to see how a book can find a new readership through a translator working from an earlier translation.0