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8 The Original Mind Is the Literary Mind, the Original Body Carves Dragons Rafal K. Stepien The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons (Wenxin diaolong ᮷ᗳ 䴅喽, hereafter WXDL)1 is China’s earliest systematic treatise of literary theory.2 It was written around the turn of the sixth century by Liu Xie (ࢹठ c. 465–522), a lay temple-based Buddhist scholar who took monastic vows late in life. In the WXDL, Liu Xie draws on the full semantic range of the Chinese character wen (᮷) as “pattern, cultivation, word, literature,” to propose that “literary patterns” (yan zhi wen 䀰ѻ᮷) are the very “mind of heaven and earth” (tiandi zhi xin ཙൠѻᗳ), the very manifestation of natural “suchness” (ziran 㠚❦). This last term is of prime importance in Chinese Buddhist thought, where it is understood to embody the functioning of the “Buddha nature” (foxing ֋ᙗ) or “original mind” (benxin ᵜᗳ) inherent in all sentient beings, by means of which they are able to realize “emptiness” (kong オ) and thereby just be “truly thus” (zhenru ⵏྲ). Such thusness is in turn understood by the Chan tradition to necessitate “not depending on words and letters” (bu li wenzi н・᮷ᆇ). Despite their avowed insistence on the transcendence of wen, 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 231 SP_STE_Ch_08_231-260.indd 231 8/26/20 2:47 PM 232 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 Rafal K. Stepien however, Chan philosophers and literati not only composed a great deal of literature, but invoked what I will propose is a distinctly logocentric approach to enlightenment fully in accord with Liu Xie’s dictum that “When mind arises, language abides; when language abides, literature enlightens” (ᗳ⭏㘼䀰・, 䀰・㘼᮷᰾). In this chapter, therefore, I suggest reading Chan philosophy of language through Liu Xie’s literary theory to demonstrate that both are committed to literature, in the fullest sense, as itself the “original embodiment” (benshen ᵜ䓛) of Buddhist emptiness, and thus as an indispensable means toward enlightenment. In employing a term as loaded as logocentrism, and moreover in applying it to a religio-philosophical tradition such as the Chan far removed from the term’s Greek etymological and Biblical intellectual sources, it behooves me to explain my usage. Briefly stated, then, my reading of Chan as “logocentric” is not meant to refer to any specifically Johannine conception of the Logos as the personification of preexistent transcendent truth, or more broadly to any Greco-Christian conception of it as the unique or at least preeminent expression of some external fundamental reality. Likewise, it is not meant to refer to reason as opposed to language, or to speech as opposed to writing. And finally, it is not meant to refer to any specifically Derridean understanding of logocentrism as synonymous with or emblematic of a metaphysics of presence he sees as fundamental to the historical trajectory of Western philosophy. Instead, I am attempting to use the term logocentrism in a manner that is, to the extent possible in the medium of the English language, divested of senses or implications both/either irrelevant here (Plato et al.) and/or infused with so many supposedly clarifying yet hopelessly opaque layers of différance that the reader seeking meaning is perforce (and perhaps intendedly) left merely confused (Derrida et al.). In short, then, I am using logocentric simply to denote “centered on language,” as per the secondary definition provided in the OED. My preceding statements also reveal that I am using “Chan” more as a cipher, a literary device of Chan’s own making, than as an empirically attested historical phenomenon. In so doing, and as I go on to explain in the section on “Literature and Mind” below, I am taking Chan at its own word, treating it according to the criteria of its own professed canonical identifications of itself as an ahistorical direct transmission. In thus treating “Chan as an Art Form,” to adopt Alan Cole’s formulation, (Cole 2016, 11), SP_STE_Ch_08_231-260.indd 232 8/26/20 2:47 PM The Original Mind Is the Literary Mind 233 I naturally open myself to criticism from more historically minded scholars who may bemoan the lack of synchronic embedding and diachronic contextualization in the pages that follow, and thereby echo Griffith Foulk’s lament that Bernard Faure’s “largely abstract observations [are] divorced from concrete textual or historical examples” (Foulk 1992, 522; also cited in Mohr 2012, 117). My response is threefold: firstly, and apart from the sheer impossibility of arriving at any final narrative as to “the” history of “the” Chan tradition, I find the drive to anchor all one’s reflections in duly footnoted authoritative sources deeply problematic at the best of times, and outright contrary to the overall antinomian thrust of classical Chan. Thankfully, scholarship on Chan (as also on other philosophical traditions of Chinese Buddhism) has not only progressed through several stages but has been for some three decades now in the midst of what Michel Mohr, in his survey of the field, terms “demythologization” (Mohr 2012, 117). This trend, some (among too many to mention) of whose exponents are cited below, has succeeded in detaching Chan scholarship from reliance on essentializing as well as homogenizing accounts of the tradition at large (be these within modern scholarship or part of the classical canon itself ), and allowed scholars to arrive at original insights based on (but not necessarily explicitly found within) the Chan corpus. My second response to a foreseeable charge of historical irresponsibility, therefore, is to identify myself as working within this line of scholarship, in the hope that I may make herein a small contribution to it. Finally, as primarily an exercise in philosophy (that is, as an exercise in what I have elsewhere referred to as “philosophical construction”; see Stepien 2018, 1081), this chapter is concerned to think with the sources at hand, a project that I see as methodologically distinct from those of ascertaining what the thinking in those sources meant to their authors and contemporaries (textual hermeneutics), and delineating the chronological formation of, or subsequent influence of, that thinking within its philosophical and sectarian contexts (history of philosophy/ideas/ religion).3 It is this methodological approach that has led me to eschew the (in any case impossibly gargantuan) tasks of tracing either the diachronic development or the environing intellectual landscape of the ideas I draw on (be they those of Chan philosophy or the literary theory of Liu Xie) within their multifarious precedent and contemporary contexts.4 The bulk of my chapter will therefore outline a reading of Liu Xie’s WXDL, particularly as this relates to the conceptions of language and SP_STE_Ch_08_231-260.indd 233 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 8/26/20 2:47 PM 234 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 Rafal K. Stepien literature (and the metaphysical frameworks they entail) that emerge from the text and that align with, potentially even inform, the professed Chan stance on those topics. In adumbrating my own reading, I have focused on Liu Xie’s opening chapter, rather ambiguously titled “Source Way” (Yuandao ৏䚃),5 which I have selected for its rich theoretical elaboration of wen—a Chinese character usually meaning “literature” but whose full semantic range will soon be explained. I have also made occasional reference to Liu Xie’s “Afterword” (Xuzhi ᒿᘇ), but have not delved into the detailed applications of “literary study” (wenxue ᮷ᆨ) in the remaining forty-eight chapters of the WXDL, which attempt to comprehensively cover the range of literary genres found in the Chinese textual canon unto Liu Xie’s day as well as all the “basic concepts of literary thought” (Owen 1992, 185).6 While it is clear that the WXDL was a groundbreaking work in the context of Chinese literary theory, even a cursory survey of the text renders it equally evident that Liu Xie did not write in a vacuum. Much of the contemporary Chinese language scholarship has been concerned to identify the various intellectual antecedents of the text, be they from during the Six Dynasties (‫ޝ‬ᵍ 220–589) period during which Liu Xie lived or from preceding centuries. As already mentioned, I have not dealt directly with chasing down ancient sources here, primarily because this would be tangential to my concerns, and secondarily because it has largely been carried out already by scholars far more