A fully annotated translation of the entire Sunzi Suanjing into English.
《孫子算經》, "Sun Tzŭ's Computational Classic", like the Sea Island Computational Classic, is one of the ten canon classics of Chinese mathematics. Probably written in the 3rd to 5th centuries AD, the reputed author Sun Tzŭ, or "Master Sun", is not the same one who wrote The Art of War (even though the characters are the same, 孫子).
In late April 2019, I set myself the task of translating the entire "Sun Tzŭ's Computational Classic" into English. Apparently this has been done before by Ang & Lam (see Fleeting Footsteps), but I have not read that translation, and probably never will because it is behind a paywall.
As of 23 November 2019, I finished a manuscript for the entire translation. Those were PDF scans of my handwritten translation scribblings, which do not contain edits and corrections I have made since.
As of 30 November 2022, I have finally typed up the translation in web (HTML) format here, after heavy revision of the 2019 manuscript. It took three and a half years not to actually type it up, but to be motivated enough to resume and persevere after taking breaks.
There are four versions which I refer to, with slight differences in wording between them:
Unless noted otherwise, I follow the text from Version D. The punctuation is olden-style 句讀 based on the modern punctuation in Version C.
The historic versions, A, B, and D, have no sectioning beyond strategic line breaks and indentation, usually for 答曰 "answer saith" and 術曰 "method saith". The splitting of each volume into numbered sections is an entirely modern editorial decision, and I have only done it to have smaller HTML pages (which load faster) and to make it easier to refer to specific parts of the text.
The following variant substitutions have been made:
| Variant character | Canonical substitute |
|---|---|
| 羣 | 群 |
| 氂 | 釐 |
| 歴 | 歷 |
| 卽 | 即 |
| 爲 | 為 |
| 㵎 | 澗 |
| 乗 | 乘 |
| 荅 | 答 |
| 竝 | 並 |
| 幷 | 并 |
| 羮 | 羹 |
| 帀 | 匝 |
Classical Chinese does not distinguish between mass and weight; nor is this a physics text in which the distinction is important. Therefore I will be using the two terms interchangeably.
Conway (2022). "Sun Tzŭ's Computational Classic". <https://yawnoc.github.io/sun-tzu/> Accessed yyyy-mm-dd.