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BULLETIN OF THE DEPARTMENT OF CHINESE LITERATURE NATIONAL CHENGCHI UNIVERSITY NO.2
Publication date： 2004-12
Theme Thesis The Dissemination of the Dharma: Hermeneutic Approaches to Space and Desire in Ming Xiang Ji
This paper attempts to examine and construct the cultural context of Wang Yan’s 王琰 book Ming Xiang Ji 《冥祥記》, a major material of this paper, in the context of “Works Support to Buddhism Doctrine” 釋氏輔教之書 during the Six Dynasties period in China. In order to analyze the inherent dialectical relationship exhibited between its thoughts and symbols, ideas and metaphors, the elite and the common, its reason and beliefs, certain texts in the book are intensively surveyed. In other words, the core motif of this paper is a study that repeatedly proves that the different spaces shown in Ming Xiang Ji are not just something based on what the author hears or imagines, but is symbolic spaces filled with various religious symbols and dialectics. These symbolic spaces are closely connected to the author’s social status, political stance, social sources distribution he receives and many other various forms of desires. These elements will eventually be reconciled and realized in the realistic and historical space of the Six Dynasties period through the act of writing. If viewed from the analytical perspectives of the living reality, the salvation space and the nirvana realm, we see that the writing space in Ming Xiang Ji is not fixed or static. It does not just composes t a physical place where the living being exist and die, providing the people in the Six Dynasties with concretely historic and geographical significance, but also depicts the inherent enlightenment brought by religious experiences, the recognition of one’s own desires, and the understanding of the process by which all things in the world gather and part. As a result, the author offers a reasonableinterpretation of all the happenings in one’s life by the concepts of reincarnation and karmic retribution. At the same time, the book also describes concrete religious practices such as Buddha worship, sutra chanting and stupa building to sacralize the present world that is filled with pain and suffering of all kinds. Through such religious practices, spirits and Buddha descend into this world; the light of wisdom is spread widely; the fear indwelling man’s heart is turned into happiness, and the danger lurking in the dark is turned into peace. By such writing, the book advocates the Buddhist beliefs of the Pure Land 淨土, and promises the followers the Land of Bliss 樂土 in their future lives. Finally, Wang Yan also successfully defends himself in many religious debates by providing his audience these concrete and detail examples or writings on his subtle but palpable religious experiences.
Theme Thesis Study on Chinese Shi-ren Fiction in the Tang Dynasty
This paper begins by examining the origins and the performance styles of Chinese shi-ren fiction 市人小說in the Tang dynasty. A subsequent investigation on how the term “shi-ren" is used in Classical texts ranging form the pre-Qin period 先秦to Ming 明and Qing 清reveals that the term refers only to the people who made a living by conducting business in the marketplace. Yet based on its usage, which also has close relationship with acrobatics, this paper therefore proposes that the marketplace, as a space, is actually related to the emergence of eady acrobatics in China. Moreover, market as a space is also one of the causes of the rise and the development of professional acrobatics in the early days. From the market-related descriptions found in Tang fictions, coupled with the spatial distributions and functions of the marketplace, the author discovers that ‘marketplace' and ‘imperial palace' are two contralγspaces ， similar to the idea of yin 陰and yang 惕， each representing different values respectively. As a result, the marketplace, to put it more precisely, has become a spatial symbol, reflecting an idea of anti-power and other relevant values that go against the executive institute with the emperor as its pyramidal figure. This artistic characteristic, mirroring the values that only belong to the town, become the most important motive power of fiction history in the later periods from the Song and Yuan Dynasties.
The symbol of gender and its manipulation is a basic and common cultural structure. In the di:fferent cultural era, female and body usually are the space where different consciences are mixed. This paper focuses on 也e cultural development of the female symbolism in the Tang Poem's picture collection, and discusses its cultura1 meaning used and argued by rite/emotion, elegance/lowness in the new consumers' socie句r of late Ming Dynasty. In the visual art using the analogy between poems and pictures, how would female have been modeled into an object containing male desire? How was the male power/the system of fatherhood demonstrated by the visual symbol and gender argument? In the late Ming Dynas旬~ under the gradually loosing social hierarchy, mechanism of cultural consumption, and cultural atmosphere of dislocated ethics/desire, how would the female symbolism derai1 and waver out of the system of fatherhood and develop an diversified face containing the concepts of female, body and desire. How was a gender revolution, crossing the cultural boundary of sense/sensibi1ity elegance/lowness, developed in the female/body's boundary of space of the analogy between poems/picture? This paper was divided into the four 訂eas 一(1) the pictorial examples of rites and analogy of esthetics (2) romantic space and analogical desire (3) behavior and desirous loop (4) the space of pastime and sisterhood - to discuss the possibi1ity of agreement in co-existing gender, desire and hierarchy caused by the movement of the boundary of female/body.
