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周玖Translation of Science and Technology in Ancient China

周玖 Zhou Jiu Hunan Normal University，China

Abstract

Scientific and technological translation activities in China have a history of more than a thousand years. In the early period of translation of Buddhist scriptures, the astronomy, calendar and medicine of ancient India attached to Buddhist scriptures and the astronomy and mathematics of Arabia attached to Islam in the Sui and Tang dynasties constituted the first scientific and technological translation activities in China. With the arrival of Christian missionaries in China, Western science and technology was introduced into China. This paper will introduce the scientific and technological translations before the 16th century, the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, and the scientific and technological translation activities of the missionaries Matteo Ricci, Xu Guangqi. The impact of Western science on China's technological development and the significance of ancient Chinese scientific and technological books to human development will be discussed through the technological and cultural exchanges between China and other countries.

摘要

中国的科技翻译活动有一千多年的历史。在佛经翻译的早期，依附于佛教典籍的古印度的天文、历法和医学以及依附于伊斯兰教典籍的阿拉伯的天文和数学构成了中国最早的科技翻译活动。随着基督教传教士来到中国，西方的科学技术被引入中国。本文将介绍16世纪之前的科技翻译，明末清初的科技翻译，以及传教士利玛窦、徐光启的科技翻译活动。将通过中国与其他国家的科技文化交流，讨论西方科学对中国科技和文化发展的影响以及中国古代科技书籍对人类发展的意义。

Key words

Scientific and technological translation; scientific and technological exchange; influence

Introduction

Translation activities in China have a very early origin, as far back as the pre-Qin period, when the customs and languages of various tribes were different and the need for interaction led to the emergence of translation. Mr. Ji Xianlin once graphically pointed out that translation plays an important role in the process of cultural exchange: "If we take a river as an analogy, the long river of Chinese culture is full of water at times, but never dries up. The reason is that new water is injected.... The panacea for the longevity of Chinese culture is translation." Looking back at the history of translation today, there were about four times when it greatly contributed to the renewal of Chinese culture: the translation of Buddhist scriptures from the late Eastern Han Dynasty to the early Northern Song Dynasty, the translation of Western studies in the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties, the translation of Western studies from the Opium War to the May Fourth Movement, and the translation since the reform and opening up. The first two translation climaxes were closely related to the introduction of Buddhism and Catholicism respectively, in which the spread of religion played an important role as a catalyst, and can be said to be the unique translation period in the history of Chinese translation.

The Silk Road, as a channel of communication between the East and the West, played a significant role in contributing to the first two translation climaxes. Since the Silk Road was established by Zhang Qian in the Western Han Dynasty, this busy land route has become an important link between the East and the West, carrying not only precious goods from foreign lands, but also spreading culture and art. It was also through this road that Buddhism was introduced to China during the two Han dynasties. With the further opening of the Maritime Silk Road, China became more closely connected to the world, and 1000 years later Western missionaries landed from the southeast coast of China and formally introduced Catholicism to China. From this point of view, the Silk Road, as a major transportation route, was closely related to the introduction of two exotic religions. It is thanks to the tide of cultural interchange brought by the Silk Road that translation in China underwent the process of transmutation from initial awakening to budding and then maturity. This paper will introduce the scientific and technological translation before the 16th century and the late Ming and early Qing dynasties to recreate the history of ancient scientific and technological translation in China. Secondly, this paper selects Matteo Ricci and Xu Guangqi of the Ming Dynasty as representative figures of ancient scientific and technological translation and analyzes the importance of their translation activities to the development of science and technology in China and Western countries.

