On The Relationship Between The Buddhist Philosophy And The Literary Theory Of The Six Dynasties

This thesis deals with the relations between the Buddhist philosophy and the literary theories in the Six Dynasties. It explores the subject from three angles:the ontology of literature; the methodology of literary criticism; the theories about creative writing.The thesis divides itself into three parts:the introduction, the main body and the conclusion. The introduction part explains the sphere of the research, the circumstances of the research, the importance of advancing the research and the analytic methods adopted by the author.Chapter one outlines the relationship between Buddhism and ancient Chinese literature. This relationship is manifested in three respects:(1) The relationship between the literariness of Buddhist sutras and the ancient Chinese literature;(2) The influence of Buddhism on the forms of ancient Chinese literary and art;(3) The influence of Buddhist philosophy on the creative writing and literary theories of ancient Chinese literature. This research focuses on the influence of Buddhist philosophy (other than Buddhism) on the literary theories in the Six Dynasties.Chapter two discusses the relationship between the Buddhist concepts about nirvana and human spontaneity ("xing ling") and the ontological view of literature generally held by the men of letters in the Six Dynasties. It traces the phrase "xing ling" back in the Buddhist sutras, analyses the implications and uses of the phrase in Wen Xin Diao Long and Shi Pin, and proposes that this phrase as is used in Wen Xin Diao Long has ontological meaning, and that the same phrase in Shi Pin is endowed with rich poetic significance. Moreover, based on Wang Yun’s "sing out xing ling", Yao Cha’s "ignite xing ling", and Yan Zhitui’s "draw out xing ling", the author of this thesis affirms that "xing ling" is a phrase expressive of literary ontology in the Six Dynasties.Chapter three probes the relationship between the Prajna theory as well as the Middle Mean thought and the literary critic methodology in the Six Dynasties. It first explains the Prajna theory represented by Seng Zhao and the related concept of the Middle Mean; further, it delineated the importance of these conceptions concerning the study of the "image"(yi xiang) in the contexts of the Buddhist Aesthetics and the Classical Poetics of China; finally, it exposes the intrinsic influences that the Middle Mean thought has on the idea of "nature", the unification of word and subject and the unification of activeness and passiveness.Chapter four discusses the concepts of nirvana, voidness-stillness and dharmakaya and their existence in the writing theories in the Six Dynasties. Concretely, it illustrated the Buddhist concepts of voidness-stillness and dharmakaya and their relationship with literary imagination; analyzes how Hui Yuan’s understanding of dharmakaya affects his literary writing, and how his theory about imagination may have affects the chapter of "Shen Si" in Wen Xin Diao Long; it also make a preliminary exploration into the view of dharmakaya held by Zong Bing and Xiao Tong and its relationship with their literary creation and their literary and artistic theories.Chapter5deals with the influences that the Buddhist philosophy and its related literary theories in the Six Dynasties have on the literary theories as well as literary writing of later times. Citing the examples of Zhong Rong’s comment on poetry which has heavily influenced the later "xing ling" approach and the Middle Mean thought which has heavily influenced the later "image" concept, this chapter explains how the Buddhist philosophy in the Six Dynasties and its related literary theories influenced the Chinese literary theories of the later time; also, citing the cases of the concepts of nirvana, Middle Mean and dharmakaya as are shown in the poetry by Wang Wei, Su Shi, Gong Zizhen, etc, this chapter explains how the Buddhist philosophy in the Six Dynasties makes profound influence on the literary writing in the later times.