Translation is an essential tool for promoting mutual understanding between the East and the West. A good translator not only renders the text into a form that is understandable to the recipient in a different culture, but also, at the same time, remains faithful to the original text. There are immense challenges related to the translation of Chinese classics into European languages. Perhaps the biggest one is related to philosophical and other concepts.

Any Chinese concept can be said to belong to several locutions at once. Rivalling schools may have used the same concept in order to advance very different ideas, and there have invariably been inconsistencies depending on the time and context of the semantics. Furthermore, the nature of concepts in China is peculiar. A Chinese word can function as a noun, an adjective, or a verb. Consequently, Chinese concepts are more like living organisms than static objects, the latter being usually the case in European languages. A Chinese concept is thus a creature of a different linguistic universe and also represents a separate ideational universe.

The question then arises: is it possible to move a Chinese concept into another thought system and yet retain its substance? We may think of deep-sea creatures that lose all their colour and shape when brought up to the surface. But perhaps one should look at the situation from a different angle and turn this challenge into an opportunity. Every translator reconstructs and refines the concepts, eventually bringing out new dimensions in them. By analysing a Chinese concept in our own ideational universe, we may thus be able to provide feedback back to the concept's home environment with regard to understanding and explicating its multifaceted nature.

For example, the central Confucian concept ren, 仁, is intuitively understood by all Chinese speakers. Any student of Chinese thought can certainly explain its meaning in a sophisticated manner. However, ren has been translated in widely varied ways. Many European translators, starting with James Legge and Richard Wilhelm, have resorted to using a different translation for ren in the Analects and in Mencius. Yet Confucius and Mencius lived only three generations apart. Zhu Xi's interpretation of the concept, one and a half millennia later, is again very different. The later interpretation became the most influential, and possibly the definitive one; yet it would be a mistake for a translator to see the early concept of ren exclusively through Zhu Xi's eyes.

When translating Confucian classics, as the Analects and Mencius, as well as selections of Xunzi, the Guodian corpus, and Neo-Confucian texts, into Finnish, alike other translators, I found it necessary to use different translations of ren in different contexts. In this process, I have developed the following understanding of the concept.

Among the earliest texts where we can find ren are two poems in the Odes. There, ren is paired with mei, 美, ‘handsome’, suggesting that the two terms are closely related in meaning; ren it is also used together with other ‘manly’ adjectives such as ‘willing’ (hao, 好), ‘gallant’ (wu, 武), ‘good-looking’ (quan, 鬈), and ‘able’ (cai, 偲). In the Analects, this physical ‘manliness’ of ren seems to have evolved into a mental quality. Hence, Legge chose to translate ren as ‘virtue’, Wilhelm as ‘Sittlichkeit’, and Arthur Waley as ‘Goodness’. My choice in Finnish was ‘kunniallisuus’ (honourability, respectability), which reflects my understanding of ren in the Analects as referring to exemplary conduct in accordance with the class values of the knight (shi, 士).

According to Analects VI.22, Confucius said: ‘The man of virtue makes exerting oneself (for the sake of his ruler) his first business, and (his personal) success only a subsequent consideration – this may be called virtue.’^{Footnote 1} The Master's utterance in XIII.19 is similar in spirit. When Fan Chi asked about virtue, the Master said: ‘Hold office with gravity, manage business with reverence, and with regard to the ruler, be loyal.’^{Footnote 2} In XII.1, the Master defines virtue as follows: ‘To subdue oneself and return to propriety’.^{Footnote 3} There are also other verses where ren is connected with li (禮), ‘propriety’ (III.2, VII.2). All these examples present ren as a requisite characteristic of a knight-official.

There are instances where ren seems to refer to ‘benevolence’ (VI.30) or ‘humanity’ (VI.26), the preferred choices of some translators (like D. C. Lau), who like to interpret the concept in similar ways in both the Analects and Mencius. Most strikingly, in XII.22 the Master states that ren means to ‘care about others’.^{Footnote 4} However, the ‘others’ – literally ‘man’ or ‘men’ – in the Analects more often than not refers to either one man, the ruler, or a special group of men, namely one's peers. When Zigong asks about becoming ren in XV.10, the Master advises him to make friends with the most virtuous knights.^{Footnote 5} Nonetheless, it must be admitted that using one single translation through the Analects is not unproblematic.

Joachim Reference Gentz, Hunter and KernGentz (2018: 122) claims that ‘we find no consistent meaning of the term ren, no common concept, idea, or even problem that would link these different propositions [in the Analects]’. While this view might appear somewhat exaggerated, a similar problem is present in the Mencius. In the latter work, however, the semantic field of the preferred choices for translating ren is comparatively narrow, ranging from benevolence (Legge, Lau, et al.) to Menschlichkeit and humanity (Wilhelm, Robert Eno). My solution was to render ren as ‘veljellisyys’ (‘fraternality’), as a term that seems to best encompass the different dimensions of ren in Mencius.

Among the texts of the Guodian corpus, there seems to emerge another root for ren than the one found in the Odes. The text entitled ‘The Way of Tang and Yu’ appears very ancient. It states: ‘Loving one's family but neglecting the worthy is (in accordance with) ren but it is not righteous. Respecting the worthy but discarding one's family is righteous but not (in accordance with) ren’.^{Footnote 6} Here I would translate ren as ‘heimoveljeys’ (‘kinship’).^{Footnote 7} Actually, following this ‘kinship root’ might help the reader understand the way in which ren is used in Mencius.