qualified in that task than I; that said, I do point out sources of immediate relevance to the discussion where appropriate. As to these, in contrast to the dearth of work on the WXDL in English and other European languages, the sheer quantity of recent scholarship on it in Chinese is overwhelming. An idea of the scale of this output can well be gleaned from Zhang Shaokang’s “Survey of Studies on Wenxin diaolong in China and Other Parts of East Asia,” in which he attests: This [twentieth] century has witnessed an explosion of scholarly works about WXDL. More than 140 books and 2,400 articles have been published. . . . The Chinese WXDL Association (ѝ഻᮷ᗳ䴅喽ᆨᴳ). . . . has organized five national and three international conferences . . . [published] ᮷ᗳ䴅喽ᆨ࠺ (The WXDL journal, renamed ᮷ᗳ䴅喽⹄ウ (Studies on WXDL SP_STE_Ch_08_231-260.indd 234 8/26/20 2:47 PM The Original Mind Is the Literary Mind 235 in 1993) . . . has sponsored the publication of ᮷ᗳ䴅喽⹄ウ 㮸㨳 (Collected Studies on WXDL) and ᮷ᗳ䴅喽㏌㿭 (A comprehensive survey of studies on WXDL), the most comprehensive reference book for WXDL scholars. (2001, 227) Obviously, it is well beyond my mandate here to cover this material with anything approaching comprehensiveness. Apart from anything else, my aim here is not to provide an introduction to WXDL scholarship in Chinese, for which in any case the best sources are the article just cited by Zhang Shaokang in English, and the comprehensive survey of studies he mentions in Chinese. That said, I feel it would be remiss of me not to acknowledge Chinese language scholarly sources, not least in a bid to augment Zhang’s summary and thereby raise further awareness of this body of work among Western Sinologists and Buddhologists. Of most direct interest to my arguments are the specifically Buddhist elements of Liu Xie’s thought, particularly given his life-long affiliation with Buddhism. In this context, it is particularly noteworthy that Liu Xie never married, lived and studied for more than a decade at Dinglin Temple (ᇊ᷇ሪ) in the company of Sengyou (‫ܗ‬ց 445–518), one of the most important monks of the era, and was involved in various Buddhist projects throughout his adult life, such as compiling an epitome of Buddhist scriptures, editing sūtras, and, perhaps most notably, contributing the Mie huo lun (⓵ᜁ䄆 Treatise Dispelling Doubt), to the Hong ming ji (ᕈ ᰾䳶 Collection for Propagating Enlightenment)—a defense of Buddhism attributed to Sengyou himself. According to the official histories, moreover, toward the end of his life Liu Xie took Buddhist vows, adopted the dharma name Huidi (ភൠ), and eventually died a monk in the very same Dinglin Temple where he had studied.7 As Victor Mair observes, “For the last couple of decades, a scholarly (and sometimes not so scholarly) debate has raged over whether Buddhism played a significant role in the composition of Wenxin dialong,” and, “There is a wide spectrum of opinions concerning the role of Buddhism in WXDL: (a) for all intents and purposes, it was effectively absent from the text; (b) it played a prominent, even decisive, role; (c) it was present but played no significant role” (2001, 63, 64). Mair (2001, 64–74) traces the debate over recent decades in mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan through the arguments and counterarguments proffered by scholars such SP_STE_Ch_08_231-260.indd 235 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 8/26/20 2:47 PM 236 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 Rafal K. Stepien as Ma Hongshan (俜ᆿኡ), Wang Yuanhua (⦻‫)ॆݳ‬, Kong Fan (ᆄ㑱), Li Qingjia (ᵾឦ⭢), Wang Chunhong (⊚᱕⌃), Rao Zongyi (侂ᇇ乔), and Pan Chonggui (█䟽㾿). To this summary, however, might be added a significant proportion of the Chinese language authors I cite here. It merits mentioning likewise that the debate as to Liu Xie’s affiliation is not limited to Chinese language scholarship. Indeed, as emblematic as any of the sectarian tendency among English language scholars is Ferenc Tokei’s statement that “there is no trace in [the opening chapter of the WXDL] of Liu Xie’s belonging to Buddhism; on the contrary, he declares himself to be a Confucian” (1971, 98). Now, this is problematic on a number of fronts, not least since nowhere does Liu Xie in fact “declare himself to be a Confucian” at all. He does, of course, cite several ancient authoritative texts such as the Shijing (䂙㏃ Book of Songs) and Yijing (᱃㏃ Book of Changes), but these are the common stock of all classical Chinese literati; likewise, he does declare Confucius to be the “successor of the sages, uniquely excellent among the wise of old” (㒬㚆, ⦘⿰ࡽଢ), but this and similar epithets are commonly applied among later writers to the founders of the Chinese philosophico-literary canon. In any case, Tokei himself appears to backtrack on his own statement, since he goes on to acknowledge that “Buddhism is latent in [the opening chapter], though not in the form of some direct allusion but undoubtedly in indirect relations” (101). Nonetheless, and these brief comments notwithstanding, it should be clear that my purpose here is decidedly not to engage in the long-standing debate as to Liu Xie’s sectarian affiliation. In other words, I am not concerned to demonstrate just how Buddhist Liu Xie’s text “really” is (though I strongly suspect that proponents of Mair’s view (b) will find some significant support for their position in these pages). Whereas that endeavor may be considered primarily as historically grounded textual hermeneutics, according to which as “objective” a resolution could in theory be provided as any in historical studies, mine is rather, as avowed above, a philosophical-constructive exercise. I am thus concerned to propose a reading of the WXDL, and specifically of its notion of wen as this is elaborated in the text’s opening chapter, which provides a philosophically fruitful conception of wen that is congruent with and interesting to Buddhist philosophy of language, particularly as this relates to its philosophy of mind. As such, I will not be directly engaging (further) with the various scholarly positions SP_STE_Ch_08_231-260.indd 236 8/26/20 2:47 PM The Original Mind Is the Literary Mind 237 arguing for Confucian (and more broadly indigenously Chinese),8 Daoist,9 and/or Buddhist10 origins of Liu Xie’s ideas and terms.11 As it proceeds, my reading of the WXDL, and particularly of the role of wen in the text, should raise flags among readers familiar with Buddhist philosophy of language, particularly that of the Chan tradition. Given the vastness of the literature both primary and secondary in this field, my comments on this score will inevitably lack comprehensiveness; they are meant less as conclusions than as provocations to further reflection. That said, I will be proposing a reading of the WXDL and Chan philosophy of language that shows them to be consonant. As I see it, this reading has two immediate consequences for the study of Buddhist literature, literary theory, and philosophy: firstly, it goes some way toward substantiating the claim that the WXDL was a direct historical source of certain Chan notions of language and literature. Secondly, it posits a philosophical claim as to the preeminent importance of language (yan 䀰) and literature (wen ᮷) in the Chan program of enlightenment. The Chan disavowal of “words and letters” (wenzi ᮷ᆇ), I argue, is itself a literary device aimed at the ultimate identification of literature (wen ᮷) with suchness (ru ྲ), form (se 㢢) with emptiness (kong オ). I will conclude this chapter by making a number of interrelated points concerning the methodological import and upshot of my approach to the scholarly study of literary and philosophical texts in the Buddhist canon, and by tracing some philosophical implications of the ideas previously discussed. These comments will be especially brief and suggestive: my aim is not to compose a manifesto of some new way of studying Buddhist writings, but merely to propose some ways in which scholars of literature and philosophy may benefit from engaging with scholars of Buddhist literature and Buddhist philosophy, and how these latter may benefit from engaging with one another and with related issues located outside of Buddhist studies per se. And so, with all that as preamble, allow me to properly begin. