Study On The Buddhist Writing Of The Nuns In The Six Dynasties

This study calls the individualized writing activities related to Buddhism that monks and nuns participate in as "Buddhist writing",which is a way for monks and nuns to express and remember their individualized mind.In the concept of the Buddhist writing of the nuns,the nuns are not only the main body of the Buddhist writing activities,but also the object of the monks' writing.This paper takes the writing activities and texts produced by the nuns in the Six Dynasties as the main body,such as statues,scriptures and epitaphs,as well as the writing of the monks on the nuns in this period as the research object,aiming at exploring and investigating the historical image,personality traits and literary and cultural contributions of the nuns as a Buddhist female group in the Six Dynasties from various angles.The main body of this paper is divided into five chapters:The first chapter mainly discusses the age and cultural background of the Buddhist writing activities of the nuns.Under the influence and impetus of the times,they need to find spiritual sustenance in the reality of suffering,settle their thoughts in cultural conflict and integration,and express their national feelings in the process of secularization of Buddhism.The higher literacy of the outstanding the nuns is the result of the dual education and cultivation of family and monastery,and some of them show their outstanding political talents through social experience.Political,economic,social,ideological and cultural aspects not only provide opportunities for their Buddhist writing activities,but also make their writing face many difficulties.The second chapter mainly discusses the characteristics of the text about the Buddhist writing of the nuns in the Six Dynasties,such as individuality,literariness and aesthetic tendency.The nuns' memorials of statues and scriptures contain their view of life,their gender consciousness of "being virgin" and their multi-dimensional understanding of the category of "heaven".The nuns' portraits have literary characteristics: from the point of view of the content of the expression,the writing of the portraits conforms to the essence of literature,and has a relatively fixed narrative mode,showing a plain and classical feature in style.Compared with the monastic portraits,the content is more delicate.The statues of the nuns coincide with the strong political color of Northern Dynasty literature,but differ from the sad mood of Northern Dynasty literary style.Through the nuns' inscriptions,we can see that under the influence of Mahayana Buddhism,they think that "writing" has more important role and value to benefit themselves and all living beings.These inscriptions show their unique cultural psychology and profound cultural accumulation.In addition,these Buddhist writing texts also contain the imagination,emotion,understanding and other aesthetic psychological activities of the nuns,reflecting their imagination of the heterogeneous space beyond real life,the dual integration of secular and religious emotions,and their understanding and feeling of Buddhism.The third chapter mainly discusses the relationship between the Buddhist writing and Buddhist rituals in the Six Dynasties and the characteristics of the Buddhist writing in the context of rituals.As a manifestation of Buddhist beliefs,Buddhist rituals often stimulate and cultivate participants' religious feelings and promote their desire to express their Buddhist writing.Some Buddhist rituals also use written texts to enhance their religious appeal and make people deeply understand the wisdom of Buddhism,while Buddhist writing in turn can foil and enhance the sacredness and solemnity of the relevant rituals.Buddhist rituals and writings transcend reality perception and rationality,and have the characteristics of unity of religion and sociality,and unity of sacredness and humanity.According to the statue records of the nuns in the Northern Dynasty,Buddhist statue activities also have their related rituals,such as the opening ceremony and the ritual of worship.Many nuns made statues for the dead,so the statues themselves belong to a part of the funeral ceremony,which is a new feature of the funeral ceremony in the Six Dynasties.In these ceremonies,the feelings and thoughts of the writing subject of statuary records can be reposed and sublimated.In addition,the Six Dynasties is a time of great change in Chinese culture.Whether it is funeral ceremony at that time or the writing of epitaphs and death documents related to it,it has new cultural implications.The typical images,emotional expressions and philosophical implications in the epitaphs and the dead essays of the nuns are closely related to the funeral ceremony.The fourth chapter mainly discusses the different regional styles of Buddhist writing of the nuns in the Six Dynasties.The North-South differences in the nuns' Buddhist writings are the result of multiple factors,such as geographical environment,social economy,ideology and culture,Buddhist development and literature development.The Northern Dynasty's writing as a whole shows a pragmatic and plain aesthetic style,while the Southern Dynasty's writing shows an aesthetic style of emphasizing sense,profound and remote,graceful and elegant.From a specific type of text,the statues of the Northern Dynasty were mainly distributed in the capital city at that time,and the center of Buddhism in the Northern Dynasty changed with the change of the capital city.It can be seen that the development of Buddhism was closely related to the feudal monarchy at that time.In addition,Royal noble women,Buddhist women and civilian women in the Northern Dynasty actively participated in Buddhist activities and contributed their strength to the development of Buddhism.At the same time,the development of Buddhism also expanded their space of activities and expanded their content of social interaction.On the whole,there is an inseparable relationship among region,personality and writing.From the Buddhist writing of the nuns,it can be seen that the southern culture shaped the beauty of the poetry personality of the nuns in the Eastern Jin and Southern Dynasties.They possessed elegant,calm temperament and demeanor,as well as profound and wise thoughts and aesthetic realm.Under the influence of the northern culture,the Northern Dynasty nuns had the simplicity and aesthetic realm.Emphasis on practical personality characteristics,as well as the ethical concept of caring for the secular,filial piety and respect for the country.The fifth chapter mainly discusses the image of the six dynasties' nuns from the perspective of monks and literati.Taking a comprehensive view of the characters in Biography of the nuns,Baochang's "Other" writing reflects that Gao Ni's personality in biography is based on the construction of Baochang's own perspective and concept,which is the result of a combination of various factors.In Baochang's "other" writing,from human's spirit,personality to intelligence,Baochang highlights these aesthetic images of Gao Ni's extraordinary refinement,chastity and restraint,wisdom and quick comprehension.This is the poetry personality of the nuns constructed from the perspective of Baochang,and also the concentrated reflection of Baochang's personal ideal and aesthetic tendency under the influence of the times.In biography,there are three main differences in the image construction of monks and nuns in the Six Dynasties: first,there are differences in the relationship between their origin and cultural literacy;second,they are given double standards in tolerance and virtue;and third,there are phenomena of divine alienation in the Buddhist literacy of the monks and nuns.In addition,the acceptance of Buddhism and the mentality of literati in the Six Dynasties determined their views on the nuns.Generally speaking,they hold an admiring and respectful attitude towards this group of Buddhist women.The noble and elegant image of Gao Ni people,full of wisdom and talent,conforms to their personality aesthetics.Even though there are some individual phenomena of anti-Buddhism and defamation of images,the spiritual interchange and mutual agreement between scholars and monks led to the mainstream of communication and interaction between the two sides,which promoted the prosperity of Buddhism and the progress of philosophical thought at that time.In addition,in the Northern Wei Dynasty,there were two fabricated phenomena of literariness and cognitive evaluation in the construction of the image of the nuns.The understanding and imagination of the epitaph writers played a vital role in the construction of the image of the nuns.