Scientific and Technical Translations Before the Sixteenth Century

The translation of scientific literature in ancient China began in the end of Han Dynasty, when foreign monks translated some ancient Indian literature on medicine, astronomy and arithmetic along with the Buddhist scriptures. However, unlike the collective translation method adopted in the translation of Buddhist sutras, the translation of these scientific literature was often done by the translating monks alone, and the contents translated were fragmentary and were subsidiary or by-products of the translation of Buddhist sutras rather than systematic introduction. According to some historical books and scattered records of Buddhist books, there were astronomical and calendrical books translated from ancient India in about the 2nd century AD. An Shigao, the originator of the translation of our Buddhist scriptures, is the earliest verifiable translator of astronomical and arithmetical texts. According to Dao An's Catalogue of the Comprehensive Scriptures, An Shigao's translation of the ārdūlakar·nāvadāna is the earliest translation of astronomy, which introduces the knowledge of astronomy in ancient India. His translation of Brahman's Algorithm is one of the earliest translations of mathematical works in China.(Newmark, 2001:134)

During the Wei-Jin North-South Period, Dharmarajiva translated the Brahmana Astronomy Sutra. In 541 A.D., Upas translated Mahāratna kūṭasūtra, which recorded the ancient Indian fractions. In 508 A.D., the monk Renamati translated Nāgārjuna bodhisattva, which is an ancient Indian pharmacological text. During the Sui and Tang dynasties, China's foreign exchanges were more frequent than ever before, and scientific and technological translations were more prosperous than in previous dynasties. The invention of engraving and printing in the 9th century A.D. also facilitated the production and dissemination of various texts. In 718 A.D, Gautama Siddhartha, an astronomer who came to China from India, translated the ancient Indian Jiuzhi Calendar, which introduced the ancient Indian algorithm characters, calendar degrees, the calculation of cumulative sun and small remainder, the position and movement of the sun and the moon, and the projection of solar and lunar eclipses, etc. It faithfully reflected the characteristics of Indian mathematical astronomy. It was included in the Kaiyuan Zhizhi (Vol. 104) and has been preserved to this day. The ancient Chinese numerals that appeared in China during the Song Dynasty were obviously influenced by the ancient Indian algorithmic symbols introduced in the Jiuzhi Calendar. This period also saw the translation of the Sutra by the Sanskrit monk Bukong, who came to China. Some translations of medical books were translated continuously during the Sui and Tang dynasties. Although these medical books have been scattered, Indian medicine undoubtedly influenced the medical texts of the Tang Dynasty, such as Wai-tai-mi-yao, Prescriptions Worth a Thousand Pieces of Gold for Emergencies, and Sun Simiao's Qianjin Yifang, which all contain many Indian medical components. In particular, ancient Indian ophthalmology was at the world's leading level at that time. There are many records of ancient Indian doctors treating eye diseases in Tang Dynasty literature, and even the poems of literati and bachelors have traces of ancient Indian ophthalmology treatment, such as the poem of the famous poet Liu Yuxi, "Presented to the Brahmin Monk, an Eye Doctor", which describes the scene of suffering from cataract."(Burke,2004:178)

