Popular Fiction In The Ming Dynasty And Buddhism ——With The Phenomenon Of Buddhist Popularization As A Background

This paper bases on the popularization of Buddhism in Ming Dynasty popular novels,takes Ming Dynasty popular novels and Ming Dynasty Buddhism as the object of investigation,and explores the interconnection between Ming Dynasty popular novels and Buddhism by means of an extensive collection of materials,a close reading of the text,intertextual and historical evidence,and thematic interpretation.Other than the introduction,this paper consists of five chapters.The first chapter,which corresponds to the general introduction and introduction of the whole text,outlines the phenomenon of Buddhist popularization in Ming fiction from three perspectives:dissemination,reception and writing,and introduces the background of the times in which the phenomenon of Buddhist popularization occurred.The second chapter examines the relationship between the genre production of popular fiction and the popularization of Buddhism,and conducts a retrospective study of popular fiction.Chapters three to five are devoted to discussing the specific manifestations of Buddhist popularization in Ming Dynasty popular novels in three dimensions:characterization,storyline,and ideological themes,and analyzing the causes and effects of these phenomena individually.The first chapter is the core chapter of this paper,proposing that the phenomenon of Buddhist popularization in Ming fiction includes three levels:the popularized transmission of Buddhism,the popularized acceptance of Buddhism by novelists,and the popularized writing finally solidified in the text.In the first section,the background of the spread of Buddhism in the Ming Dynasty is initially introduced and presented in three areas:politics,economy,and culture.The political background is mainly the oppressive dictatorship of the Ming government,the closing of the preceptorship altars and the indiscriminate issuance of degrees,as well as the religious policy of dividing the monks into three parts;the economic background is mainly the development of the commodity economy in the Ming Dynasty and its resultant booming monastic economy;the cultural background is mainly the trend of the unification of the three religions in the Ming Dynasty,with Confucianism as the main religion and Buddhism and Taoism as the complementary religion.The second section introduces the ways in which Ming novelists received the popularization of Buddhist information in turn,divided into three channels of information:text,image,and activity.The third section discusses Buddhist popularization spread and acceptance resulting in popularized writing,which is the last textual form of Buddhist popularization in Ming Dynasty novels,and points out that popularized writing reflects the change in Ming people's attitude toward Buddhism.It is also pointed out that popularized writing cannot be equated with the secularization of Ming Buddhism,as the latter is a term of art in Western political science of religion,which has a specific scope of use and is not applicable to Ming Buddhism.The second chapter focuses on the connection between the popularization of Buddhism and the genre of Ming popular fiction.Firstly,the Ming term " Popular Romance" is not the same as historical romance in the contemporary context,as the former is a genre concept and the latter is a subject matter concept.After the publication of Popular Romance of the Three Kingdoms marked the independence of the genre of"Popular Romance" and its wide circulation,people began to use the term "Romance"to refer to this fixed genre of fiction and to distinguish it from the previous storytelling.The booksellers,however,followed the trend after the popularity of "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" and published the "Acting by the Romance" by the name of"Romance",but only for the purpose of profit,roughly imitating the storytelling words and did not inherit the spirit of "Popular Romance".Therefore,we cannot confuse the"Acting by the book" with the "Popular Romance".As a genre concept,"Popular Romance" cannot be arbitrarily assumed to be derived from historical literature because of the similarity in subject matter,and the difference between the two in terms of fictionality cannot be ignored.Historical literature is only one of the factors that led to the emergence of popular drama,Buddhism "drama" is also likely to have influenced the "popular drama" in the nomenclature and the creative concept of fiction.Secondly,the chapter-and-verse form common in popular fiction may also have been influenced by the spread of Buddhist popularization;the reflexive verse in Buddhist textual art may have been the source of the scattered poems in the chapter-and-verse style;and the list of titles in Buddhist pictorial art may have led to the special form of the chapterand-verse style divided into chapters and returns.Finally,the trichotomous structure of"introduction-text-epilogue" common to popular fiction and popular literature as a whole may have been influenced by the Buddhist "preface-authentic-circulation"trichotomy.The third chapter explores the impact of the popularization of Buddhism on the portrayal of fictional characters from three perspectives:folk Buddhism,the unity of the three religions,and Sino-Tibetan exchanges.The new trend of transition from elite Buddhism to folk Buddhism in the Ming dynasty created the popularized images of believers in the novels,such as the hypocritical and superstitious Buddhist monks,the money-grubbing and lustful yogi monks and nuns,and the deceitful laymen.In the context of the unification of the three religions in the Ming Dynasty,the meeting of Confucianism and Buddhism,the convergence of Buddhism and Taoism,and the belief in local ancestors created a series of divinely alienated characters in the novel.The Sino-Tibetan exchanges in the Ming Dynasty not only affected the details of specific characters,but also affected the overall image of a class of characters and the stereotypes of the world about them.The fourth chapter discourses the relationship between plot,narrative and Buddhist popularization in Ming popular novels.The first section introduces two types of popularized adaptations of plots involving Buddhism in novels:one is directly derived from the flux of Buddhist scripture stories;the other is indirectly borrowed from relevant settings in Buddhism as material and inspiration for designing plots.The second section describes the ways in which folk tales in fiction interacted with Ming Buddhism.The third section argues that the storyteller narrative mode of the popular novel may come from the virtual sermon narrative in the Buddhist scriptures.In the popular novel,the author takes the role of a storyteller to tell the story to the audience,while in the sutras,the story is relayed through the mouth of Ananda as heard in the Buddha's sermon puja.The fifth chapter discusses the popularized interpretation of Buddhist thought in Ming novels from three perspectives:the cause-and-effect view,the mind-only view,and the lust-and-void view.The causal view transformed by popular novelists can be used as a new interpretive system in historical fiction.In the worldly novels,it can be used to educate people's hearts;it can also be used as a superficial theme for windowdressing in late Ming erotic novels.The Buddhist view of mindfulness has a pluralistic application in the hands of novelists,and the Buddhist orthodox view of mindfulness can be used as a theoretical basis to guide fictional creations.The teleological view of mindfulness can be used as an ideological weapon to attack feudal ritualism;the science-based view of mindfulness can be used as an excuse to defend ritualism.The authors of the Four Great Books of the Ming Dynasty share the common theme of lust and emptiness and disillusionment,and the authors of the Four Great Books have used the Buddhist concept of color and emptiness at different levels in designing the imagery of the plot,arranging the structure of the story and conceiving the overall intention.