Howtranslatable are concepts across cultures? How do translated concepts interactwith the receiving culture's repertoire of concepts and influence itsprevailing mode of thinking? How do translated concepts, specifically concepts ofcategory of knowledge such as ‘science’, ‘philosophy’,‘religion’, etc., have an impact on the receiving culture'sexisting body of knowledge? This paper explores the above questions withreference to an anthology currently being compiled by the author, in Englishtranslation, of texts on Chinese thinking about translation. The initial titlewas ‘An anthology of Chinese translation theories: from ancient times tothe revolution of 1911’; this was changed to ‘An anthology of Chinesethought on translation’ before the present title, ‘An anthology ofChinese discourse on translation’, was adopted. By analysing, in aself-reflective manner, the decisions involved in the movement from‘theory’ to ‘thought’ to ‘discourse’, I hopeto throw some light on the epistemological impact produced by translated conceptsin the receiving culture. The impact is analysed in terms of the disciplining ofknowledge that could be effected by translated concepts—disciplining in thesense of organizing, ordering, hierarchizing, including/excluding,centring/decentring, aligning and re-aligning of material deemed toconstitute knowledge in the receiving culture, for the purpose of mono-culturalcross-cultural, or intercultural study. As the use of translated concepts (e.g.‘science’, ‘philosophy’, ‘religion’) to namebodies of knowledge in ancient China is a common, though not uncontroversialpractice, the issue of the disciplining of knowledge dealt with in this papershould be relevant not only to translation scholars but also to sinologists andChinese scholars the world over.