The interaction between the Arab world and China became more and more frequent after the Tang Dynasty. In addition to the exchange of materials in trade and commerce, the influence of cultural exchanges was more profound, and Arab knowledge of astronomy, calendars and medicine was gradually introduced to China. The introduction of Arab religious books to China began in 632 AD. According to the historical records of the Tang Dynasty, in 651 A.D., Arabia sent an ambassador to China for the first time. Arabic medical prescriptions and medicines were already recorded in the medical dictionaries of the Tang Dynasty. Arab non-religious books first came to China during the reign of Emperor Song Renzong (1023-1063). At the beginning of the Song Dynasty, the Yingtian Calendar, which was compiled by the scholar Ma Yize and submitted by the Chinese official Wang Dune, who presided over the compilation, was based on the Arabic astronomical calculation data and attracted Arabic astronomical knowledge, using the Arabic calculation methods of solar and lunar eclipses and the five stars' travel degrees, and dividing each night into five shifts, which is said to be the beginning of the Chinese method of changing points. Our rule during the Yuan dynasty spanned Eurasia, and Genghis Khan's three western expeditions strengthened the scientific exchange between China and Arabia, after which the number of people who knew Arabic on Chinese territory increased dramatically, and the original language of Chinese scientific translations gradually changed from Sanskrit to Persian, which was used in the eastern part of Arabia at that time. It was in the 13th century that Arab non-religious books were introduced to China on a large scale. A number of Arab astronomers worked in the official institution of the Yuan dynasty, the Sitiantai (established in 1260). One of them, the astronomer Jamal al-Din, prepared the almanac based on the Arabic calendar, which was adopted by the Yuan government for 14 years and was later used as the basis for the chronological calendar prepared by the Chinese scholar Guo Shoujing. Zamaradin also made various astronomical instruments and brought the latest achievements of astronomy in the Arab world at that time, which was the first time that the knowledge of Arab "for the sphere" was introduced to China. The use of Arabic numerals in mathematics by the Chinese also began in the Yuan Dynasty. In terms of medicine, the rulers of the Yuan Dynasty organized the Arab doctors who were recaptured in the conquest to set up the "Hui Hui Medicine Institute", and at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, they also translated 36 volumes of "Hui Hui Medicine", which was engraved in the early Ming Dynasty. From the surviving remnants, this is a complete, comprehensive medical encyclopedia. In the early years of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang, the founder of the Ming Dynasty, summoned the Arab scholars who used to work in the Yuan Dynasty's Tienmin, and issued an edict to translate Arab books, including the Ming translation of the Tienmin and the Hui Hui Calendar.(Christopher,2021: 155)

Science and Technology Translation in the Late Ming and Early Qing dynasties

In the middle of the sixteenth century, the feudal society of Ming Dynasty turned from prosperity to decline. “The old agrarian culture was under attack; capitalism began to sprout; a new breed of industrialists and businessmen emerged. The citizen class represented the emerging power, demanding self-expression and eager for reform”. Some intellectuals began to reflect on traditional culture and were eager to understand the outside world. While the Reformation emerging in Europe seized most of the territory of Catholicism in Europe, so they began to expand their power to the East. In order to spread their religion, the Western missionaries tried hard to study Chinese culture and adopted culturally applicable strategies in the translation process, with flexible and reader-oriented translation methods. In terms of ideology and culture, they conformed to Chinese culture with Western culture and allowed the scholars to absorb Western culture without degrading Chinese culture, emphasizing the complementarity and consistency of Chinese and Western cultures to ensure that the Chinese could accept Western ideas and knowledge smoothly. Translation was a bridge for mutual communication between China and the West, and the late Ming and early Qing dynasties were characterized by scientific and technical translations, the second climax in the history of translation in China. (Wang, 2013:49-51)

According to statistics, "From 1582 to 1773, a total of 352 Western works were translated into China, including 71 in astronomy and 20 in mathematics”. When the Italian missionary Matteo Ricci first came to China in 1582, he found it difficult to preach in China because of the deep-rooted traditional thinking. The first president of the Jesuits in China, Matteo Ricci discovered the status and influence of the scholarly class in Chinese society and began to study the ancient Chinese scriptures and make friends with officials in order to facilitate travel to China and the construction of churches. In 1584, he hung up a map of the world in his church and named it Great Universal Geographic Map for public viewing. This was the first time that geography, a modern Western science, was introduced to China. In about 1605, Xu Guangqi wrote The Explanation of Great Universal Geographic Map, which was the first work of the Chinese to spread Western science. When the subjects of the great kingdom of heaven discovered that this great country actually occupied only a small part of the earth, you can imagine how much they were shocked. The Chinese scholars, such as Xu Guangqi and Li Zhizao, believed that translation could broaden the horizons of the nation. Therefore, it was necessary to introduce advanced Western science and technology into China, and they worked together with Western missionaries to translate and co-edit some works on natural sciences, and later on, many works on philosophical principles, scientific ideas and religious beliefs. (Zhao, 1998:33-37 )

