This dissertation aims to construct a Buddhist rhetorical discourse by exploring Buddhist rhetoric found in Kumārajīva's Vimalakīrtinirdeśa in the light of Western rhetoric, Narratology and translation theory. Buddhist rhetoric refers to the effective content and the persuasive art in Buddha's teaching or in Buddhist texts. How does Buddhism persuade and teach people? By explicating the conditioned co-arising (pratītya-samutpāda), emptiness (śūnyatā) and cause-effect truth (karma-phalam), Buddhism provides a relieving way of liberation for people, helping them alleviate their sufferings of reincarnation, cultivate the widsom of emptiness, and eventually achieve the state of Enlightement like that of Buddha. Vimalakīrtinirdeśa is a Mahāyāna sūtra, a Buddhist text that abounds in literary images, amazing imaginations and Buddhist teachings. It is an ideal research material for the interdisciplinary study of the Comparative Literature. This text also demonstrates the high-rank Bodhisattva's upāyakauśalya (skillful means), the core of Buddhist rhetoric. The purpose of examining its rhetorical elements is to develop a methodology for the study of Buddhist texts in the future. Accordingly, this study starts with the oral rhetorical elements of the Āgama, and then moves on to analyze the textual rhetoric of the Mahāyāna texts, specifically that of Vimalakīrtinirdeśa. Inspired by the eight-case structure of the Sanskrit grammar, I propose the five elements of Buddhist rhetoric, namely rhetorical purpose, rhetorical act, rhetorical agent, rhetorical strategy, and rhetorical situation. Upāyakauśalya, as a rhetorical strategy, lies at the very core of Buddhist rhetoric. It is respectively explored from the perspectives of narrative rhetoric, stylistic rhetoric and translation rhetoric. The findings of this dissertation show that the translator's rhetorical rendition and creation determine the after-life of the Buddhist texts. The reader's ability in refiguration defines the meaning of the Buddhist texts, which is open and beyond limits (śūnyatā). Upāyakauśalya is the central metaphor of Buddhist rhetoric; it sheds light on the proper content with the proper method and helps people to relieve their sufferings in life. Furthermore, upāyakauśalya is also a metaphor that transcends the limits of words. Realizing that rhetoric is illusory in nature, man can achieve the inconceivable relieved state. Buddhist upāyakauśalya, whose prerequisite is śūnyatā, is not a commonly skillful means as the profane concept. Only with śūnyatā-widsom can man really bring advantage to himself and others. Finally, Buddhist texts are also regarded as a metaphor, an upāyakauśalya by which man is liberated from the constraints of and sufferings in life.
