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BULLETIN OF THE DEPARTMENT OF CHINESE LITERATURE NATIONAL CHENGCHI UNIVERSITY NO.37
Publication date： 2022-06
Special Article Textual Worlds of Court Theater in Late Imperial China
Theater had been a core part of Chinese court culture for centuries and ample studies had been conducted on the imperial theatrical institutions and stage practices in the Ming and Qing dynasties. In contrast, court drama texts have received less scholarly attention due to several reasons: their low status in Chinese literary history as “authorless” performer's scripts; the vast corpora, and the difficulty of accessing these texts that are kept in various archives and libraries. In recent years, several major reprint projects of the relevant primary sources now allow wider access to the corpora; yet the lack of an existing analytic framework to study anonymous Chinese performance texts on such a large scale continues to present a huge challenge to researchers. As a result, Chinese court drama, though rich in potential and information, remains a complex series of isolated, fragmented, and closed textual worlds, neglected in literary history and disjointed from other areas of studies. How do we read these court plays and how can they be integrated with mainstream Chinese drama studies and literary history? The lacuna is especially glaring given the quantity and richness of the extant texts: intertextual relations between Ming and Qing dynasty scripts, and between these plays and other literary and historical texts; external links to individuals, occasions, and artefacts, and wider aspects of material and visual culture are preserved alongside dramatic content. Furthermore, contrary to the misconception that Chinese court plays represent a closed performance space restricted to the palace compounds and the imperial family, they were often also performed in the presence of foreign ambassadors and delegations and hence the site of potential cross-cultural flows. Many visitors recorded what was often their first or even only impression of Chinese theater culture in their travel diaries. This article proposes a new textual approach towards studying late imperial Chinese court drama. By combining the application of traditional bibliographical scholarship and digital humanities tools, and the use of both Chinese court dramatic texts and related foreign records, this study demonstrates the interconnectedness among the various textual worlds of Chinese court drama.
Theme Thesis Secularism in Monastic Life: Implicit Acceptance of Secularism in The Biographies of Eminent Monks
Huijiao claimed that “many biographies written in the past primarily focused on monk’s fame, however, fame should be subjected to actuality,” therefore he was determined to compile The Biographies of Eminent Monks to acknowledge the “virtues” and “actuality” of monks. However, how could “eminence” be determined? First, Huijiao divided monks’ merits into ten categories and called them “Ten Categories of Moral Conducts and Merits.” He then evaluated contributions made by monks to determine whether they could be included in The Biographies of Eminent Monks. The “Ten Categories of Moral Conducts and Merits” included contributions made by monks to “monastic life,” however, these monks’ intentions were to bring Buddhist teachings to the populace and save them. Consequently, assessments made by the “secular” world validated monks’ actual performance in terms of the “Ten Categories of Moral Conducts and Merits,” which was why Hujiao repeatedly mentioned factors associated with the “secular” world in monks’ biographies. These factors included: 1. Acceptance by “people of the time,” including monks’ titles, nicknames for unique physical features, speculations on the levels that monks attained in self-cultivation, monks’ ability to engage in witty conversations, etc. 2. Comparisons of monks to famous scholars, Hujiao quoted literati’s comparison of monks to famous scholars as signs of acceptance by the secular world; 3. Acceptance of monks’ ability to conduct themselves like famous scholars, Huijao considered this ability to be indications of true feelings; 4. Acceptance of “righteousness” and “filial piety,” Huijiao’s criteria for “actuality” and “virtues” were based on monks’ reactions when their states suffered devastating misfortunes, on the other hand, he considered monks’ filial acts to be evidence of “virtues” and “actuality.” These “secular” factors effectively exemplified monks’ virtues and demonstrated that the “Ten Categories of Moral Conducts and Merits” were not detached from the real world, but deeply rooted in the human world.
