Research On The Phenomenen Of Scholars' Fleeing Zen Buddhism In Early Qing Dynasty And Its Influence On Literature

Under the influence of the ideological atmosphere in the end of Ming Dynasty,as well as the culture shock brought by the peregrine rulers,quite a few scholars chose to take the tonsure and devote themselves to Buddhism,which formed a unique wave of “fleeing into Zen Buddhism” in the early Qing Dynasty.Since their behavior not only differed from those who just enjoyed spiritual Buddhist delight in past dynasties,but also exceeded the boundary between Confucianism and Buddhism,this wave caused unprecedented impact on the scholars' cultural characteristics and tradition in the early Qing Dynasty.Undergoing the significant change of dynasties,those scholars showed their unyielding character out of the religious exercise of transcending the world,which gloriously reflected into aspects such as literature,religion,culture in Qing Dynasty.In other words,the wave of “fleeing into Zen Buddhism” in early Qing Dynasty is an upheaval derived from a special and complicated historical and cultural environment.Stepping across the two dynasties of Ming and Qing,it not only rooted in conflicts of Confucianism,Buddhism and Taoism within scholars' tradition,but also embodied the wane and wax of politics,culture and religion during the dynasty change,reflecting scholars' purgatorial spiritual salvation at that time.Those factors were either directly or indirectly merged into literary outputs of various type through the scholars' literature exercise,which became an important reference to investigate literary and cultural change of that period.However,it is to be regretted that research on relationship between Buddhism and literature through Ming and Qing has been comparatively weak.Knowledge about “fleeing into Zen Buddhism” has long been a subordinate of research on the adherents of Ming Dynasty in academia,yet literary research under cultural angle of view has been rare.Therefore,this paper would take the phenomenon of Confucian scholars fleeing into Zen Buddhism as the starting point of research,and go through its process of birth-development-death as well as its important political,religious,cultural and literary phenomenons.With the help of documentation,poetry inter-attestation,intertexuality reading etc.,this paper would review,observe,and classify events of “fleeing into Zen Buddhism”,so as to discuss about its cause of formation,trend,thinking idiosyncrasy and literary/cultural influence in detail.Thereby,the cultural texture and development of literature in early Qing Dynasty could be outlined in a subtle way.Furthermore,through the discussion of contents above,the relationship between “fleeing into Zen Buddhism” and religious environment together with cultural structure of early Qing Dynasty would be more credibly and comprehensively observed.From these,it would worth something in investigating the changes of China's literature,religion and culture in the 17th century.