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 The Literary Mind 35 Not only the title, but the text of the WXDL begins with the Chinese 36 character wen, whose semantic range requires some explaining. In the 37 38 SP_STE_Ch_08_231-260.indd 237 8/26/20 2:47 PM 238 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 Rafal K. Stepien broadest sense (one explicitly evoked in this opening to the text), wen means “pattern”; the pattern according to which each aspect of the universe naturally functions. As such, Liu Xie will soon use it in compound form to denote the patterns constitutive of every one of the three pillars of the cosmos in classical Chinese thought: heaven, earth, and humanity. Respectively, “heaven’s pattern” (tianwen ཙ᮷) comes to mean “astronomy” or “astrology”; “earth’s pattern” (diwen ൠ᮷) “topography” or “geography”; and “human pattern” (renwen Ӫ᮷) “culture,” hence, “cultivation,” “learning,” and thence, most pointedly for our and Liu Xie’s purposes, “literature.”12 From its meaning of “literature,” wen will come to denote “ornamentation” or “decoration”; that is, a potential derogation of or deviation from the patterns constitutive of the natural way into mere literary embellishments and flowery phrases, the empty patter of literati, as it were. It is this latter sense of wen that Liu Xie refers to obliquely in the second half of the title to his text. For as he will go on to explain, while “carving dragons” maintains the proper sense of wen as “constitutive pattern” and hence of “literature” properly practiced, this is so only by contrast with the frippery poetastery of “carving insects” (diaochong 䴅㸢). This tallies well with Wai-Yee Li’s proposal that in chapter 1 of the WXDL Liu Xie elevates wen as the unifying, formative principle behind myriad phenomena. It is coeval with heaven and earth: planetary, meteorological, and topographical variations are patterns of the Way (Dao zhi wen 䚃ѻ᮷). . . . Wen is the manifestation of the Way in the world of appearances; it is thus not external decoration (waishi ཆᑛ) but the externalization of an internal necessity. (2001, 193) James Liu provides a not dissimilar account of wen as used by Liu Xie in the WXDL’s opening chapter. On his account, Liu Xie formed his basic conception of literature by amalgamating several concepts all denoted by the word wen: (1) wen as patterns of configurations of natural phenomena, considered to be manifestations of the cosmic Dao; (2) wen as culture, the configurations of human institutions, and a parallel to SP_STE_Ch_08_231-260.indd 238 8/26/20 2:47 PM The Original Mind Is the Literary Mind 239 natural wen; (3) wen as embellishment; (4) wen as the script, which represents language, which in turn expresses the human mind, identified with the mind of the universe. The result of this amalgamation of concepts is the concept of literature as a manifestation of the principle of the universe and a configuration of embellished words. (1975, 24–25) Liu further states that “throughout the chapter Liu [Xie] skillfully plays on the polysemy of wen so as to emphasize the analogy between literature and other forms of configuration or embellishment” (1975, 22). Wai-Yee Li elaborates on this polysemicity of wen in the WXDL, noting that the word wen ᮷ is used in various contexts [in the WXDL] to mean pattern, words, language, writing, literature, refinement, aesthetic surface, culture, or civilization, with the idea of pattern as the apparent common denominator facilitating logical transitions. But even as patterning can be both sedate balance and arabesque effervescence, wen embodies immanent order as well as excesses that undermine order in Wenxin dialong. (2001, 193) For his part, Vincent Shih states: The term “wen” has no simple English equivalent. As it is used here at the outset of the treatise, it signifies a wide variety of patterns that envelop all aspects of the universe. . . . The use of a single term to cover all these different patterns suggests that in Liu’s mind the presence of some kind of pattern is the common feature of all aspects of the universe. (2015, 11 n1)13 So what does Liu Xie actually say about wen in the opening section of his work? In his opening chapter, “Source Way,” Liu Xie seeks to demonstrate that wen is not only the externally apprehensible manifestation of the cosmic Way or Dao (䚃), but that it constitutes the very fabric of the cosmos, the pattern without which there would be no discernible “way” of things at all. He begins with a bold declaration positioning wen as the great power or virtue (de ᗧ) born with the very birth of heaven and earth SP_STE_Ch_08_231-260.indd 239 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 8/26/20 2:47 PM 240 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 Rafal K. Stepien (᮷ѻ⛪ᗧҏབྷ⸓, 㠷ཙൠі⭏㘵). It is wen that provides the world with its inherent order (li ⨶);14 wen it is that permits primordial differentiations among forms; the “way” the world is is therefore the “wen-way” (dao zhi wen 䚃ѻ᮷). This is a radical claim, not least because the way or dao was typically conceived in classical Chinese thought of various stripes to be the indeterminate origin of the determinate qualities characterizing things. Here, Liu Xie is effectively subordinating dao to wen by proposing that the way of the way is wen; in other words, that the way itself functions according to pattern.15 This position is in fact further reinforced by Liu Xie’s avowal toward the end of his Afterword to the WXDL that “this work on [or of ] the literary mind originates from the way” (᮷ᗳѻ֌ ҏ, ᵜѾ䚃), for given what he has already declared regarding the cosmic pattern, literature—and with it the literary mind—can only originate from the dao if the dao is itself understood to embody the patterning constitutive of wen. Having thus proposed wen as the ordering principle of heaven and earth in the very first sentences of his treatise, Liu Xie immediately goes on to position humanity as the third member of this cosmic triad. Humanity is nothing less than “the mind of heaven and earth” (tiandi zhi xin ཙൠѻᗳ). How so? Because humanity is endowed with consciousness (xingling ᙗ䵸): the ability to discern the constitutive pattern or wen of things. Liu Xie is no philosopher of mind, of course, so we would look in vain for him to be proposing a technical distinction between mind and consciousness here. “Consciousness” (ᙗ䵸) is a rare term in the WXDL, and appears in this passage to designate simply the cognitive power of the mind (ᗳ), whereas this latter term is frequently used (including most prominently in the title of the treatise as a whole), and, as we are seeing, possesses a range of important denotations and connotations in its relations to wen. In any case, it thus emerges that it is the conscious human mind (xin ᗳ) that functions, for Liu Xie, as the subject of the objective patterning constitutive of the natural way of things; the mind is what is able to discern this pattern and, crucially, to give it expressive voice.16 So in answer to the question of how humanity, and more specifically the human mind or consciousness, gives expression to wen, Liu Xie answers that it is through language: language (yan 䀰) is the preeminent means by which the natural pattern of the universal way finds manifestation.17 In synoptic fashion, Liu Xie goes on to state: “When mind arises, language SP_STE_Ch_08_231-260.indd 240 8/26/20 2:47 PM The Original Mind Is the Literary Mind 241 abides; when language abides, literature enlightens” (ᗳ⭏㘼䀰・ , 䀰・㘼 ᮷᰾).18 This means, firstly, that the mind (the organ by means of which wen is discerned) naturally gives rise to language, the medium in which such discernment is expressed. As Stephen Owen comments: In the peculiar natural philosophy of [the WXDL], the impulse within natural process to make inherent distinctions manifest already implies the necessity that mind arise; manifestation is complete only if there is a subject to recognize it and know it. Mind is that for which manifestation occurs. Mind, in its turn, implies the necessity of language as a form of manifestation unique and proper to mind itself. Language is the fulfillment of the process, the knowing that makes known, and that fulfillment will be human wen. (1992, 189) Recall that wen arises at the very origin of the cosmos, simultaneously with heaven and earth. Since human mind or consciousness is the necessary subjective corollary to the objective existence of this cosmic pattern, it follows that the time whenin human consciousness arises is likewise that of the primordial moment. Liu Xie will state this explicitly just a few lines later: “The origin of human wen starts from the supreme ultimate” (Ӫ᮷ѻ‫ݳ‬, 㚷㠚ཚᾥ)—this ultimate (taiji ཚᾥ) being the primordially undifferentiated state (equivalent in this sense to dao) from which the manifested world sprang according to ancient