Author Affiliations: Hunter College of the City University of New York
摘要
Among the Dunhuang manuscripts is a great deal of Buddhist-inspired poetry which merits our scholarly attention. It contributes not only to a deeper knowledge of the development of Chinese Buddhist literature, but also to our understanding of Dunhuang culture and its interactions with other Buddhist sites in China. The focus of this paper is a unique collection of Chinese poems penned by anonymous poets and pilgrims dating to the Tang and Five Dynasties period about Mount Wutai (五臺山), or Five Terrace Mountain, the abode of the bodhisattva Mañjuśrī (Wenshu shili 文殊師利 or Wenshu 文殊), and the most important Buddhist mountain in China throughout the imperial period. This study forms part of my larger research into a Buddhist poetics of Dunhuang and how Buddhism helped shape the themes of medieval poetry in China. By the Tang dynasty, Mount Wutai was the center of a cult of the bodhisattva Mañjuśrī and a major pilgrimage site. There must have been considerable communication between Dunhuang and the mountain, judging from the Mount Wutai materials found in Dunhuang. Dunhuang cave 61 contains a panoramic wall-painting of Mount Wutai dating from 947 to 951, close to the era in which the Mount Wutai poems were composed. Like the Mount Wutai poems, the wall-painting incorporates both terrestrial and celestial elements. Both portray the major temples, along with many numinous traces (lingji 靈跡), or holy traces (shengji 聖跡), of Mañjuśrī and other extraordinary beings. These traces are described in cartouches in the wall-painting and appear repeatedly in the Mount Wutai poems. Buddhas and other divine beings change into forms both understandable and suitable to the person experiencing the manifestation. Although the goal of these transformations and manifestations is to save the recipient, they are colorful, entertaining, and far more comprehensible than abstract or esoteric Buddhist doctrines. Both poems and painting are important evidence for the recreation of the Indian Buddhist cosmos in China and the absorption of Buddhist thought into Chinese culture.
