Glossary & Enlightenment

The translation has come to a hold for the moment because of the glossary of terms that is being compiled for those parts of the text we have already translated.

Compiling the glossary is kind of a drag for impatient people because one moves on very slowly. Each page contains important terms - which include not only nouns, but also verbs, which obviously were used in a fairly precise and consistent manner.

Besides providing linguistic consistency, the most important thing about the process of highlighting specific terms is that mistakes become visible. I have already found two rather heavy ones in the first pages of our translation.

This glossary will be a very important tool for approaching Ricci's Qiankun tiyi as well as the Chinese astronomical tradition before the publication of Tianwenlüe.