Chinese cosmogony. The upshot of all this is not only that language is established concomitantly with mind, and mind with wen, and wen with heaven and earth; still more radically, it means that language resides inherently in the very pattern of wen: the word is in the world. As Liu Xie states in his very next sentence, “This is the nature of the way,” or, more succinctly, “Such is the way” (ziran zhi dao ye 㠚❦ѻ䚃ҏ).19 In the next paragraph, he spells out this intrinsic coherence between natural and literary patterns by observing: “If we further consider the ten thousand kinds, animals and plants all have their own pattern” (‫ڽ‬৺㩜૱, अἽⲶ᮷). Indeed, as the following passage makes clear, all forms without exception do. For as Liu Xie then declares, patterns, be they in the form of colors, shapes, sounds, or what Buddhists would call any other rūpa (se 㢢), “are not at all external ornaments, but just such” (or we could SP_STE_Ch_08_231-260.indd 241 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 8/26/20 2:47 PM 242 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 Rafal K. Stepien translate “just natural”) (ཛ䉸ཆ伮, 㫻㠚❦㙣). To borrow Stephen Owen’s phrasing, Liu Xie “wants wen to be not simply the consequence of any particular natural process, but rather the visible externality of natural process itself ” (1992, 188). The term Liu Xie uses to denote “such” or “natural” is ziran (㠚❦), a term that describes that which occurs automatically or of its own accord, as water flows naturally, ziran, downstream.20 It is the standard Chinese word for “nature.” Literally, the two characters comprising the word refer to the process of “self-so-ing,” of generating oneself from oneself; the famous nineteenth-century Orientalist Ernest Fenollosa (1853–1908) translated it as “spontaneous origination,” which is as good a version as any. In the Chinese Buddhist context it is one of the technical terms used to translate the Sanskrit tathatā, which itself is usually rendered into English as either “suchness” or “thusness.” Liu Xie’s statement that wen is natural (inherent, not extrinsic) in fact turns out to be one of the most important claims he will make, for it will position the literary mind as one which carves not insects but dragons, and thereby enables enlightenment. But that still needs some explaining. Following his enumeration of the various ways in which heaven’s patterns (tianwen) and earth’s patterns (diwen) abide inherently in the natural world, Liu Xie charts the historical permutations of human patterns (renwen). He does so in a manner that explicitly evokes the specifically literary nature of what Liu Xie has foremost in mind when writing of such human wen. For him, “literary patterns” (yan zhi wen 䀰ѻ᮷) are the very “mind of heaven and earth” (tiandi zhi xin ཙൠѻᗳ), and these are made manifest in literary writings. Thus, in the space of a few paragraphs, Liu Xie moves from the legendary origins of the Chinese writing system in the observation of bird tracks (note: a naturally patterned phenomenon), through the early literary writings (wenzhang ᮷ㄐ) of the sage founders of Chinese civilization (literary writings, be it noted, that in his account emerged organically from natural patterns), and finally to the historical authors of the Chinese literary canon unto Liu Xie’s day. What is more, he defines both humanity (ren) and “literary patterns” (yan zhi wen) as the “mind of heaven and earth” (tiandi zhi xin), thereby explicitly identifying humanity with literary activity. The final paragraph of this opening chapter on the “Source Way” then declares: “Therefore we know that through the sages the way transmits wen, and that the sages rely on wen SP_STE_Ch_08_231-260.indd 242 8/26/20 2:47 PM The Original Mind Is the Literary Mind 243 to manifest the way” (᭵⸕䚃⋯㚆ԕ඲᮷, 㚆ഐ᮷㘼᰾䚃). This means that, by authoring works of wen, those engaged in literary craft embody, manifest, enlighten (ming ᰾) the way inherently at work in all nature. Indeed, given what he said earlier about the human mind, it means that it is only the mind that is able to clearly reflect the true thusness (zhenru ⵏྲ) of things (phenomena, dharma, fa ⌅). The links between Liu Xie’s theory of literature and Chan Buddhist philosophy of language and mind should by now be emerging. In order to bring them more fully into the light, as it were, I want to tarry for a moment on this character ming (᰾) that I have just now rendered as both “manifest” and “enlighten.” Recall Liu Xie’s rather oracular statement: “When mind arises, language abides; when language abides, literature enlightens” (ᗳ⭏㘼䀰・ , 䀰・㘼᮷᰾). This last character, ᰾, composed pictorially of the juxtaposition of “sun” (ᰕ) and “moon” (ᴸ), generally means “bright,” “light,” “clear,” and hence verbally “to make clear,” “manifest,” or, finally, as I am just a little playfully proposing, “enlighten.” I say “playfully” because the standard Chinese translation of the Sanskrit Buddhist term for enlightenment (bodhi) is juewu (㿪ᛏ), but ming, especially in the compound mingxin (᰾ᗳ) or “enlightened mind” is well attested, especially in the Chan tradition, and thus not by any means a translational stretch. So what does Liu Xie mean by saying that “when language abides, literature enlightens (or manifests)”? As we have seen, for Liu Xie literature is intrinsically wedded to reality; it is the paradigmatic expression of the way things really are. The very fact that the final two characters of Liu Xie’s statement, wenming (᮷᰾), could just as well be translated “pattern emerges” as “literature enlightens” brings this point across, for this very ambivalence accurately conveys Liu Xie’s understanding according to which literature enlightening and pattern emerging are two ways of terming the same phenomenon: literature enlightens as pattern emerges. Zhou Zhenfu effectively conveys this point in stating that in the WXDL “wen is used for manifesting/enlightening the way” (᮷ᱟ⭘ᶕ᰾䚃Ⲵ) (1981, 7). This is why, in the “Afterword” to his entire WXDL, Liu Xie explains that the phrase diaolong (䴅喽), “carving dragons” is to be understood in contrast to the pejorative characterization of literature as diaochong (䴅 㸢) or “carving insects.” This latter expression conceives the literary craft as being not intrinsic but extrinsic; concerned not with the manifestation SP_STE_Ch_08_231-260.indd 243 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 8/26/20 2:47 PM 244 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 Rafal K. Stepien of reality’s very patterns but with mere embellishment and ornamentation: an elaborate exercise in word carving whose effects are only aesthetic. In characterizing the act of literary crafting as “carving dragons,” Liu Xie is raising it to sublime status, the dragon being understood in the Chinese cultural context to symbolize the divine or supernatural element within the natural world. Literature, therefore, “enlightens” precisely because it preeminently provides clear sight of the divine dragon within the mundane insect. To meld Liu Xie’s terms with Buddhist ones he could not have but been intimately familiar with, literature enlightens (wenming ᮷᰾) in the sense that it is what allows the literary mind (wenxin ᮷ᗳ)21 to realize (ming ᰾) that it is the “original mind” (benxin ᵜᗳ); to realize that the “original embodiment” (benshen ᵜ䓛) of the pattern (wen ᮷) that truly is so (zhenru ⵏྲ) is what is originally so (benru ᵜྲ): the empty nature (kongxing オᙗ) that is the Buddha nature (foxing ֋ᙗ). Literature and Mind It is the ineradicable role that literature plays in manifesting the ultimate nature of reality according to Liu Xie’s system of thought that is of most interest when dealing with Chan philosophy of language and mind. In turning to the topic of Chan, it should go without saying that within the constraints of this chapter I can do no more than to intimate, but not directly engage, the immense complexity of a diachronically adaptive and synchronically variegated tradition. What is more, and as I have alluded to above, I am not so much concerned here to engage with the historical realities of Chan (whatever these may be) but with its literary self-portrayal, by the Tang dynasty (ୀ 618–907) and foremost in the Song (ᆻ 960–1279), as beyond the realm of linguistic discourse and mental representation. This idealized Chan school, a product not of empirical history but of the Chinese imaginaire,22 is that which self-consciously traces its origins to the Buddha’s ‘Flower Sermon’ in which, rather than discoursing, the Buddha simply held up a flower, and his disciple Mahākāśyapa, in