The translation of the first scientific work is Ricci's dictation, Xu Guangqi's Euclid's Elements 6 volumes, which opened the climax of China's first scientific and technological translation. The book was completed at the beginning of the thirty-five-year calendar (1607) and was immediately imprinted. Mathematics is a basic science, because geometry is lacking in ancient Chinese arithmetic. Therefore it was first translated into Chinese. Xu Guangqi and others translated and studied Western scientific and technological works, participated in the compilation of the Chongzheng Almanac, and produced astronomical instruments such as the armillary sphere, telescope and so on. In 41 years (1613), Li Zhizao edited the arithmetic book, which he had studied and translated with Ricci, into the book Tongwen Suanzhi. Thus, Western science has been integrated with ancient Chinese science from the very beginning of its introduction.(Gillespie,2005:312)

In 1622, the German missionary Tang Ruowang, an expert in astronomy and almanac, arrived in China and worked with Xu Guangqi to set up an early cooperative variant of the "Calendar Bureau" in China. "But then Yang Tingjun and others called on the court to set up a more formal translation sentence, but due to the death of the Wanli Emperor and the tightening of the border war. The ambitious plan to systematically translate 7,000 Western scientific works afterwards also came to naught". But Xu Guangqi still organized a considerable number of Western calendar books through his work on calendar revision. In 1626, Tang Ruowang wrote The Theory of Telescope, introducing the optical principles, functions, production methods and usage of telescopes. Under the oral transmission of Deng Yuxuan, Wang Zheng wrote the book Yuanxi Qiqi Tushuo, which was the first mechanics book in China. The book describes the specific gravity, center of gravity bar and other methods and their usage. He also made some simple machines by himself. Xiong Sanbao translated the book Biao Dushuo, which described the theory of astronomy and the principles of measuring the twenty-four solar terms from a table. The missionaries Pang Di and Ejuelo wrote and drew The Theory of Overseas Map and Great Universal Geographic Map，which supplemented the introduction of geography. Long Huamin wrote Earthquake Interpretation, which describes the modern earthquake doctrine such as causes, grades, scope, size and time, and omens of earthquakes. Dictated by Tang Ruowang and written by Jiao Castellan, the book Huogong lveyao was translated, which contains the methods of casting, mounting and using artillery, as well as the methods of manufacturing bullets and mines. The work of transmitting the Western calendar began in 1629-the second year of Chongzhen. In 1635, the famous Chongzhen Calendar, which is about 1.8 million words, was completed. (Li, 2012: 88-90)

Soon after the introduction of this technological knowledge into China, the Ming Dynasty fell. In 1645, Tang Ruowang revised and added to the Chongzhen Calendar and presented it to the Qing court as the New Western Calendar. During the reign of Shunzhi, the missionary Mu Ni Ge taught the Na's logarithm, which was not long produced in the West. During the Kangxi period, Xue Fengzuo, who studied with Mu Ni Ge, compiled a book called Lixue Huitong, which included astronomy, arithmetic, physics and medicine. In addition, the missionary Nan Huairen made six kinds of astronomical measuring instruments and left behind the book Lingtai YiXiang ZhiTu to introduce the method of making them. The Kangxi Emperor also personally presided over the compilation of the Essence of Mathematics, and organized and led missionary Bai Jin and others to conduct the mapping of the whole country together with the relevant personnel in China, and compiled the Huangyu Quantu. (Xie, 2009:114)

This culmination of scientific and technological translations has promoted the development of science and technology in China. The introduction of this advanced Western knowledge opened the eyes of the Chinese and gave us a more correct and clear understanding of the world. The introduction of these advanced technologies also promoted the production and improvement of advanced scientific instruments. The climax of scientific and technological translation in this period opened up new ways for everyone to learn Western knowledge and promoted the progress and development of traditional Chinese technology and society as a whole. What’s more, this surge in scientific and technological translation also had a positive effect on the development of Chinese industrial civilization. These translated scientific and technological books broadened the Chinese people's horizons and enhanced their ability to transform society and nature, enabling them to create more efficient material and spiritual wealth and thus improve the material, spiritual and living standards of the people. These translations spread the ideas of materialism and dialectics, profoundly combating the ruling ideology of idealism of the time and further liberating the productive forces. The scientific and technological translations of this period not only injected fresh blood into the then “dead” China, but also laid the foundation and played a positive bridging role for the industrial revolution in later China.(Amos,1973:166)

