| During the Song Dynasty,the guqin culture flourished and was widely spread,thus giving rise to the emergence of lyre monk with high attainments in music,Buddhism and literature.Playing Guqin was an important part of their activities,just like attending meditation and discussing the Tao.Guqin,the instrument of the literati,had become a convenient way for them to be accessible to the way of awakening the wisdom of the Buddha.As a special group existed during this period,lyre monk integrated Buddhist thought with artistic aesthetics,therefore,the group of lyre monk cannot be ignored in the study of Guqin culture.This paper takes monk as the subject of study and seeks to analyze lyre monk as well as affairs related to Guqin,mainly by crawling through and organizing the relevant records of Guqin players since the Song dynasty.This paper will analyze the phenomenon of Guqin-playing monks in ancient Chinese society and their activities in the art of Guqin to analyze and argue the deeper reasons for the emergence of the lyre monk community based on historical materials.The body of this paper consists of four parts.The first part is about the comparison of the overall profile of lyre monks,giving an overview of Guqin culture and the geographical distribution of lyre monk in the Song Dynasty.The second part is to collate and study the documents related to lyre monk and Guqin affairs in the historical materials,while discussing them through the system of Guqin monks’ mastery as well as Guqin affairs of players,in order to grasp the overall appearance of lyre monk in the Song Dynasty.The third part is the research on the cultural composition of lyre monks and its causes,discussing the theory of Guqin and the art of making it.The fourth part is based on the flourishing of the Zen Buddhism and the Buddhist protection policy of the Song dynasty.Buddhism advocates the karma of world affairs,thus lyre monk used the Guqin as a tool to cultivate themselves and as a bridge between Guqin culture and Buddhist culture.Based on previous research,this paper explores the contribution of lyre monk and Guqin players to Guqin music during the Song Dynasty. |