smiling, acknowledged his understanding of a teaching outside the realm of speech. It takes its inspiration, further, from the famous saying attributed to its semimythical founder Bodhidharma (㨙ᨀ䚄᪙ active 470–520): SP_STE_Ch_08_231-260.indd 244 8/26/20 2:47 PM The Original Mind Is the Literary Mind 245 Beyond teachings, another transmission Not depending on words and letters Pointing directly to the human mind Seeing one’s nature one becomes Buddha. (ᮉཆࡕۣ, н・᮷ᆇ, ⴤᤷӪᗳ, 㾻ᙗᡀ֋) This perspective was to find expression in the avowedly antiliterary or wuzi (❑ᆇ) faction of Chan prevalent from the Southern Song period onward, as opposed to the literary or wenzi (᮷ᆇ) style most characteristic of earlier developments.23 On my reading, we must take the ostensible Chan abandonment of language and literature—what Steven Heine has called the “traditional Zen narrative” (2008, esp. 6–8)—as itself a literary device; a “rhetoric of immediacy,” as Bernard Faure (1991) memorably terms it; an expedient means (upāya / fangbian ᯩ‫ )ׯ‬designed to help us abandon carving insects in favor of carving dragons; of forsaking the myriad empty forms born of mere conceptual proliferation (prapañca / xilun ᡢ䄆) in favor of what I would like to coin the “original pattern” (benwen ᵜ᮷) or “Buddha pattern” (fowen ֋᮷) discernible beneath the surface apparition of reality. Perhaps the best way of elaborating this point is to explain the title of my chapter “The Original Mind Is the Literary Mind, the Original Body Carves Dragons.” As I have already mentioned, “original mind” (benxin) and “original body” (benshen) are Buddhist terms used to denote the ultimate Buddha-element within conventional reality.24 The original mind is the literary mind in that literature, pattern, wen, is the very reality the mind discerns. And the original body carves dragons in that this carving, this act of properly literary writing, is precisely the natural functioning of phenomenal reality—the phenomenal reality that turns out to be nothing other than the ultimate, naturally. To explain further, I will refer to the opening statement of the WXDL’s Afterword, in which Liu Xie himself provides a definition of what he means by wenxin as “the use of xin in writing wen” (ཛ᮷ᗳ㘵DŽ䀰⛪ ᮷ѻ⭘ᗳҏ).25 To understand this, and by extension Liu Xie’s conception of wen and xin, aright, we can refer to the Chan (and, to generalize somewhat, more broadly Chinese) Buddhist position, inherited from Indian Prajñāpāramitā and Madhyamaka antecedents, that the phenomenal world SP_STE_Ch_08_231-260.indd 245 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 8/26/20 2:47 PM 246 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 Rafal K. Stepien is not, or not merely, a vale of suffering (saṃsāra / lunhui 䕚䘤) but the very embodiment of liberatory enlightenment (nirvāṇa / niepan ⎵ῳ). This is what underlies the ubiquitous talk of nature (ziran) as instantiating the thusness characterizing reality (all reality) as it really is (zhenru). And just as on this Buddhist conception all reality (zhen) is thus (ru), so on Liu Xie’s understanding all reality (be it heavenly, earthly, or human—tian, di, or ren) is patterned (wen), and as such literary (wen), and as such, in the final analysis, literature (wen). In other words, for Liu Xie, all phenomena are to be considered literary phenomena. While Vincent Shih may correctly state that “from the types of writing [Liu Xie] includes in his discussion of literature, it is apparent that he holds nothing in writing to be beyond the province of literature” (2015, xli), the point I am making here is that, given Liu Xie’s understanding of wen as the pattern embodied in the very phenomenal fabric of the cosmos, it is apparent that he holds nothing in reality to be beyond the province of literature.26 This explains why, for Chan and for Liu Xie, mind is indispensable for enlightenment: one needs mind in order to discern the underlying pattern or nature of reality, and thereby attain natural suchness. Wen is the very pattern by which reality is such. Therefore, one cannot be “without thought and without concept” (wusi wunian ❑ᙍ❑ᘥ ), as the Chan dictum goes, for these are what convey wen, the very pattern of reality. Even though provisionally speaking one must needs dispense with all mere literary embellishment (diaochong 䴅㸢), or we might say conceptual proliferation (prapañca / xilun ᡢ䄆), as so much mere carving of illusory apparitions, nevertheless in the final analysis even insects turn out to be dragons, just as on the Chan scheme apparently deceptive conventional reality (saṃvṛti-satya / sudi ؇䄖) is realized to be naturally so (ziran) ultimate reality (paramārtha-satya / zhendi ⵏ䄖). Indeed, this is the effective Buddhist import of Li’s dialectical reading of wen in the WXDL, according to which the two conceptions of wen at work in the text—as “natural order and an all-encompassing system” on the one hand and “elaborateness, intensity, excess, and aesthetic surface” (2001, 198) on the other—are both ultimately “included as aspects of wen” (209). In the very final verses of the WXDL’s Afterword, Liu Xie writes: If literature conveys the mind My mind has been delivered (᮷᷌䔹ᗳ, ։ᗳᴹᇴ) SP_STE_Ch_08_231-260.indd 246 8/26/20 2:47 PM The Original Mind Is the Literary Mind 247 The Chinese terms used here for “convey” and “deliver” (zai 䔹 and ji ᇴ) mean respectively “to carry, hold, convey, transport” and “to send, post, mail, place, lodge, entrust, depend.”27 In my translation I am intentionally playing with the ambivalence of “delivered” as meaning “sent to a destination” in a quite prosaic sense and also “achieved deliverance” in a rather more soteriological one. On this reading, in these his parting words Liu Xie is saying that if indeed literature “transports the mind” (an alternative rendering of this phrase from the first verse) of its author, then his own mind has been delivered in the twin senses of “conveyed” (in that he has now, at the conclusion of the WXDL, conveyed his thoughts on literature) and “liberated” (in that he has now been transported by literature to/as reality). Indeed, this applies to the reader as much as to the writer, for Liu Xie’s conception of wen as the pattern constituting reality as such renders the distinction between subject and object, inner and outer, merely conventional. After all, the mind that cognizes wen (as pattern, as way, as nature) is the same mind that expresses wen (as language, as literature, as “words and letters”). As Li succinctly puts it, “There is no boundary between nature and culture in this scheme” (2001, 194).28 This foreshadows Chan theorizations according to which, in order to “enter poetry through Chan” (yi chan ru shi ԕ⿚‫ޕ‬䂙) and more generally to realize the natural suchness of phenomena, the practitioner is to realize the emptiness of his/her own substantive self-identity.29 On this conception, then, the practice of wen that conveys/delivers the mind may be termed “eliteration”: a simultaneous reading and writing, a realizing in the twin senses of both “perceiving as real” and “making real,” a wen-waying that enlightens insects even as it dragonizes itself. (Buddhist) Literature and Philosophy So, in closing, what does any of this have to bear on (Buddhist) philosophy, or for that matter on the interface between (Buddhist) philosophy and (Buddhist) literature? I have proposed a reading of a certain philosophical approach to language and mind (that of Chan Buddhism broadly speaking) based on an understanding of language and literature drawn from a work of literary theory composed by a Buddhist (or at least Buddhistically inclined) scholar (later scholar-monk). More forcefully put, SP_STE_Ch_08_231-260.indd 247 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 8/26/20 2:47 PM 248 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 Rafal K. Stepien I have constructed an explicitly Buddhist philosophical reading based on historically attested Chan Buddhist sources of identifiably Buddhist concepts elaborated within a Buddhist scholar’s major treatise. Although the chapter refers to indigenous (non-Buddhist) Chinese philosophical terms, these either were used within classical Chinese Buddhist discourses or are used in the chapter as support for a Buddhist interpretation—a Buddhist interpretation that, as mandated above, does not seek to provide a demonstration of the inherently Buddhist nature of the WXDL so much as to provide a Buddhist philosophical construction of its ideas. Such a reading of Buddhist literature as philosophy, or Buddhist philosophy as literature, or perhaps most