A Study Of The Transmission Of The Lamp

The Transmission of the Lamp is the important Zen textThis book is composed of 30 short books containing the biographies,dialogues,and listings of 1701 Zen masters of about 52 generations. It was very popular in Song,Yuan,Ming Dynasty and gave a very big influence to scholars and monks at that timeo But because the modern Zen research values the ex- period Zen history but not the later period, few scholars study this book.lt is the reason I write this dissertation .The dissertation includes a foreword, an appendix and a main text that is composed of five parts. The review to modern Zen research and the study of The Transmission of the Lamp is in the foreword. In the first chapter, the thesis discusses how this book was written of. First, through the description toward Buddhism historiography in Song Dynasty and development of Denglu, the author explains the scholarship background under that this book appeared. Secondly.the thesis investigates the career of Daoyuanwho is the author of The Transmission of the Lamp and the relations between the Buddhism and Yangyi,Liwei and Wangshu who revised this book.In second part, the publications of The Transmission of the Lamp are introduced in Song,Yuan,Ming and Qing Dynasty .Through comparing all kinds of editions, the thesis discoverses the variations in editions of this book. The annotations of The Transmission of the Lamp are studied in the next chapter.the thesis researchs the contents and styles of the annotations that are divided into the original annotations and later annotations according to the authors.In the fourth chapter, The literariness of The Transmission of the Lamp were evaluated. Because The Transmission of the Lamp is biographical literature, the thesis frist discusses it's narrative art . Rhetoric skills in the Zen masters' language are analyzed.In addition, their poems are enjoyed. The Transmission of the Lamp produced the important influence to the intellectuals in Song Dynasty ,so we explore the reception of this book in the fifth chapter. As an example, we discuss in detail Chuan Deng Yu Ymg Ji(i% 'î–š3î—‚|^l)that contains many stories extracted from The Transmission of the Lamp by Wangsui(jî–¬Si).Moreover, the thesis still discusses how applied this book in the verse annotations written by intellectuals in Song Dynasty. In appendix, we extracted the records concerning this book from past catalogues.