A Study Of Buddhist Shanju Poetry

It is no doubt that Shanju poetry is one of the most usual and important Buddhist literature. A great deal of poems under the title "Shanju" are found in various existing Buddhism documents such as lamp records, recorded sayings, monks' biographies, notes, Chinese encyclopedias and monks' poetry collections. The number of Shanju poems is not under one thousand from Tang Dynasty to Ming Dynasty so as to Shanju Poems by Eminent Monks and the Continuation could be compiled and printed. This is a writing tradition of Chinese Zen monks which has already been forgotten by the academe, while its significance as religious literature should have our attention.This thesis aims to display such a special form of Buddhist literature by combing and studying Shanju poems and to appreciate the unique view of Buddhist poems in literary quotation, wording and phrasing, religious meaning, and humanism spirit.Chapter 1 explains that Shanju (mountain-life) is a tradition for Zen monks to cultivate themselves according to religious doctrines and it is significant in Buddhism. Sequestered environment and peaceful mountain life is propitious to monks' Zen experience and also can provide a shelter in troubled times.Chapters 2, 3, 4 and 5 open out the production of Shanju poems in Tang, Song, Yuan and Ming Dynasties. We can find that the person who initiated Buddhist Shanju poems is GuanXiu, but it is HanShan who really enlightened subsequent writers of such poems. Although HanShan's poems are all without title, they exert a subtle influence on production of Shanju poems afterward. The Shanju poems in Song Dynasty are most produced in the northern Song Dynasty, most of which describe the insipid mountain life and involve historic allusion rarely except YongMing YanShou. The Shanju poems in Yuan Dynasty are most produced in the middle and late Yuan Dynasty. Influenced by the ethos and Zen, these poems emphasize particularly on the discussion about history and realism, the pursuance to the ultimate life meaning and feature of dialectical thought. Meanwhile, this thought about life also influences the production of San Qu (non-dramatic songs) in Yuan Dynasty. The Shanju poems in Ming Dynasty are most produced in the late Ming Dynasty, with "Mozuo (sit in silence)" and "Wuzuo (sit erect)" as common words and emphasizing the pure and unworldly heart. Thus it can be seen that the development of Shanju poetry goes with the evolution of Zen thought and has close relation with the atmosphere of society and culture of the time.Chapter 6 sums up the theme types of Shanju poetry, including daily life, historic vicissitude, awakening experience, delight in mountain life. Shanju poems have different themes in different times. For example, Shanju poems often describe the daily life of monks as a result of influence by Hongzhou Zen in Song Dynasty, enhance reflective thoughts about social reality and historic vicissitude due to the influence of "true experience and actual realization" of Zen path in Yuan Dynasty, return to the pursuit for pure and still internal world in Ming Dynasty, and the theme of delight in mountain life runs through the production history of Shanju poems from Tang to Ming Dynasties.Chapter 7 discusses the religious spirits in Shanju poems: mindless freedom, extramundane loneliness, and eternal reclusion. That is to say, return to the inborn freedom of life beyond every oppression and bondage, proud loneliness beyond uproar after realizing ego and world, and reclusion indifferent to fame or lordliness. In fact, these just are the representative of traditional Zen spirits.