Spell, Images, And Spell

This dissertation probes into relationship between the Soteric Buddhism which is presented by Mantra Dharani and the literature in the Mid and Late Tang Dynasty.The rise of Esoteric school and its prosperity in the climax of Tang Dynasty helped spread the Esoteric Buddhism in the empire,also,it had great influence on the religion,art and literature of the Mid and Late Tang.In the literary field of the Mid and Late Tang,many creative works were influenced by the Esoteric Buddhism,especially the fictions on deities and monsters.They had large amount of Dharani and magic stories of Esoteric Buddhism.The distinctive characteristic of Esoteric Buddhism' s prevalence were to be promoted by the Abracadabra,images and different sorts of ritual.The following eight chapters will elaborate this respectively.First of all,the dissertation tries to find out the interaction between the scholar-bureaucrats and Esoteric Buddhism in the Mid and Late Tang.From the scholar-bureaucrats' s admiration in the climax of Tang Dynasty,to the worship of the Esoteric Buddhism among scholar-bureaucrats in the Mid Tang,then to the stragement in the Late Tang,the relationship has historically gone through the process of rising, prosperity and fading.Secondly,we can find out some relationships among the literary taste of the age,the mood of the poem and religions by explaining the co-relation among Soteric Buddhist images,Dharani,and poetry of the Mid and Late Tang,which will depict how the image of Esoteric Buddhism was used in Han Yu's poems by analyzing them through a historicalaesthetics review of and points out that the taste of Han & Meng School is commensurate with the monsters and frightening images in Esoteric Buddhism,instead of following the previous studies.Also,the dissertation focus on the relationship between of ritual, Abracadabra,magic Esoteric Buddhism and fiction is one of the core parts of the paper.By analyzing the stories about Esoteric Buddhism in many important fictions in the Mid and Late Tang,such as Guang Yi Ji(广异记),Ji Wen(纪闻),Xuan Guai Lu(玄怪录),Tong You Ji(通幽记),You Yang Za Zu(酉阳杂俎),Chuan Qi(传奇),Xian Zhuan Ski Yi(仙传拾遗) and so on, the dissertation argue that the fictions about dharaoi and magic of Esoteric Buddhism are important representative works on deities and monsters in the Mid and Late Tang,whose themes include the magic struggle between Esoteric Buddhism and Daoism,the pray for rain by the monastics of Esoteric Buddhism and the imprisonment of the snakes,cury of sickness and driving deities and monsters by the dharaoi,forture telling and so on.Actually,the discussion about the Esoteric school and fiction about Swordsmen is the extension of the reseach on Esoteric Buddhism and fiction. From my study,fiction about Swordsmen originated magic fligt, transformation,medicine and others kinds of magic in Buddhism and Daoism, also,the Esoteric school's sword plays some kind of promotional role.Finally,this dissertation explains the co-relation between the Esoteric Buddhism and literature,art in the Mid and Late Tang by the cases in the last four chapters,in which Usnisa-vijaya-Dharani,the Thousand-Armed Avalokitesvara and Vaisravana are the main focus.This dissertation will place more emphasis on the origin of Buddhism and the description of painting and scripture,and finally find out how they are embodied in the literature of the Mid and Late Tang and how they accelerated the literature creation.In conclusion,it is reasonable to believe that that the prosperity and prevalence of Esoteric Buddhism had great influence on the literature of the Mid and Late Tang.Maybe the style of the poetry in the Mid Tang are originated from the spread of the art of Esoteric Buddhism.Actually, Abracadabra and magic are important parts of Chinese Novel on deities and monsters.For example,Vaisravana,his second son DuJian(独健)and his third son Nalakuvara finally become important characters in the The Legend of Deification(封神榜)and Record of a Journey to the West(西游记)。All in all,the pervasion of images,Dharani and magics of Esoteric Buddhism has promoted the revolution and flourish of literature in the literary area of Mid and Late Tang.