Theme Thesis A Hidden Biography of a Buddhist Monk: Daoxuan’s Self-Narration at Fifty in the Continued Biography of Eminent Monks
Shi Daoxuan (596-667) inherited the tradition of self-consciousness and stylistic diversity in Tang Dynasty biographies, and often interspersed his life experience, emotion and thoughts into the prefaces and postscripts of his Buddhist precepts works. However, he did not write an autobiography in the Continued Biography of Eminent Monks, not even in the preface to the work. Instead, we find details about him only in numerous other biographies in the book, where narratives about “I” sporadically and implicitly told stories about himself. This paper proves that this narrative discourse is different from those in the various Daoxuan biographies of the Song Dynasty or the prefaces and postscripts of Daoxuan’s Buddhist precepts works, most of which use the single voice of self-writing. Daoxuan is not only the “writer” in the Continued Biography of Eminent Monks, but also “performer” of many roles, such as a student, a partner in learning, a latecomer and so on. The different yet co-existing tones and shades can be regarded as Daoxuan's self-descriptions of his itinerant practice at fifty before the 19th year of Zhenguan, and an autobiographical memory. The paper studies the hidden messages in Daoxuan’s self-narration, including dominant factors, historical conditions, and religiosity, to gain an understanding of him and his times and reveal the significance of the relationship between religion and society in the Tang Dynasty. In other words, by closely examining the uniformity of Daoxuan’s personal narrative and exploring his patriarchal lineage on the Buddhist precepts, we find that these retrospective discourses are shrouded by the urgent desire in the Buddhist community to revive Buddhism in the aftermath of the Buddhist eschatology of the Northern Dynasty and Sui Dynasty. Daoxuan reflected on the conflicting doctrines of Buddhist precepts in the teaching of multiple others, such as preceptors in the Jin and Bing prefectures, as well as in the capital of Ye, to deepen his own grasp of Buddhist precepts. On the other hand, by engaging in positive and negative dialectical dialogues between his own understanding and what he learned from practitioner Hui Yun(564-637), the ordained master Zhi Shou (567-635), and even masters Hui Xiu(548-645) and Tan Rong (556-640), whom he personally met, he proposed examples to illustrate Buddhist precepts that can be followed. These show the paradigm of “I am such.” Furthermore, they prompt the readers to understand that many monks at the time, including himself, were eager to demonstrate the tenet of “that is exactly how we are,” which promotes religious practice within the boundary of Buddhist precepts.
Theme Thesis On Zeng Jian’s Creation of “Bu Da La Gong Ci” and his Fashioning of Tsangyang Gyatso’s Literary Image
Tsangyang Gyatso, also known as the Sixth Dalai Lama (1683-1706?), hada double identity of a spiritual leader and a love song writer in Tibet. Translatedinto Chinese and English by Yu Daoquan (1901-1992) for the first time in 1930, his love songs have ever since become more and more popular among the Han Chinese. In February 1939, Zeng Jian (1892-1968) published his retranslated version based on Yu’s edition, together with “Bu Da La Gong Ci,” a classical-style long poem lamenting over the story of Tsangyang. Today, though “Bu Da La Gong Ci” seems to be less popular than Zeng’s retranslated version of love songs, the former is one of the earliest works in Chinese to fashion the literary image of Tsangyang after all. Through the cultural accumulation of poetry translation, Zeng Jian had a certain depth of understanding and interpretation of Tsangyang when he created “Bu Da La Gong Ci.” Accordingly, this article explores the creation of “Bu Da La Gong Ci” and its fashioning of Tsangyang Gyatso’s literary image, in order to shed some light on the reception history of this legendary Tibetan monk and his love songs in the Sinophone world.
How to interpret “Ming Bao” in the “Luogao” chapter of the Book of Historical Documents and inscriptions on the “Ling Fangyi”? This is a controversial issue. Mr. Yang Xiangkui proposes that “Ming Bao” is an alias name of Duke Dan of the Zhou Dynasty. Since this idea lacks evidence and is imperfect, it is not widely spread. Scholars do not pay much attention to it either. As a matter of fact, “Ming” is an alias name of Duke Dan of the Zhou Dynasty, which is commonly seen in the Book of Historical Documents as well as bronze inscriptions. “Ming Bao” is not a fixed expression in the Book of Historical Documents, it is also a fictious concept in inscriptions on the “Ling Fangyi.” There is also no such person named “Ming Bao” among the offspring of Duke Dan. The relevant sentence in the “Luogao” should be punctuated as “The King apparently said: Gongming! Protect my children,” and the corresponding statement in inscriptions on the “Ling Fangyi” should be read as “The King ordered Ming, Duke of Zhou, to protect and manage the three ministers and feudal lords from four directions.” In summary, “Gong Ming”(公明) is an abbreviation of “Zhou Gongzi Ming”(周公子明), these two designations do not contradict, on the contrary, they can support and validate each other.