Matteo Ricci

In the middle of the sixteenth century, the feudal society of the Ming Dynasty turned from prosperity to decline, and since the climax of the Northern Song Dynasty, the field of science and technology stagnated, which was the beginning of the sprouting of capitalism. In 1582, Matteo Ricci came to Macau with a Portuguese caravan, where he diligently studied the Chinese language and learned about Chinese customs, state systems and political organizations. In the eyes of the Chinese, China was the only country in the world worthy of praise: “As far as the greatness of the country, the advancement of its political system and its academic fame were concerned, the Chinese regarded all other nations not only as barbarians, but even as irrational animals. There is no other king, dynasty or culture in the world that is worth boasting about in the eyes of the Chinese” (He 1983:181) The Western missionaries, in their efforts to spread their religion, studied Chinese culture and adopted culturally applicable strategies in the translation process, which was flexible and reader-centered. “In terms of ideology and culture, they conformed to Chinese culture with Western culture and allowed the scholars to absorb Western culture without degrading Chinese culture, emphasizing the complementarity and consistency of Chinese and Western cultures to ensure that the Chinese could accept Western ideas and knowledge smoothly”(Xiong 1994:16).

The year 2021 marks the 420th anniversary of the settlement of the late Ming Jesuit Ricci in Beijing. He then managed to gain a foothold in the capital, establishing a church, "legitimizing Catholicism in China," and "pioneering the history of combining Chinese and Western translation and introduction of Western scientific and technical literature, as well as being the first to translate the Four Books: The Great Learning, The Doctrine of the Mean, The Confucian Analects and The Works of Mencius into Latin, opening the way for the introduction of Chinese texts to the West. He was also the first to translate the Four Books into Latin. And it was the first time that Chinese texts were introduced to the West. In the history of cultural exchange between China and the West, this is an event of great significance. Since entering China, Matteo Ricci adopted the strategy of attaching to Confucianism and complementing Confucianism, hoping to convert China to Jesus Christ through the adaptation of Catholicism to traditional Chinese culture. Ricci's friendly and tolerant attitude toward Confucianism made the spread of Catholicism at that time a success, and he himself won the eyes of some of the great scholars. “Ricci wrote a hundred aphorisms in Chinese about friendship from the Western philosophers he had read, had them embellished by Wang Kentang, and had them printed in Nanchang in 1595 under the title "On Friendship" and presented to the dignitaries of the time. This book contains the treatises on friendship from Plato's Rutgers, Aristotle's Ethics, Cicero's On Friendship, Montaigne's Essays, and Plutarch's Moral Theory”(Xie 2009:115). Some of them were also authored by Ricci himself. He maintained a friendly, tolerant and sincere attitude toward traditional Chinese culture and the Chinese people, and was therefore respected by some Confucian students as "Li Zi" or "Western Confucian", and many people were happy to make friends with him. In the following decade, Matteo Ricci laid the foundation for the spread of Christianity in China and objectively promoted a deep cultural dialogue and scientific and technological exchange between China and the West. Ricci's success was largely based on the "academic missionary" and "dumb missionary" methods, i.e., the translation and compilation of Western scientific and technical works and theological works to expand his influence and achieve the missionary purpose. The Western translation of the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, which began with Matteo Ricci, was the second high point in the history of translation in China. Although the impact of this translation on Chinese culture could not be compared with the translation of Buddhist scriptures, Chinese people learned directly from it for the first time about European scientific and technological knowledge such as mathematics, calendars, geography and arms manufacturing. This scientific and