“Tzuoo-Chwan", Tzuoo Chiu-ming's Chronicles, is composed of detailed accounts and comments on historical people and events with judgmental points of view which clear1y discem good from evi1 with merits and demerits systematically and comprehensively. Tzuoo Chiu-ming made it clear in his chronic1es that his viewpoints were based on facts and trends. In a nutshell, what he presented and rendered in “Tzuoo-Chwan" is not exactly the social phenomena in unison although he grounded his arguments on the same templates in which people conducted themselves back then. The cultural rendition of polyphonic heteroglossia is what 1 try tentatively to explain how historical and cultural phenomena presented themselves. By using Bakht妞's theory, 1 tend to show that cultural phenomena refer to independent1y clear voices which could be deemed as the valuable authentic heteroglossia in chorus with a multitude of ideologies. In my opinion, Tzuoo Chiu-ming's accounts and comments presented a phenomenon which showed the conflicts of politics, ideology, history and culture. He described Xia-Ji, a drop-dead gorgeous woman who brought a lot of trouble simply because of her beaut弘by means of people's gossip on the grapevine in stead of gathering the information straight from the horse's mouth. U sing the aesthetic term “image", 1 would like to explain that some “facts" are fabricated by analogy. As we look at ourselves or others in the mirror, Tzuoo Chiu-ming made Xia-Ji an artistic archetype, an image in his world of concepts. 1 will, therefore, use his plots, descriptions of characters, contexts conceming Xia-Ji in “Tzuoo-Chwan" to transform her stereotype and some uniform judgments set by previous commentators into my personal paraphrases of multi -aspects.
Most of the time, Zen use poetry to present Chan concept. Most Chan poetries in order to enlighten the people, they used vivid or fantastic vulgar way to describe it; this paper recorded unusual scripture by the monks. In style, it seemed to be describing the love and affection between the man and woman, however, deep within, it is actually Chan sect poetry, showing the Chan concept. The paper will analyze the Buddhist allegoric gestures in these poetries. At the same time, anatomize the philosophical epistemology in “the real meaning is implied” Chan theory. This will include: the self-realization of the main body; the entire perception; the illogical direct perception through the senses; the discriminative and the authentic unified contradiction, etc. All these are base on the idea of letting people know the value of these beautiful Chan poetries on their concept of meaning.
For the missionary purpose, Buddhists frequently excerpted parts of the whole Buddhist Scriptures and propagated these excerpts separately. These excerpted texts were designated as“Bie Sheng Jing”or “Chao Jing.” “Bie Sheng Jing,” which was one of the main research objects of ancient Buddhist Scripture bibliographers, is of various kinds. This research paper will divide “Bie Sheng Jing” into two categories--excerpts from original canons and excerpts from translated canon--and will have a detailed discussion on both of them severally. In the last part of this paper, I will provide four concluding points, hoping that scholars will give me further advice. It is my hope that this paper will be of some value for those who conduct research on translation or bibliography of Buddhist Scriptures.
It was the 1960s, the critics witnessed a turn from the author and text at large to the reader in western academic circle. The critics in the 1970s and 1980s called it ”an age of reading” to indicate the unprecedented awareness of reader and reading. The aesthetics of reception represented by H. R. Jauss et al. had become to be a very important approach to study novel in western countries. The reception theory, in general, is distinguished from the formalism and new criticism by its emphasis on the reader rather than on the text. It is to be noted, however, that the “age of reading” was absent from novel history in Taiwan. Until now, there is no concentration on the reader to study novel history in Taiwan. It’s necessary to make a further shift away from the novel text to give the reader a more positive role to play. From this reception perspective, there were three surveys concerning the novel-reading since 1980s in Taiwan should be inquired further here. These surveys represent a new perspective on novel history.
