Chinese translation theory was born out of contact with vassal states during the Zhou dynasty.
The Chinese classics contain various words meaning "interpreter; translator", for instance, sheren 舌人 (lit.
The Classic of Rites records four regional words: ji 寄 "send; entrust; rely on" for Dongyi 東夷 "Eastern Yi-barbarians", xiang 象 "be like; resemble; image" for Nanman 南蠻 "Southern Man-barbarians", didi 狄鞮 "Di-barbarian boots" for Xirong 西戎 "Western Rong-barbarians", and yi 譯 "translate; interpret" for Beidi 北狄 "Northern Di-barbarians".
To make what was in their minds apprehended, and to communicate their likings and desires, (there were officers),—in the east, called transmitters; in the south, representationists; in the west, Tî-tîs; and in the north, interpreters.
Zhi Qian (支謙)'s preface (序) is the first work whose purpose is to express an opinion about translation practice.
When Zhi Qian questioned the lack of elegance, another monk, named Vighna (維衹难), responded that the meaning of the Buddha should be translated simply, without loss, in an easy-to-understand manner: literary adornment is unnecessary.
All present concurred and quoted two traditional maxims: Laozi's "beautiful words are untrue, true words are not beautiful" and Confucius's "speech cannot be fully recorded by writing, and speech cannot fully capture meaning".
In the original there is attention to aesthetics, but the sense of beauty and the literary form (dependent on the particularities of Sanskrit) are lost in translation.
This is of course an important traditional concern whose locus classicus is the Confucian exhortation to “rectify names” (正名).
Xuanzang’s theory is the Five Untranslatables (五種不翻), or five instances where one should transliterate: Yan Fu is famous for his three-facet theory of translation; namely, faithfulness (信 xìn), be true to the original in spirit; expressiveness (達 dá), be accessible to the target reader; and elegance (雅 yǎ), be in the language the target reader accepts as being educated.
To fulfill this responsibility, the translator needs to meet standards of fidelity (忠實), smoothness (通順) and beauty.
Lu Xun's most famous dictum relating to translation is "I'd rather be faithful than smooth" (寧信而不順).
Zhu Guangqian wrote that fidelity in translation is the root which you can strive to approach but never reach.