“Ritual and music” are important aspects of Chinese culture, an understanding of their significance can provide the key to understanding characteristics of Chinese culture. Therefore, this paper illustrates the self-conscious mode of expression of Chinese culture by discussing the significance of sacrificial rites. This topic has three aspects: first, through analysis of self-consciousness, diversity and integration, we can gain an understanding of the formation of cultural orientation not as an induction of acts out of natural instincts governed by laws of biology, but as a creative act out of self-consciousness, without which cultural activities are not possible. This reveals the importance of “traditions of ritual and music” on the level of self-conscious creation. Second, the analysis of characteristics of “traditions of ritual and music” focuses on discussing issues on the systemization of awareness of value, in order to uncover the connection between the implication of ritual and music and ordinary life, and identify awareness of value as the unifying force to create meaning for Chinese cultural orientation. Sacrificial rites are given as examples to explain how the views above are actually implemented in real life. Finally, this paper briefly examines the value and significance of cultural orientation under “traditions of ritual and music.”
Music flourished in the Tang Dynasty, subsequently much music-related writing appeared in the Tang fiction. Relevant narrations mainly showed two representative aspects, one was the embodiment of Confucian ethics as expressed through music, the other was the correspondence among all things in the world derived through music. This paper reveals that writing about music in the Tang fiction was closely related with political development. Music was used as a tool for political education, many musical narratives about Xuanzong and the An Shi Rebellion epitomized the concern about political decline in the Tang Dynasty as well. Tang fiction authors repeatedly noted overtly or covertly political condition at the time in fiction specifically dedicated to music, thereby fully demonstrated that music and politics corresponded with each other in Confucianism, i.e., “discriminate the music in order to know (the character of) the government.” In addition, there were also many stories about music causing resonance among all things on earth in the Tang fiction, especially aesthetic correspondence across boundary. These stories revealed the infinite potential of music to lead people to the utmost realm and illustrated the excellence and mystery of music. Based on the resonance and aesthetic correspondence, Tang fiction often incorporated narrations about the association between knowing the “meaning of music” and knowing “persons,” which revealed the authors’ longing for bosom friends.
Fu Guang, pen name Hanqing and pseudonym Qian’an, also known as Mr. Chuanyi, was apprenticed to Lu Zuqian at the beginning of his academic life and then studied under Zhu Xi. His work was listed right after that of Huang Gan’s in the Song Yuan Xue’an, which indicated his high ranking among Zhu Xi’s disciples. Fu Guang’s understanding of and opinions on the Analects of Confucius, the Mencius, the Great Learning and the Doctrine of the Mean, were recorded in the Encyclopedia of the Four Books (Sishu daquan, the Encyclopedia) in the Ming Dynasty. The Encyclopedia included 440 explanations of the Analects of Confucius, 391 explanations of the Mencius, and few explanations of the Great Learning and the Doctrine of the Mean by Fu Guang, making him the most quoted for the Four Books among Zhu Xi’s disciples. His works became the most important materials for interpreting Zhu’s assertions. Fu Guang came from the Zhe School and therefore was well grounded in the doctrines of different schools of thoughts. Furthermore, he fearlessly defied the Prohibition of Court Factions during the Qingyuan Reign. His conviction helped him and other Zhu’s disciples to remain steadfast in their scholarly endeavors to follow Zhu’s teaching, which also proved that Zhu’s Confucian philosophy was worthy of lifelong devotion by Confucian scholars. Consequently, Fu Guang, the resolute follower of Zhu Xi, became the key person to ensure the continuity of Zhu’s scholarship despite chaotic political and social conditions. Furthermore, he explored sages’ thoughts deeply, gained insights into the sages, self-cultivation (gongfu), nature and principle, and Zhu’s exegesis, and then made them integral parts of his own academic achievement. Fu corrected erroneous ways of understanding of the relationship between the essence of the classics and Zhu’s exegesis. At the same time, Fu’s views on nature and principle differed from those of Zhu’s, which caused him to think on deeper levels and helped to facilitate the completion of Zhu Xi’s system of Confucian philosophy.
