Among the foreign books that came to China, Buddhist classics took up the lion’s share. They were also the most influential. In the first and second century, Indian Buddhism was introduced to China through the Silk Road, so were Buddhist sutras. Since then, massive translations of Buddhist scriptures began and the exchange in publishing between China and foreign countries also boomed. Gradually Buddhist sutras became a major category in Chinese books. Translations were continuous from the third to the tenth century. In 971, the first Tripitaka in Chinese was printed, which included 1,076 Buddhist classics and 5,048 volumes. This project was repeated in the following dynasties. By 1738, with the completion of Emperor Qianlong’s version of Tripitaka (1,662 sections, 7,168 volumes), a total of 17 Chinese versions of Tripitaka were printed in ancient China.
The introduction of Buddhism had a huge impact on Chinese printing. First, it promoted the development of translation. Second, it gave full play to the role of printing. Third, Sanskrit texts printed on narrow traverse paper sheets inspired Chinese to move from the scroll-page format to album leaf format. Last but not least, Buddhism spread to Korea and Japan through China. Under Chinese influence, the former also engaged in massive printing of Buddhist scriptures, which promoted the development and exchange of culture and printing.
Books were not introduced to China until much later. Massive translation of these books did not start until the late sixteenth century when a group of European Catholic Jesuit missionaries began translations of their classics to preach. Between 1582 and 1757, over 500 missionaries came to China, and more than 70 participated in translation of over 400 books. Most of these books were on religion and the others on natural science and humanities.
The publication of Veritable Records of Catholic Saints by Italian Father Michele Ruggleri in Guangzhou, in the year 1584 marked the beginning of foreign publication. From 1605, Chinese scholar Xu Guangqi (1562–1633), working with Italian Father Matteo Ricci and others, translated over 10 scientific works. Though what Matteo Ricci and other missionaries wanted from translation was to preach, their efforts actually brought useful knowledge to China. For example, Original Geometry, a joint work by Ricci and Xu Guangqi, is one of the earliest Chinese translations of western natural science. On Optical Tubes, authored by J. A. Schall von Bell (1592–1666) was the first western book on optics introduced to China. Illustrated Explanation of the Entire World, written by Ferdinand Verbiest (1623–1688) and Atlas des Nations by Matteo Ricci opened the eyes of Chinese people to the world. Outline of the Human Body and Western Views of the Human Body translated by Johann Schreck (1576–1630) are among the earliest books on physiological anatomy that were introduced from Europe to China.
Bound by the Institute of Theology from the middle ages onwards, missionaries did not bring the most advanced ideas and science from Europe. However, they still introduced many fresh ideas to China. Unfortunately, in 1723 Emperor Yongzheng ordered all the western missionaries expelled from China, closing the door of western technical and scientific knowledge. For a long time, translation of these books came to a halt.
Intensive Exchange of Publishing between Home and Abroad in Modern Times
In the early years of 19th century, with the expansion of capitalism in China, western missionaries came to China again, bringing not only advanced printing machines to do publishing business, but also doing missionary works and introducing capitalism society through translating books. At that time, Chinese traditional publishing industry had declined and was left into the shade by western counterpart. Missionaries’ arrivals mark the new times of translation of western books and exchange between Chinese publishing industry and that of the west which took on new look and features after the 1840s just as follows:
1) Translation works were published in large scale. Through books especially translation works, western thoughts and cultures came into China in large scale, exerting profound influence to the society and culture of China. New translation works were the main publications of church, government and private publishing agency, and translation works with large amount, wide content and great influence became the most important publications in Chinese publishing industry. According to the statistics, during more than two hundred years from 1528 to 1757, the type of books translated by missionaries in church were more than 400; from 1850 to 1899, the type of translation works published in China reached 537; from 1902 to 1904, the type of translation works were 533 equal to the amount of that in the half of 19th century.
In addition, based on Chinese scholar Xiong Yuezhi’s statistics, from the first western book translated by Robert Morrison and published in China in 1811 to the end of governance of Qing Dynasty in 1911, 2,291 types of western books were translated and published in China during this period, which lead to the begin of the long-lasting movement of western learning spreading to the east. Centering on the subjects of “to know the world,” “enrich and strengthen the country,” “save the nation from doom and strive for its survival,” “democratic revolution,” “science and enlightenment,” this movement exerted profound influence to the transformation of society in China.