Tangut Language “the Garden” To Sort Out And Research

The General’s Garden is an ancient Chinese military treatise about the principle on generalship,which was written by the famous Three Kingdoms Period military strategist Zhuge Liang.The book is not recorded prior to the Song Dynasty and the earliest surviving Mandarin editions date to the Ming Dynasty.In the Western Xia period,Tangut people translated large amounts of Chinese classics including the military text The General’s Garden to absorb advanced Chinese culture.Hence,the Tangut translation version of The General’s Garden is the earliest surviving edition collected from famous Black City and is currently held at the British Library in London.This thesis recorded and interpreted the whole text of the Tangut version of The General’s Garden and compared with the Chinese version to identify the meaning.By contrasting analysis,we found that Tangut version has its unique translation technique differs from the Confucian classics which interpreted the text word-for-word.The Tangut translator deliberately omitted several sections and recomposed the book.This thesis concluded two characteristics of the adaptation parts.Firstly,though there was no navy system in Western Xia period,they paid great attention to navy and naval battle.Secondly,Tangut people particularly valued military intelligence and military law system.