precisely of Buddhist philosophy of literature through Buddhist literary theory, is, I would argue, a valuable intellectual exercise for a number of reasons. Firstly, it should be clear from these latter comments as well as from the foregoing exposition that my approach deliberately cuts across the standard methodological boundaries separating philosophical, literary, and religious studies . . . and therefore, of course, Buddhist studies. In so approaching the material, and apart from having illuminated certain hitherto unremarked features of both Chan’s philosophy of language and Liu Xie’s literary theory, I hope to have rendered these features all the more starkly apparent by blurring the contrasts among the distinct methodologies typically used to study them. By considering Buddhist philosophy, literature, and literary theory as interrelated and mutually illuminating products of a single overarching religious worldview, my aim has been in part to persuade scholars of Buddhist philosophy and of Buddhist literature (typically separated as they are by more or less tendentious disciplinary demarcations as much as by more or less discretionary administrative divisions) of the worth of serious engagement with one another. (That a corollary aim is to persuade scholars of philosophy and literature [typically restricted in their purview as they are to the narrow confines of the Western philosophical tradition alone despite their claims to universality] of the intellectual value of complicating their [pre]conceptions through the use of Buddhist sources should go without saying.) Not only are the fruits of disciplinary cross-fertilization already amply evinced in myriad academic fields, in the case of Buddhist studies materials such as those that have engaged us here simply do not recognize the essentializing distinctions scholars have all too often imposed upon them, or recognize them in culturally embedded ways not unproblematically assimilable to those pre- SP_STE_Ch_08_231-260.indd 248 8/26/20 2:47 PM The Original Mind Is the Literary Mind 249 dominant in the contemporary academy. As such, it transpires incumbent upon scholars intending to comprehend such Buddhist primary sources in intellectual terms recognizable to those very sources to transgress the boundaries conventionally circumscribing their profession. That principled methodological transdisciplinarity has already been and continues to be practiced in Buddhist studies should be evident to anyone familiar with the multifaceted history of the field; that it merits wider appreciation as better fitted to, and therefore more perceptive of, many Buddhist sources should readily be taken as warrant for its ever-wider diffusion. After all, in approaching such “undisciplined” Buddhist sources as Liu Xie’s WXDL, carving disciplinary niches turns out as not nearly so illuminating, or challenging, as carving dragons. Secondly, the present chapter hopefully demonstrates that Buddhist textual traditions do not themselves stand in need of hermeneutical approaches grounded in non-Buddhist, and most pointedly Western, literary theory or philosophy. In making this rather narrow claim, I do not wish to be mistaken for making a much larger and obviously fatuous one; that is, that the study of Buddhist sources cannot benefit from the cross-cultural application of theoretical models imported from the West (or elsewhere). Quite apart from the sheer impossibility (at least this side of enlightenment) of a scholar such as myself trained in the Western Weltanschauung to somehow epochetically bracket the totality of her/his presuppositions, this would surely rob the Buddhist sources under study of valuable intellectual insights unavailable to their original contexts (not to mention hermetically seal them in an artificially constructed cultural vacuum). It is, however, to underscore the fact that wherever they may be practiced, academic fields such as “comparative literature,” “world literature,” “philosophy of literature,” and most doggedly “philosophy,” remain tied to paradigms and presuppositions exclusive to or distinctive of the West—and this even when attempting to engage with “other” textual corpora such as the Buddhist. Given that the study of Buddhist literatures and philosophies, when compared to the study of Greek, Latin, and modern European-language literatures and philosophies, is still in its infancy, I can only hope that hermeneutical models and philosophical approaches to language and literature elaborated within Buddhist contexts may come to be more profitably applied by scholars, be it to Buddhist or non-Buddhist texts. In elaborating on this point, it is obviously far beyond my remit here to propose what a Buddhist hermeneutics in general may look like.30 SP_STE_Ch_08_231-260.indd 249 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 8/26/20 2:47 PM 250 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 Rafal K. Stepien Nevertheless, suffice it to say (within the constraints of the present subject matter) that Liu Xie’s understanding of literature (wen) as the very manifestation of reality infinitely expands the range of “texts” that may be characterized as “literary,” and thus as amenable to the retrieval, or indeed the generation, of meaning. In this, as in the dissolution of intellectual and disciplinary borders his simultaneously litero-linguistic and philosophico-metaphysical project entails, Liu Xie, active a millennium and a half ago, shows himself to be more postmodern than the most radical of postmoderns.31 That the reality literature is thus said to express is itself empty of any substantial ground, as per standard Mahāyāna and thus Chan doctrine, renders truly universal the illusory play of fiction conventionally called reality, and this in turn reveals Buddhist hermeneutics as here conceived to be a never-ending cascade of interpretations, building one upon another, yet without any foundational text on which to finally rest. In this sense, it is not so much that all reality stands in need of interpretation—is of provisional (neyārtha) rather than definitive (nītārtha) meaning—but rather that all reality is already interpretation, already a literary artifice written by a never-really-born author, already open to a veritable world of hermeneutic prospects. Conversely, given that Liu Xie takes reality-as-literature—or what could be called “litereality”—to be the only reality, he effectively collapses the division of reality into conventional and ultimate in such a way that hermeneutics here emerges as itself metaphysics, in the sense that the interpretation of litereality is the very act through which reality manifests in/as literature. These are, of course, but inchoate forays into the philosophical implications of my reading of Liu Xie’s ideas via Chan Buddhism. May they at least begin to reveal the philosophical resources to be unearthed here to be abundant in their own terms, richly reverberative of other Buddhist (and non-Buddhist) philosophical traditions, and on both these bases worthy of more philosophical attention than hitherto realized. Notes An earlier version of this chapter was originally published in the Journal of Buddhist Philosophy, No. 3 (2020); my thanks go to the journal editor, Gereon Kopf, and SUNY Press for permission to reproduce it here. SP_STE_Ch_08_231-260.indd 250 8/26/20 2:47 PM The Original Mind Is the Literary Mind 251 1. Linguistic note: Despite the existence of a complete translation of the WXDL into English (Shih 2015 [1959]), and more recent (and much better) translations of the opening and closing chapters with which I will be concerned here in Owen (1992, 186–94, 292–98), as well as the less reliable versions of these chapters in Wong et al. (1999, 1–3, 186–89) and of the final chapter in Wong (1983, 125–30), I have decided to render all translations, including those from the WXDL itself as well as all secondary sources, myself. This has been motivated substantively by a concern to convey the specific nuances of the original text that I am elucidating, but also by an acknowledgment that the only extant complete English language version is unfortunately unreliable. Indeed, in his review of Shih’s translation, Donald Holzman dubs the first chapter “the worst part of his translation,” to the extent that “his translation of the opening lines—of the whole first chapter, in fact—is close to being absolutely meaningless” (1960, 138). David Hawkes (1960) and James R. Hightower (1959) are likewise quite critical of Shih’s work, while Liu Wu-chi (1960) is cautiously positive. Note that, as per Zhang Shaokang, the “WXDL has already been translated in its entirety into English, Japanese, Korean, Italian, and Spanish. There are also German, French, and Russian translations of its major chapters” (2001, 234), though I have not referred to these versions. As for transliteration, except for proper names already transliterated using an alternative system, I use the pinyin system throughout. Where necessary, I retransliterate quotes into pinyin for consistency. Where Chinese characters are cited from modern sources, these are reproduced using traditional or simplified forms as per the original source. 