In Mencius, ren is repeatedly related to serving and loving one's parents (IV.A.27, VII.A.15), or even downright nepotism (V.A.3). Ren is also related to compassion (II.A.6, VI.A.6), and a ruler should manifest ren towards his subjects (III.A.3, IV.A.1). However, while one should treat the commoners in accordance with ren, a gentleman is not affectionate towards them (VII.A.45).^{Footnote 8} Furthermore, as well as propriety, respect and loyalty, ren is a virtue that is dependent on the mutual interchanges between oneself and one's peers (IV.B.28). In II.A.7, a man in possession of ren is compared to an archer who seeks to become as worthy as his peers. In that same verse, Mencius asks rhetorically whether an arrow maker has less ren than a maker of armours. One might assume that the answer is affirmative since arrows are meant to harm others, but Mencius thinks otherwise. From his point of view, what matters is to seek perfection in the spirit of a mutual aspiration for self-improvement.

I consider all of these usages of ren to refer to a comradely virtue, which we would associate, for example, with different fraternities. In accordance with the kinship root, ren involves compassion and affection, which begins with one's parents and then can be extended to one's peers. Its goal becomes to act as a glue binding together ‘the birds of a feather’ – the members of the knight class, such as Confucius and Mencius, striving to become gentlemen.

Returning once more to verse II.A.7, Mencius quotes a saying that he attributes to Confucius: ‘Ren is an honorary title conferred by Heaven.’^{Footnote 9} In other words, to be called ren has to be earned. As ‘Heaven does not speak’ and ‘sees through the eyes of the people’,^{Footnote 10} being conferred by Heaven means, in reality, approval by one's fellow men. In this regard, Gentz's argument as quoted above seems exaggerated as the manifestations of ren in both the Analects and Mencius are actually related. In both contexts, ren is a virtue of the knights, comparable in some respects to European ‘chivalry’. The same applies to Xunzi.

Both Mencius and Xunzi pair ren with ‘righteousness’ (yi, 義), a virtue that in Mencius usually refers to fair and correct conduct towards others, while in Xunzi it most often refers to what the society considers just and proper. This interpretation is reflected in Xunzi's usage of ren, which in my estimation tends to be closer to the Analects than to Mencius (my choice in Finnish is ‘kunnokkuus’, meaning ‘decorum’.) Nevertheless, this pairing emphasizes the nature of ren as a virtue that is related to the rules and values of one's class or the society at large.

Indeed, I would claim that it is only much later that ren acquires the universalistic flavour that justifies translating it as general ‘benevolence’ or ‘humanity’. In particular, this transformation becomes evident in the writings of some Neo-Confucian thinkers of the Song dynasty. They devoted their attention to cosmological questions such as the raison d’être, or principle, (li, 理) of all things and concepts. Zhang Zai (1020–1077) made a connection between the highest principle, the Heavenly principle, and ren. He stated that submitting to one's own desires would be violating the Heavenly principle, whereas a person acting in accordance with ren could maintain one's integrity and not violate it.^{Footnote 11} Moreover, he professed that ren gives form to all phenomena just as Heaven gives form to all things.^{Footnote 12} Zhu Xi (1130–1200), who understood ren as the inherent principle of one's heart, also linked ren to the ability to resist one's selfish desires and to communality.^{Footnote 13} He further defined ren as a blend of the four most important human virtues, namely ren itself, wisdom, righteousness, and propriety.^{Footnote 14} Seen through the Neo-Confucian lens, we are lead to regard ren not only as the ‘respectable’ core of human nature and the ‘fraternal’ basis of human society, if not of all humankind, but also as an essential property of the universe itself.

These musings above are the result of a translator's intuition, and thus may be of little or no interest to serious philological or philosophical studies of Confucianism. They may be helpful in another way, however. When translating and being faithful to the original texts, I see no way of escaping the fact that even early Confucianism was sexist, heteronormative, conservative, elitist, and undemocratic. Addressing these defects is fundamentally important if one wants European audiences to see the valuable and useful aspects of Confucian thought.

For Confucius, to redefine the word used for ‘prince’ (junzi 君子) as a qualitative title describing an enlightened, noble man, and to make that title free for everyone to pursue, was truly revolutionary. Today's students of Chinese thought may wonder what could be the modern, and even European, equivalent of the Confucian ‘gentleman’. I am now not referring to translations. Junzi has been translated as a ‘noble person’, with the aim of hiding the androcentrism of the original concept, but such practises are ahistorical. It is more important to see beyond words and think of the conceptualizations that the words express.

For the Confucians, to become a junzi was the goal of especially the shi, knights or later scholar-officials. They were literate, and they had the resources and ability to take an interest in society and the government. In today's democratic societies, all citizens, at least in theory, have the resources to be socially and politically engaged. Therefore, the equivalent of a gentleman is a good, or accomplished, citizen, while the opposite of a gentlemen, the ‘petty people’ (xiaoren, 小人), can be identified today among the supporters of populist parties.

Let us return to ren, and the definition that I consider most illuminating: it is an honorary title conferred by Heaven. Heaven, as stated earlier, actually refers to the people. Thus, ren is a civic virtue that may be possessed by someone who truly deserves to be called a junzi. If a good citizen is both honourable and fraternal, then he or she is following the Confucian Way. It is my humble wish that this kind of mental conceptualization, deriving from my attempts to translate Chinese terms into Finnish, may serve as a small example of the ways in which translations can prove to be fruitful for the task – today as urgent as ever – of building two-way bridges between ideas, cultures, and peoples.