Hu.Shu.[[A Chinese disciple who translates Sri Aurobindo into Chinese. ]] has written to me, and there was a sentence in his letter that brought a certain problem to my attention. He said, "I have done so many hours of translation - it's a mechanical task." I wondered what he meant by "mechanical task" because, as far as I am concerned, you can't translate unless you have the experience - if you start translating word for word, it no longer means anything at all. Unless you have the experience of what you translate, you can't translate it. Then I suddenly realized that the Chinese can't translate the way we do! In Chinese, each character represents an idea rather than a separate word; the basis is ideas, not words and their meanings, so translation must be a completely different kind of work for them. So I started identifying with Hu.Shu., to understand how he is translating Sri Aurobindo's Synthesis of Yoga into Chinese characters - he's had to find new characters! It was very interesting. He must have invented characters. Chinese characters are made up of root-signs, and the meaning changes according to the positions of the root-signs. Each root-sign can be simplified, depending on where it's placed in combination with other root-signs - at the top of the character, at the bottom, or to one side or the other. And so, finding the right combination for new ideas must be a fascinating task! (I don't know how many root-signs can be put in one character, but some characters are quite large and must contain a lot of them; as a matter of fact, I have been shown characters expressing new scientific discoveries, and they were very big.) But how interesting it must be to work with new ideas that way! And Hu.Shu. calls it a "mechanical task." The man's a genius!

And he has experiences, too. We've hardly ever spoken together, but I have seen some letters he wrote. To one person he said, "If you want the Taoist experience, all you have to do is come here and live at the Ashram - you will have the REALIZATION of Lao-Tse's philosophy."

He's a sage!


page 392 - Mother's Agenda , volume 3 , 30th Oct. 1962

(After a silence) There's a man ... First, there's our good S.H. [[A Chinese disciple. ]] here, but there's another man at Shantiniketan; I saw him, I know him, and he always said it was Sri Aurobindo's thought that could save China. But he came here because he wasn't a Communist and they filched all his goods - he gave them; when he was informed, he wrote [to the Chinese government] and told them, "I give them to you; you took them, but I give them to you." That was very good, very clever. So naturally, he is respected. But I don't think he can do much. But his own opinion is that it's only Sri Aurobindo's thought that can save China. China is extremely intellectual; if the Chinese intelligence were captured by Sri Aurobindo's thought, it would be ... That seems to be the sole, the only hope.

But Formosa [Taiwan], which is nothing, is wholly with us.

page 145 , Mother's Agenda , volume 10 , 19th April - 1969

(Mother gives "Transformation" flowers and slips one into her

buttonhole, then mentions again the translation of the

introduction of On the Way to Supermanhood.)

I also thought I would ask Shu-Hu to do it in Chinese. That would be good.

Shall I ask him for you?
Yes, tell him that I ask him to do it, if he wants to. If we could send it to China ... There's a Chinese in Santiniketan, but I am no longer in touch with him (he gave all his goods to Communist China, and he's staying there). He's a philosopher, a very intelligent man.... But anyway, for the translation it should be Shu-Hu.


page 344 - Mother's Agenda , volume 11 , 10th Oct. - 1970