Underworld And The Study Of Narrative Literature In The Tang Dynasty

Underworld is the habitat of the mortal soul after death, this bizarre space is often seen as a conception which relativizes human, and exists in the imagined world of the human. The narrative work of the Tang Dynasty fabricated this miraculous world, and put the mortal into this space for some strange travel in underworld. These works fully demonstrated fantastic imagine of literature, embodying the Chinese rich creativity and the interests that they would like to write articles. This paper discussed the Tang Dynasty's narrative works about traveling in underworld, analyzing the Tang Dynasty's concepts and related cultural phenomena reflected in these works. These have some significances to the study of secular believes in the Tang Dynasty and narrative works.Full-text is divided into 6 chapters.In Chapterâ… author combed the origin and evolution of concept "underworld" from the Pre-Qin to the Tang Dynasty. The spread of the words such as "underworld" and "other world" were benefited by the Buddhist culture, which reflected that the traditional concept of underworld had a close relationship with the Buddhist culture and the particularity of development on Chinese concept "underworld". The concept of underworld from Han-Wei Six Dynasties to the Tang Dynasty had been influenced by the culture of the Buddhism, the Taoism and folk beliefs, which had included two kinds of concepts being god and ghost after death. This was Chinese special concept of death. The concept of dead world maturated in the Tang Dynasty. When the Buddhist inherent concept of hell and Chinese concept of underworld were combined,the cultural concept of underworld incorporated Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism.In chapterâ…¡author mainly from different times and authors studied the narrative literature of traveling underworld in the Tang Dynasty. Tang's narrative works reflected the maturing concept which set up a system of the Underworld that had been penetrated in social life, and its story lines, literature and art, ideological depth had reached a certain level, which became a fixed writing pattern to extensive penetrate in literary writing works, religious classics. The early works of the Tang Dynasty in the Buddhist style too much, in the middle of the Tang Dynasty it began to create by itself, and in the late Tang Dynasty there appeared a large number of works about underworld charging destiny because of foreordination prevailing; in the Tang Dynasty the narrative works of underworld that the monks had written were focused on around Glorious age of Tang Dynasty, which made up for the lack of works written by literary figures, and most of these works reproduced and copied works of their predecessors which had important historical value and literature values; in Wang Fanzhi and other vernacular poet's poems it appeared some images relating to hell, which was important information that resolved in the Tang Dynasty folk beliefs.In chapterâ…¢author researched into the origin of the narrative works and gether some lost works. The narrative works of underworld were from anecdotal, copies from books or creative writing, which applied reference for us to study the sources of Tang Dynasty literature. Because these works were often repeatedly copied, and it appeared to change in the way of making private copies, it was necessary to clarify the origins, examine the intention and creative mind of author reflected in the story. This chapter also worked on the part of the texts, collected some parts of Diamond Sutra ling yan ji and the ming bao shi yi, and corrected the work of supplements on the ming bao ji.In chapterâ…£author analyzed the underworld imagination of narrative literature in the Tang Dynasty. The underworld described by literature come from the real world but more realistic and informative than underworld beliefs, which fully demonstrated the writers imagination. In this chapter author tried to use the characters in underworld, underworld premises, channels of communication and so on to study underworld space imagined by literature. Underworld characters shaped by Chinese brewed many changes, which appeared Ksitigarbha, god of Huashan,10 kings of underworld, Cheng Huang God, judge and so many complex characters, In particular, and god of Huashan highlighted Chinese's creativity; Chinese reverie out all kinds of strange underworld space, and communication channels and methods between world and underworld imagined by them were unique, which map of the ingenious Chinese intentions.In chapterâ…¤author offered mainly cultural explanation to narrative literature about underworld in the Tang Dynasty. In this chapter author mainly from the sight of religion explained the cultural phenomenon in the narrative works of going underworld, and interpreted the trial phenomena and religious experience that the mortal had experienced; author explored the concepts of redemption and deeds in the narrative works of going underworld, and detailed studied the phenomenon of revived by chanting, focusing on analysis of the role and impact of the Diamond Sutra,Lotus Sutra in the Tang Dynasty's narrative works; author analyzed customs of sprite money described in narrative works, as well as summarized the evolution and characteristics of cultural phenomena such as diet, communicating with underworld and reincarnated.In chapterâ…¥author summarized the overcoming and impacts of narrative works of the Tang Dynasty. Tang's narrative works depicted the colorful Underworld form, perfected experience that mortal traveled underworld, and reflected proficient and exquisite of artistic skill; such narrative works reflected the maturity of the Underworld concept, basically laid with offerings of God as the center of Hades system, and reflected the maturity of the Chinese underworld concept; narrative works of the Tang Dynasty in the story material, plot patterns, and cultural phenomena, Underworld concept of work in such aspects as impact on future generations, which image depended on its far-reaching impact of the power effect and dip irrigation from the Magistrate's evolution and Zibu Yu, Xu Zibu Yu, Yue Wei Cao Tang Notes and other works.