A Study Of Taoist Prose In The Southern Dynasties

The Southern Dynasties is an important period in the reform and enrichment of the Taoism,which was deeply rooted in the southern territory under its reign.Taoist prose,as a form of literature integrating Taoism culture and secular literature and arts,is an important composition of Chinese Taoist literature.Taoist prose in the Southern Dynasties presents unique characteristics both in its ideological connotations and its literary styles.As such,this paper,combining the features of the historical period and its social background,comprehensively investigates the literary achievements of the Taoist prose in the Southern Dynasties,which is divided into two types of Taoist scripture and Taoist prose.The paper is composed of three chapters.Chapter One centers on the brief introduction of the background,writers,and summary of the Taoist works,as well as the overall characteristics of the Taoist prose in the Southern Dynasties.The introduction of background includes both the internal development of the Taoism,and its external influential factors.The development of three major Taoism sects,namely Tianshi,Shangqing,and Lingbao in the Southern Dynasties acceleratedthe prosperity of the Taoism in the Southern Dynasties.And the hot debate of the three competing philosophies of Buddhism,Confucianism and Taoism encouraged the former two to leave indelible influence on the development of Taoism.Taoist priests in the Southern Dynasties created scripture works to be used for their religious practices,and also wrote prose revealing their emotions and aspirations of their lives,which also demonstrated such influences.The two categories of works have common features of the tendency of “towards Tao”,and the styles of the “combination of verse and prose”,and the“reasoning through appearance”.Chapter Two takes Taoist scripture used for religious practices as the core material,excavating the religious connotations and literary flavor in the scripture.The Taoism in the Southern Dynasties has rich connotations,which contain the legacy from the early Taoism ideologies,and the enrichment and expansion of its own development.The main doctrinal ideas that represent the characteristics of the Southern Dynasties are the outlook of no discrimination of the rich or poor sacrifices,the thought of ritual prayer based on the communication between mind and subject matters,and the concept of practice of “cherishing sincerity”.The literature flavorconveyed through the Taoist scripture display clear-cut personalities for different contents of the scripture.There are explanations of the methods of ritual prayers and magic arts,as well as contents of promoting the Taoism doctrine.The language of ritual prayers is concise and full of genuine emotions,and the descriptions of the venue layout for magic arts are full of fantasy and rhetoric,while the reasoning of the doctrine prorogation is very particular about being tactical and persuasive.Chapter Three mainly analyzes prose on life events by Taoist priests,which are categorized into 4 types based on their literary forms: preface,epitaph,official documents,letters and comments,without being restricted to certain category writers.Prefaces in the Taoist prose in the Southern Dynasties are mainly for books,in which writers introduce the process of writing the book and express their ideas and thoughts in simple and concise languages.Epitaph is mainly aimed for praise,extolling the environment of the stone tablets and the referred Taoist figures,which are no lack of exaggeration in realism.Official documents are mainly the communications between priests and the ruling class,and the language appears euphemistic and meticulous.Letters and comments are words fullof emotions that express the writers' reclusive aspirations and their attitudes to the three philosophies.