A Study On Buddhist Thoughts Of Jin Sheng-tan’s Literary Criticism

Jin Sheng-tan was closely related to the Buddhism all his life,he studiedBuddhist classics at an early age,and compared himself to be Wu Zhu and Shi Qin.Jin Sheng-tan used the conception of his time to criticize novel and traditionalopera,and was affected by Buddhism thoughts to a great degree,thus his theory haddistinctive personal characteristics,and influenced the literary criticism，especiallynovel criticism of Qing dynasty,so many people followed the example of him,butthere were almost no one could be better than him.The research on Jin Shengtan’stheory of novel and traditional opera more and more becomes a famous subject,butthe study on his theory related to Buddhism thoughts is less,and doesn’t form acomplete system.Thereby,this paper focuses on his criticism theory about Shui HuZhuan and Xi Xiang Ji,explores Buddhist thoughts in it and the influence to histheory,in order to organize his theory,and makes his theory’s contributions and valueas "this one" more clearly. This paper mainly discusses four aspects:The first chapter:"the research on Jin Sheng-tan’s Buddhism thoughts ". Thispart explains the formation and contents of Jin Sheng-tan’s Buddhism thoughts fromthe social atmosphere and temperament interests.In late Ming dynasty,the socialcontradictions intensified,but the Buddhism developed prosperously,all this deeplyinfluenced the culture,literature and intellectuals’ thoughts.Jin Sheng-tan,who livedin that time, certainly was deeply influenced,he contempted for authority,pursuedwith freedom,keened on studying Buddhism and teaching BuddhaDharma.Thereby,we can find much Buddhism thoughts in his criticism theory.The second chapter:"the relation between Jin Sheng-tan’s view of literatureessence and Buddhism".This part discusses the unreal and dreaming thoughts’ impacton literary fictionality, elaborates the relation between Jin Sheng-tan’s"yin wen sheng shi" with Buddhism.Jin put forward this viewpoint,clearly asserted the novel andtraditional opera were the literary form that were different from the historicalliterature and paid attention to fiction.He agreed with the "heart" view ofBuddhism,that was:all things were viod and made by people’s heart,so hepursued"wen xin",claimed that we should not stick to the things, only in this way canwe have classic works.The third chapter:"theory of literary creation rooted in Buddha Dharma".Thispart discusses his theory of literary creation from"yin yuan sheng fa",jing yan wenfa,ji wei fa,san jing shuo,yao zhan fa and meng jie fa.Jin used"yin yuan sheng fa"ofBuddhism, summaried the way of literary creation and the level,and changed theending of Shui Hu Zhuan and Xi Xiang Ji,all theory dripped with Buddhist thoughts.The last chapter:"the influence of Jin Sheng-tan’s criticism theory to Qingdynasty Literary criticism".Jin Sheng-tan’s criticism theory elevated the novel andtraditional opera theory to a new height,and deeply influenced Mao Zong-gang,Zhang Zhu-po,Zhi Yan-zhai,they inherited, developed and carried forward JinSheng-tan’s criticism theory.