The Development And Influence Of Zen Thought In Vietnam Tran Dynasty

As a universal religion,Buddhism presents different and colorful characteristics of cultural landscape in different Asian nations.According to the opinion of mainstream academia,there are three major divisions of Buddhism:Theravada,Chinese Mahayana and the Tibetan Vajrayana.Theravada ranges in the Southeast Asia and Sri Lanka and they preserve the Pali as their canonical language.This branch keeps most contents of early Buddhism.Chinese Mahayana and Tibetan Vajrayana are both branches of Mahayana,but the former one is earlier and spread in area of Han nation in China and also in Confucian cultural countries as Korea and Japan.Chinese Sutra is their common canonical books.Tibetan Vajrayana mainly exists in Tibet,Mongolia and some South Asian countries which adjoin the Tibet.They consider the Tibetan language and the Sanskrit mantra their canonical language.Vietnam was situated in the Indochina peninsula,which is in the cross of Indian cultural area and Chinese cultural area.So its Buddhism inevitably possesses the distinguishing feature from both Chinese Mahayana and Theravada.Furthermore,because of the Suzerain-Vassal relationship between Yuan dynasty of China and Tran dynasty of Vietnam,the Vajrayana also impacted the Vietnam Buddhism thought.It shaped a unique phenomenon in world Buddhism history that three major divisions were perfect penetrated in Vietnam.As the most important dynasty in Vietnam history,Tran dynasty is not the key period for formation of Vietnam national culture but also the fundamental era of development of Buddhism in Vietnam.By research the history of Buddhism especially the Zen-Buddhism in Tran dynasty of Vietnam,this dissertation digs the contribution of Zen-Buddhism in Vietnam Tran dynasty for the Buddhism thought development.It also gave the Vietnam traditional culture(Vietnam literature as its representation)a fundamental effect.Beside this,dissertation also discussed the contemporary significance of Buddhism thought in Tran dynasty of Vietnam.All of these points are the profound and new standpoints of the dissertation.