technological knowledge, especially the modern world concept, opened the eyes of some of the scholars, and the Western scientific thinking method began to influence our academia from both logical reasoning and empirical investigation. Matteo Ricci is the most influential figure in the history of cultural exchange between China and the West. Ricci is credited with pioneering the development of modern Western science and Catholicism in China. Ricci's map of the world, Great Universal Geographic Map, was engraved in 12 different editions from 1584 to the end of the Ming Dynasty. In order to illustrate the concept of the map, Matteo Ricci especially applied the cone projection to draw the equatorial north and south hemispheres on the map, indicating the circle of the earth, the north and south poles, the length of day and night north and south of the equator, and the five belts. The names of the five continents: Europa, Lemuria (Africa), Asia, North and South Asia, Murica, and Murray Mecca. He marked out more than thirty countries in Europe, and introduced North and South America, and made field measurements with modern scientific methods and instruments, and drew the latitude and longitude of eight cities in China: Beijing, Nanjing, Datong, Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Xi'an Taiyuan, Jinan. The concept of the five continents, the doctrine of the circle of the earth, and the division of the zones have all made important contributions to Chinese geography. Many of the translations of the names of countries and places on the five continents are still in use today. In addition, there are more than twenty Chinese works of Matteo Ricci, among which thirteen are included in the Siku Quanshu,and six in The History of Ming Dynasty. What’s more, there are also a number of series of books or individual collections in which Matteo Ricci's writings are collected, and he himself has been called "the first foreigner from whom Chinese people could learn from his Chinese writings”. Mr. Hushi also affirmed that "in the last three hundred years, Chinese thought and learning have all tended to be scientific in their precision and nuance .... All of them were influenced by Matteo Ricci's arrival in China". Mr. Fanghao also believed that "Matteo Ricci was the first person who bridged Chinese and Western cultures in the Ming Dynasty". Of course, Matteo Ricci's subjective intention was to preach, and what he imported was mainly Greek science, which was far from modern scientific theories and methods. But for the Chinese scholars, who lacked an axiomatic, systematic and symbolic scientific system, these scientific theories did have a liberating significance. Moreover, "when missionaries such as Matteo Ricci used science as a missionary tool, they not only aroused the interest of some of the scholars in Western science, but also to some extent satisfied the needs of some scholars and even the emperor. It was this relationship between the need and the wanted that made possible the peaceful dialogue between Chinese and Western civilizations, mediated by the missionaries and the scholars”（Cheng 2002:70-74).

Xu Guangqi

Xu Guangqi was an official in the late Ming Dynasty, a member of the scholarly class. This position gave Xu Guangqi early access to Western missionaries and to Western technology in the context of national development. Seeing that his country was in decline, that the gap between the East and the West was great, and that the "Heavenly Kingdom" was only an illusion, Xu Guangqi tried to revitalize his country by translating Western learning. He translated and compiled a series of Western academic works in many fields, including astronomy, mathematics, and water conservation. Wu Jin considers Xu Guangqi to be the first scientist to accept Western scientific knowledge and introduce it to the Chinese, and to be the pioneer and founder of Chinese science and technology. In 1593, Xu Guangqi, who was an official, began to communicate with missionaries, and his love for science and technology, coupled with his sense of crisis and national salvation after the contrast between the East and the West, actively cooperated with Matteo Ricci, who used "academic missionary", and they each took what they needed and began to translate and compile academic works. The two men began to translate and compile scholarly works. (Kelly,1979: 215)

