A Study Of The Biography Of The Famous Monks

Shi Baochang,a famous monk in the Liang Dynasty wrote a plenty of books throughout his life,including A Biography of Monks,A Biography of Buddhist Nuns,the Buddhist Scripture,Encylopaedia(reference books with material taken from various sources and arranged according to subjects),the Translation of Buddhist Scriptures and so on,whose masterpieces are widely and deeply studied by the current academic circle.Meanwhile,the Biography of the famous Monks written earlier written is paid less attention to.The Biography of the Famous Monks,the representative transition book from the immature stage to the mature stage is earlier written than the Biographies of Eminent monks,which is frequently mentioned when the Biographies of Emient Monks is studied in the academic circle.It is widely believed that the Biographies of Emient Monks inheritted the esscene of the Biography of the Famous Monks.It is thus clear that what a deep and close relationship between those two book and that how significent the Biography of the Famous Monks is.Considering the fact that the Biography of the Famous Monks is inadequately studied and its significence,I choose A Study of the Biography of the Famous Monks as the subject study.As a whole,this thesis consists of four parts,that is,the preface part and another three main chapters.The preface part states the general ideas of this masterpiece,including the literature review,reasons for its research and the research thinking.Chapter One is aimed to sort out some related research materials,including the information source,the book-forming process and the version verification by investigating some doubts about this masterpiece.Section One mainly introduces the origin of the Biography of the Famous Monks,which is shown by the book Compilation of Notes on the Translation of the Tripitaka and other classic books,Eulogy of Monument and so on.Section Two studies the forming of the book the Biography of the Famous Monks and its spreading process,including the book-forming time,the disappearing time,being intruducing into Japan and so on.Section Three studies the versions of the book the Biography of the Famous Monks,compared with advantages and disadvantages of other versions.Chapter Two is the main and core part,which goes as the book A Copy of Famous Monks.Firstly,some examples are strongly introduced.Then,contents,circulated texts and the original sources are prapared to clarify the arguments stated above,which are judged and collated by the differences between those three books.Somewhere difficult to judge is marked and shown on the copy version.Chapter Three is the research of A Copy of Famous Monks,which consists of the differences of the circulated texts,character analysis and its literary language.The last chapter studies the value of the Biography of the Famous Monks,which is studied literally and academically.All in all,thisthesis firstly sorts out the texts and then goes on the literal explanation based on the traditional original arguments and reference documents in order to restore its academic value and significance.