A Study Of Zhang Taiyan 's Theory Of "Equality Of Things"

Qiwulun is the second essay in the Inner Chapter of Zhuangzi. Qiwulunshi, written by Zhangtaiyan, is a work which expounds the equal thought of Qiwulun by Buddhist doctrine. The original text of Qiwulun is not easy to understand, though Zhang9 s interpretation with Buddhist terminology has a creative viewpoint, it still cannot present the original meaning of Qiwulun. The argumentation process of using Buddhism to interpret Zhuang Tzu’s Theory is wonderful, but it seems to be distracting. Meanwhile, the Buddhist terminology are also very complicated for general readers. All above made Qiwulunshi become an embarrassment between Buddhism and the studies of Zhuangzi. Furthermore, Qiwulunshi presently has two kinds of text,the original and the final version. Until now there’s no comprehensive research for the source of these two versions. This paper combs the different version materials of Qiwulunshi released by Zhang taiyan in his lifetime and make a textual research for the first edition time of original version and final version, summarize the main content of each chapter in Qiwulunshi on a basis of the literature work, explore the source for its Buddhism thought. Strive to display the intemal(theory) basis and the extemal(times) factors thafs why Zhang taiyan use buddhism to explain the Zhuang Tzu’s idea.This paper is composed by three parts. Firstly, collect and collate the version materials of Qiwulunshi, which was issued in Republican period, ascertain that the publishing time of original and final version are in 1912 and 1919. The second part discusses each chapter^ main content based on the final version. The writing style of Zhang is archaic and abstruse, meanwhile the buddhism scriptures he cited are also very miscellaneous. The author will take into account the connection between original meaning of Qiwulunshi and the cited scriptures while expounding Zhang^ paraphrase. The third part reveals the theme of equality in Qiwulunshi through two aspects: transcendent thusness and conventional Thing-Only. The equality of thusness is an ultimate equal without discrimination, while the equality of Ihing-Only is an self-nature equal by difference. Both of these two kinds of equality cannot be neglected. Scholars generally believe that Qiwulunshi is a work of Zhang binlin who try to interpret Chuang-Tuz^ thought by using Consciousness-Only theory. However, the author drew an analysis conclusion: while publicizing the equality of thusness, Qiwulunshi made more use of the thought from another buddhist text: The Awakeningof Maha Aya Ana Faith which belongs to the Dharma-nature School of Buddhism. Nevertheless, it was affected by Dharmalaksana Consciousness Studieson on another focusing point: the equality of conventional truth.