2. Statements to this effect are commonplace in the secondary literature; see, e.g., Tian (2011, 94), and Liu, Shou-Sung (1962, 73). A good general survey of antecedent literary theory can be found in Lu and Mou (1978, 1–8). On just what is meant by “literary study” (wenxue ᮷ᆨ/᮷ᆖ) in the context of the WXDL, see Hu Yonglin (2000). In English, the best source of primary textual material both preceding and succeeding Liu Xie remains Owen (1992). 3. I characterize this chapter as but primarily philosophical in the sense noted because, as emerges below, a corollary of my philosophical construction of the relevant texts is a posit as to their possible historical relation. 4. Readers interested particularly in the relation of Liu Xie’s thought to that of other pre-Tang thinkers and schools of thought are referred to the abundant scholarship, predominantly in Chinese, cited below. 5. Translations of the chapter title include: “On Dao, the Source” (Shih 2015, 8), “Its Source in the Way” (Owen 1992, 186), “The Way the Origin” (Wong et al. 1999, 1), and “The original Way” (Mair 2001, 74). James Liu explains that the title “means, elliptically, ‘literature originates from the Dao,’ or SP_STE_Ch_08_231-260.indd 251 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 8/26/20 2:47 PM 252 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 Rafal K. Stepien ‘tracing the origin of literature to the Dao’ ” (Liu 1975, 21–22). As we will see, this explanation is at the very least debatable, for on my reading it will turn out that it is dao that originates from wen, not the other way around. 6. For summaries of the WXDL’s chapter scheme in English, see Tokei (1971, 102) and Tian (2011, 97). In Chinese, see Fan Wenlan (1998a, 4–5) for a schematic representation of the relations among the first half of the WXDL’s chapters. Zhan Mo (1980, esp. 23–25) includes an analysis of the internal relationships among the first three chapters of the WXDL. Yang Mingzhao (1990) is a study of the thought of Liu Xie as expressed syncretically in the first and final chapters. For a study of the Afterword specifically in its relation to the rest of the text, see Huang Jingjin (2000). And for a study of the internal logic of the WXDL’s opening chapter, see Zhang Guoqing (2009). Zhen Yongming (1991, 14–24), meanwhile, has a section devoted to explicating the philosophy of the WXDL’s first chapter in relation to aesthetics. 7. For an English language summary of the biographical details of Liu Xie’s involvement with Buddhism, see Tian (2011, 97–100). Owen mentions Liu Xie’s Buddhist education, temple life, and monastic vows at (1992, 183–84 and 605 n3). In Chinese, Lu and Mou (1978, 13–14) discuss Liu Xie’s overtly Buddhist works and influences; Qi Liangde (2004, 3–24) includes a summary biography of Liu Xie with a section on his taking monastic vows (22–24); and Gao Yongwang (2008) studies the socioeconomic factors underlying Liu Xie’s espousal of Buddhist tenets from a social scientific perspective. For a book-length study of Liu Xie’s life in general from extant sources, see Wang Jinling (1973). Despite his standing in succeeding centuries, Liu Xie appears to have been “a minor figure when he was alive, and his biography is both scanty and filled with ambiguities” (Tian 2011, 94). 8. For a general account of the ideological currents prevailing during Liu Xie’s time, see Zhu Jigao (2009). For a study of the philosophical content of the WXDL, with explicit reference to its Confucian, Daoist, and Buddhist elements, see Xuan Fenghua (1998). For a study of Liu Xie vis-à-vis the “three teachings” (sanjiao йᮉ) of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism, with particular emphasis on his Treatise Dispelling Doubt, see Zhang Yong (2010). The opening chapter of Zhen Yongming (1991, 3–32) is likewise devoted to explicating Liu Xie’s philosophical thought. For a recent and comprehensive study of Liu Xie’s life as well as his thought, including sections concerning the various intellectual influences informing the WXDL, see Zhu Wenmin (2006), wherein the five sections comprising chapter 3 on “Various Philosophical Thought Systems” (ᓎ ᵲⲴଢᆖᙍᜣ) are of most relevance to my present concerns. 9. Wang Chunhong (2013) studies the Daoist elements in Liu Xie’s thought. For a study of Liu Xie’s conception of the literature vis-à-vis the thought of Laozi SP_STE_Ch_08_231-260.indd 252 8/26/20 2:47 PM The Original Mind Is the Literary Mind 253 (c. 5th century BCE) and Zhuangzi (4th century BCE), the foundational figures of Daoism, see Cai Zongyang (1996). For a comparison of Liu Xie’s ideas as to nature specifically with those of Zhuangzi, see Luo Simei (1998). Wang Yunxi (1990) studies the influences of the Daoist “Mysterious Learning” (Xuanxue ⦴ ᆖ) school of the Wei-Jin period (220–316) on the WXDL’s opening chapter, and Timothy Chan claims that “although no one can yet prove that Lu Ji [䲨₏ 261–303, author of Rhapsody on Literature / Wenfu ᮷䌖] and Liu Xie modelled their theories of literary creation on religious Daoism, their discussion followed the same track as Daoist meditation” (2010, 180). For a “spiritual” (shen ⾎) reading of the WXDL’s opening chapter, particularly in relation to the Yijing (᱃㏃ Book of Changes), see Wang Yuhong (2010). Lu Kanru (1990) is a study of the various conceptions of dao (䚃) at work in the WXDL, including those not necessarily “Daoist” if this is construed in a strictly sectarian manner. Qi Liangde (2004, 40ff ), meanwhile, lists several diverging usages of dao (and related terms) by Liu Xie, as well as their sources in literature predating him; he concludes that Liu Xie’s use of dao is ambiguous. 10. For a study of the Buddhist origins of certain elements of Liu Xie’s thought, with considered reflection on the Confucian and Daoist influences as well as the relevant camps of sectarian interpretation in contemporary Chinese language scholarship, see Wang Chunhong (1996). Rao Zongyi’s defense of the WXDL as a Buddhist-inspired work is succinctly put forward in his (1976), while Kong Fan (1990) is a study of Liu Xie’s thought in relation to his Buddhist learning. For summaries of the positions espoused by Wang Chunhong, Rao Zongyi, Kong Fan, and numerous others in the context of modern sectarian debates among East Asian scholars, see Mair (2001, 64–74), which is a useful supplement to Zhang Shaokang (2001) specifically devoted to the issue of Buddhism in the WXDL. For a recent and nuanced Chinese language study of the various Confucian, Daoist, and Buddhist currents of thought, and particularly of their varying conceptions of the “middle way” (zhongdao ѝ䚃), within the WXDL, see Cai Zongqi (2000). The specifically Buddhist elements are dealt with on pages 102–11. Cai concludes that although Liu Xie’s “thought as to the middle way comprises applications of Confucian, Daoist, and Buddhist elements . . . among the three it is the pliable Buddhist conception of the middle way that Liu takes as his guiding principle” (↓ྲࡈठ䛀᮷ᗳ䴅嗉䛁ѝⲴ䚃㔏ᩴҶ݂, 䚃, ֋ѻ䚃, ԆⲴѝ䚃ᙍ㔤Ӗवਜ਼Ҷሩ݂, 䚃, ֋ᮉѝ䚃Ⲵ䘀⭘) (112). 11. Among the myriad pools of scholarly ink spilled on identifying and discussing the specific lexical sources undergirding Liu Xie’s text (specifically in the opening and closing chapters under study here), see, e.g., Zhou Zhenfu (1981, 3–7), Zhan Moyi (1989, 2–31), and Fan Wenlan (1998a, 3–15 and 1998b, 728–44). Depending on which sectarian axe a given scholar is grinding, SP_STE_Ch_08_231-260.indd 253 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 8/26/20 2:47 PM 254 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 Rafal K. Stepien much or little has been made of Liu Xie’s use, in Chinese transliteration, of the Sanskrit Buddhist term prajñā (bore 㡜㤕 / wisdom) in chapter 18 of the WXDL. Shih claims that “this is the only occasion on which we find [Liu Xie] using a Buddhist term explicitly” (2015, 141 n16). Referring to Liu Mengxi’s (1996) convincing arguments for the presence of numerous Buddhist expressions throughout the WXDL, however, Mair avers that statements such as Shih’s are simply “mistaken” (2001, 256 n54). This is borne out by Chen Jianlang (2009), which is a Masters thesis tracing the potentially myriad Buddhist lexical sources of the WXDL chapter by chapter. For a study devoted explicitly and exclusively to Liu Xie’s use of the Buddhist notion of “the incomparable realm of prajñā” (bore juejing 㡜㤕㔍ຳ), see Qiu Shiyou (1998). 