The Sun Zi is written in a style that is often highly abbreviated and elliptical. Both the subject and the object, as well as other parts of the sentence, may be omitted, and even whole clauses may be dispensed with. One may think of this style as telegraphic (or, in current terms, written as though for purposes of short text messaging [STM]), at times carried to an extreme, making the text extraordinarily terse and maddeningly obscure. Since all of these missing elements are essential in normal English both for grammatical reasons and for the reader to gain a full understanding of the purport of the Chinese text, I have silently added a word or two here and there. Occasionally, however, when I have provided intratextual amplification or clarification that exceeds more than two or three words, I generally signal these longer or more substantial additions in a note.
The chief principles adhered to in this translation are the following:
I. Being overly literal does not necessarily ensure accuracy. A frequently recurring expression in the Sun Zi is yong bing. Literally, in the narrowest, most primitive sense, it signifies “use weapon(s).” However, it never means that in the Sun Zi. Instead, it conveys the idea of “employ soldiers,” “conduct military operations,” “engage in warfare,” or “wage war” (I consistently render yong bing with the last English equivalent).
II. Do not be too free. This is the opposite of the previous principle. One of the most important terms for nearly all schools of early Chinese thought is dao (“way”; Mair 1990:132–33; Zhang 2002:11–26). For obviously ulterior purposes, some modern interpreters render dao as “God,” distorting the term so horrendously as to make it impossible to understand the ideas presented in the original texts where it occurs.
III. Be consistent, but not mechanically so. The same word in a given text may mean two or more very different things. For example, in the Sun Zi, xing can signify both “form(ation)” and “type (of terrain).” If one fails to distinguish the distinction between these two vital concepts, it would be impossible to make sense of the arguments that are put forward in the text. On the other hand, when the same term always conveys an identical meaning, there is no reason not to be consistent in the way one renders it, and there are many advantages to doing so. For instance, a characteristic structural feature of the Sun Zi is that its maxims are frequently loosely linked by the conjunction gu (“therefore”). Many translators, fearing that the monotony of this usage might lead to boredom, vary their renderings of gu as “hence,” “thus,” and so forth. In my estimation, by so doing they fail to convey to their readers both the rhetorical flavor and stylistic quality of the original text.
IV. Strive to convey a sense of the form and essence of the original. When one is reading a translation, one should be at least subliminally aware that one is encountering a text from another language and another culture, both of which have distinctive, quintessential features. To reduce them to something that is identical with an original text written in English is tantamount to having failed to convey the essential quality of the work being translated. This is not, however, to advocate exoticization, chinoiserie, or other such clumsy crudities. Rather, I believe that the translator should simply respect the text that he has undertaken to present in another language, and that he should do his utmost to honor its inmost nature.
V. A translation should be readable without recourse to notes or other supplementary material. The present translation is accompanied by an extensive introduction, numerous annotations, an appendix, and other supplementary materials. These are intended purely for enrichment and enhancement and to satisfy the curiosity of those who wish to go beyond the experience of reading the translation itself. No one should feel obliged to read all of the introductory and commentarial apparatus. For this policy to succeed, however, it is necessary to make slight adjustments and amplifications in the translation itself, so that there are no portions of it that remain opaque to the neophyte. When such adjustments and amplifications are significant, however, they should be signaled so that fidelity can be maintained.
The base text for this translation is Song ben shiyi jia zhu Sun Zi (Song edition of the Sun Zi with annotations by eleven commentators) (Zhonghua shuju Shanghai editorial office, 1961) as presented in Sun Zi bingfa xinzhu (Master Sun’s Military Methods, newly annotated) (for complete publication information see under Zhongguo Renmin Jiefang Jun in the bibliography). The Sun Zi bingfa xinzhu has been reprinted numerous times since the first edition of 1977, with well over half a million copies having been issued. This is an extremely handy edition of the Sun Zi, since it provides a reliable base text, significant variants (including those from recently discovered manuscripts), and a judicious combination of ancient and modern annotations, together with general discussions of the contents of each chapter. Two appendices are the so-called biography of Master Sun from Shi ji (The Grand Scribe’s Records) and the carefully edited bamboo-strip manuscript of the Sun Zi in thirteen fragmentary chapters (only the title of the tenth chapter survives), plus five other fragmentary chapters that are thought to be closely associated with the Sun Zi (three of the texts do mention a Master Sun [the first, the third, and the fifth], and two of them [the first and the last] also mention the king of Wu [specifically He Lu in the latter case], and it is possible that they are meant to be from the hand of the legendary Sun Wu). I have also consulted dozens of other commentaries, some of which are mentioned in the introduction or are listed in the bibliography.