The "Comeuppance" Concept Of Buddhism In Dunhuang Bianwen

Since the world-shaking discovery of the ancient Dunhuang manuscripts in 1900, much scholarship has been devoted to this sealed library and a new research area to study the Dunhuang literature has appeared over the world. As one of the branches, the study of Dunhuang Bianwen, a kind of popular storytelling script, has attracted many researchers. There is a tight relationship between Dunhuang Bianwen and Buddhism, and the concept of comeuppance in Buddhism is a representative topic in Dunhuang Bianwen– almost half of Dunhuang Bianwen texts are relative to this topic. This thesis studies the comeuppance concept of Buddhism in Dunhuang Bianwen, focusing on its appearance forms in Bianwen, its influence on the forms and contents of Bianwen, and how such influence impacted on the later novel literature.There are two definitions of Bianwen, one for narrow sense and the other for broad sense. This thesis at first chooses the definition of Bianwen, and then describes the comeuppance concept of Buddhism in brief. The concept of comeuppance in Buddhism was inherited and extended in Dunhuang Bianwen. This thesis summarizes three modes of the comeuppance concept in Bianwen: samsara– nirmanakaya, karma– filial-piety-first, and poetical-justice– direct-reply-to- obligation-or-hatred. Furthermore, the thesis analyzes why such inheritance and change of the comeuppance concept happened in Bianwen from three different contexts: region, time, and culture. Since the concept of comeuppance in Buddhism heavily affected Bianwen, this thesis also studies how it impacted the narrative and art of Bianwen. Such impacts can be shown in two aspects: 1) the impact on the plot: on the one hand, the comeuppance concept extended the plot of Bianwen. On the other hand, however, the plot of Bianwen was deleted or changed to emphasize the comeuppance concept, which may hamper the progress of the plot sometimes; 2) the impact on the style: the prose and verse in Bianwen used a special style in the expression of the comeuppance concept. Their talk-and-sing characteristics made the comeuppance concept more vivid and impressive. The comeuppance concept in Bianwen had its unique significance and influence in the literature history. At first, it impacted the concept of inditing later popular novels. Secondly, it impacted the structure of later novels. The style and plot for the expression of the comeuppance concept became formalized and important in either Buddhism or popular novels after Dunhuang Bianwen.