12. For further discussion of heavenly, earthly, and human patterns, see, e.g., Zhang Shaokang (2000). Wang Gengsheng (1976, 200) discusses the relation between human pattern and nature. 13. For further discussion, see the glossary entry for wen in Owen (1992, 594). Finally, Zhou Zhenfu proposes a threefold analysis of wen in the WXDL in terms of “formal wen” (xingwen ᖒ᮷), “phonetic wen” (shengwen ༠᮷), and “affective wen” (qingwen ᛵ᮷), which he states comprise all natural phenomena (1980, 17); he reiterates this analysis at (1986, 8). 14. Regarding the relationship between order (⨶), literature (᮷), and mind (ᗳ), see chapter 48 (“The One who Knows the Tones” / Zhiyin ⸕丣) of the WXDL, where Liu Xie declares: “The mind’s reflection of order is like the eyes’ reflection of form. If the eyes are clear, there is no form they cannot discern; if the mind is nimble, there is no order it cannot penetrate.” (᭵ᗳѻ➗ ⨶, 䆜ⴞѻ➗ᖒ, ⴞⷝࡷᖒ❑н࠶, ᗳ᭿ࡷ⨶❑н䚄). This famous passage is also cited by Zong-Qi Cai (2010, 128) in an article that studies the guanwen 㿰᮷ (“observing belles lettres”) tradition of literary interpretation newly established in the Six Dynasties as this developed from early Chinese interpretive practices and views, and as instantiated in chapter 48 of the WXDL. 15. As Owen observes: “To speak of Heaven and Earth as having wen, ‘pattern’, was not a radical proposal; but to speak of ‘the wen of the Way’ was radical” (1992, 188). For a study of the relationship between wen and dao in the WXDL, see Wu Ruixia (2013). For a study of wen and dao in the WXDL’s opening chapter from a formally aesthetic perspective, see Xu Meifang (1996). Zhen Yongming (1991, 15–17) lists four diverging usages of dao in the WXDL’s opening chapter, and thence goes on to trace the intimate interrelationship between dao and wen therein. In his interpretation of dao in terms of nature (ziran 㠚❦—on which more below) with particular attention to the WXDL’s opening chapter, Sun Fuxuan (2015) enumerates five kinds of dao in explicit reference to Confucian, Daoist, Buddhist, and syncretic conceptions (see esp. 120–22). For SP_STE_Ch_08_231-260.indd 254 8/26/20 2:47 PM The Original Mind Is the Literary Mind 255 a reading of the conception of dao in the WXDL in terms of the conception of nothing (wu ❑/ᰐ) espoused by Wang Bi’s (⦻ᕬ 226–249) Confucian reading of Daoism, see Hu Hai (2005). 16. According to Mair, the mind (xin) is “the source of literary creation” for Liu Xie, and “the key to WXDL” (Mair 2001, 74, 75). See also Zong-Qi Cai: “In early medieval Chinese critical discourse, the word xin ᗳ (heart/mind) often denotes not only an author’s artistically expressed emotion (wenqing ᮷ᛵ or ‘patterned emotions’), but also his exercise of the literary mind (wenxin ᮷ᗳ)” (2010, 128). For a study of the relationship between “mind and matter” (xinwu ᗳ⢙) in the WXDL, see Lu Xiaoguang (2015). 17. For a general study of Liu Xie’s conception of language (yuyan 䃎䀰/ 䈝䀰) as per the WXDL, see Yang Xingying (2007). 18. Translations of this celebrated pronouncement differ in emphasis. Alternatives include: “When mind was born, then language was established; when language was established, then literature shone forth” ( James Liu 1975, 48); and “The mind is born and words are established; words are established and pattern/ script/literature is manifested” (Mair 2001, 74). 19. For a study of the theoretical import of Liu Xie’s conception of what could also be translated as “the natural way” ziran zhi dao (㠚❦ѻ䚃), see Qin Dexing (2000). Alternative perspectives on this phrase can be found in Cai Zhongxiang (1990) and Lu and Mou (1978, 17–19). Wu Sue (2013) studies it in relation to the WXDL’s chapter 42 on (the Daoist-derived notion of ) “Nourishing Energy” (伺≓/ޫ≄). 20. For more on ziran, see He Yi (2000), which is a general study of Liu Xie’s aesthetics of nature. For his part, Yang Wanci proposes a syncretic reading of dao, ziran, and “source way” (৏䚃) in the WXDL’s opening chapter according to which Liu Xie is making the claim that “literary study originally comes from nature” (᮷ᆖᵜ৏Ҿ㠚❦) (2010, 228). 21. Mair creatively proposes kāvya-hṛdaya and kāvya-citta (among others) as Sanskrit reconstructions of wenxin (2001, 253 n30). 22. I use the term as per its celebrated elaboration by Steven Collins (1998). 23. For more on wenzi/wuzi Chan, see Heine (2016, 17–23). 24. Both derive from Sanskrit antecedents: benxin from svacitta, benshen from svarūpa. 25. For alternative formulations, see Mair (2001, 74), for whom Liu Xie here defines wenxin as “the using of mind to make literature”; Li (2001, 224), who renders Liu Xie’s claim as that “ ‘literary mind’ refers to ‘the use of the mind in writing’ (⛪᮷ѻ⭘ᗳ)”; and Owen (1992, 292), who translates the entire sentence as: “The patterned/literary mind (wenxin) means the use of mind (or ‘intense effort’) in writing (making wen).” For some reason, Shih (2015, 1) not only positions the SP_STE_Ch_08_231-260.indd 255 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 8/26/20 2:47 PM 256 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 Rafal K. Stepien Afterword as a Preface but mangles Liu Xie’s statement here to read: “The literary mind is that mind which strives after literary forms.” For his part, Luan Dong translates wenxin simply as “the spirit of literature” (“l’esprit des lettres”: 1988, 144). 26. See in this light also Li’s claim that “under the rubric of ‘literary mind’, nature and artifice unite to bring forth an immanent order” (2001, 225). 27. Perhaps less evocatively but doubtless more unambiguously, Owen translates these final verses (with ji functioning nominally as “lodging”) as: “If literature truly carries the mind, / Then my mind has found a lodging” (1992, 298). 28. On the same page, Li also states that “by speaking of ‘pattern as inner power’ or ‘the inner power of pattern’ [wen zhi wei de ᮷ѻ⛪ᗧ, in chapter 1], Liu Xie effectively collapses the distinction between inside and outside.” Of relevance also is Li’s argument later in the same paper that [t]he conjunction of wen with mind emphasizes that wen is not the external correlate of an inner meaning, it is itself the manifestation of an inward necessity. . . . “Literary mind” suggests the mysterious convergence of expressive and affective immediacy and spontaneity with moral-cosmological order. There is no perceived contradiction between the two in Wenxin dialong. (224) 29. Readers interested in the relationship between Chan and literature (and thus in related Chan conceptions of language), particularly in the context of Tang Dynasty poetry, are referred to the extended discussion of these topics in Stepien (2014), which furthermore provides references to a substantial amount of relevant Chinese language scholarship. 30. I follow Donald Lopez in taking hermeneutics here to be “broadly conceived as concerned with establishing principles for the retrieval of meaning, especially from a text” (Lopez 1988, 1). The volume within which Lopez writes remains the single most comprehensive study of Buddhist hermeneutics from diverse cultural perspectives. 31. I am reminded here of José Merquior’s (in)famous denigration of “this tradition of philosophical glamour rather than rigour . . . Gallic philosophy in the twentieth century,” as “litero-philosophy” (1985, 12). 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Published by State University of New York Press, Albany © 2020 State University of New York All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher. For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY www.sunypress.edu Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Name: Stepien, Rafal K., author. Title: Buddhist Literature as Philosophy, Buddhist Philosophy as Literature / Rafal K. Stepien. Description: Albany : State University of New York Press, [2020] Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: ISBN 9781438480718 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438480725 (ebook) Further information is available at the Library of Congress. Library of Congress Control Number: 2020945125 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 34744_SP_STE_FM_00i-xiv.indd 4 9/7/20 4:05 PM