The second culmination of translation in China shifted from Buddhist scripture translation to scientific and technical translation. At the end of the Ming Dynasty, Xu Guangqi's cooperation with the missionaries became an important driving force for this climax. According to A Brief History of Chinese and Western Translation edited by Xie Tianzhen, the works that Xu Guangqi translated and compiled with the missionaries mainly include: 1) Elements , in 1604, Xu Guangqi contacted Matteo Ricci and studied Elements with him, and the first six volumes were translated in 1607. Thus, Western geometry began to spread in China and became famous for centuries. 2) Water Conservation and Irrigation Methods in the West , which was translated by Xu Guangqi and Xiong Sanbao in 1612, mainly introduced Western water engineering and machinery. 3) Chongzhen Calendar, as early as the beginning of the 17th century, knowledgeable people wrote to request the revision of the calendar, and it was not until 1629 that Emperor Chongzhen decreed that Xu Guangqi and Li Zhizao and other knowledgeable people were ordered to revise the calendar and compile the astronomical calendar.(Zhu,2020:48-56)

Xu Guangqi had a far-sighted and strategic mind. As a proponent of Western learning in the late Ming Dynasty, Xu Guangqi's translation activities were inseparable from Catholicism. From his first acquaintance with Catholics in Shaozhou in 1595, he was formally baptized as a Catholic eight years later in 1603. It was during the exchange with Matteo Ricci and others that Xu Guangqi gradually learned about the basic situation of university education in the West and further realized the fundamental place of mathematics and science. So in the selection of the content of the translation, determined the Western mathematical and scientific classics as the first choice for translation. He believed that the Western mathematical theory was rigorous and had a certain logical system, which seemed to be useless but was actually the basis of all uses. Ancient China was an agricultural civilization, and when agriculture flourished, the country flourished. From Li Bing's construction of Dujiangyan, we can see the importance of agricultural water conservancy to the country and to the people. Xu Guangqi's strategic vision of translation went beyond the study and debate on the mere textual "translation techniques" of Buddhist scriptures translation, such as the "text-quality controversy" of the time. “Xu Guangqi's translations of Elements and The Celiang Fayi saved traditional Chinese mathematics, which was on the verge of extinction, and the people's attention and research on mathematics facilitated the transformation of China from classical to modern mathematics”(Li 2021:60-64). The social function of translation was highlighted in this culmination of translation, and Kong Deliang argues that "although it was not fully realized due to the time constraints, it became a turning point in the history of Chinese translation” (Kong, 2015:76-80).

In the midst of China's social transformation and the tide of Western learning, Xu Guangqi was involved in the translation and proofreading of Western scientific and technical books. He selectively filtered, absorbed, borrowed, digested and integrated Western learning to add fresh and heterogeneous elements to the ancient Chinese culture, in order to maintain the vitality of the local culture and promote the modern transformation of Chinese society in political, economic and cultural aspects. His translation statements are the grass-roots threads in the interpretation of the history of Chinese translation and thought, and they have been the pulse of Chinese thought since modern times. Xu Guangqi of the late Ming Dynasty was "the first person of distinction to expand the scope of translation from religion and literature to the field of natural science and technology", and he had "outstanding philosophical thinking ability", but unfortunately he did not "elaborate the theory of translation from a philosophical height" (Chen, F. K, 2010:55).

Conlusion

Before the sixteenth century, China had the most frequent cultural exchanges with Arabia and India. While promoting the spread of Buddhism in China, it also promoted the progress of astronomy, calendar and medicine in ancient China, and laid a solid foundation for the development of science and technology in ancient China. The climax of scientific and technological translation in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties pushed forward the development of modern science and technology in China, introduced advanced Western instruments, and set off a wave of learning Western science and technology for China. At the same time, the scientific and technological translations in the late Qing and early Ming dynasties also transformed the way of thinking and values of Chinese people, making China modernize its ideology. The missionary Matteo Ricci brought advanced Western science and technology to China, opening up the eyes of the Chinese people and promoting the development of traditional Chinese science and technology. The attention to and translation of traditional Chinese texts, triggered by the ancient Chinese scholar Xu Guangqi, went far beyond the confines of East Asia and created a craze for admiration in Western European countries as well, reflecting to a certain extent the breakthrough and growth of China's translation business.

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