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,
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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),
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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
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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
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The Original Mind Is the Literary Mind
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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
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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
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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.
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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to manifest the way” (᭵⸕䚃⋯㚆ԕ᮷, 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
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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):
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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
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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)
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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 ԕޕ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,
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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-
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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
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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.
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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
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‘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
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(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,
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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࠶, ᗳࡷ⨶❑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
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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” (᮷ᆖᵜҾ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
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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). There is nothing about Liu
Xie’s thought, with his focus on highly poetic literary texts and his esoteric metaphysical pronouncements, to enamor him to Anglo-American analytic philosophers.
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Buddhist Literature as
PHILOSOPHY,
Buddhist Philosophy as
LITER ATURE
Edited by
RAFAL K. STEPIEN
34744_SP_STE_FM_00i-xiv.indd 3
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Cover: Tibetan Calligraphy by Dharma Artist Tashi Mannox. A circular Tibetan Umed
calligraphy which translates as: “The past mind has ceased, is destroyed; the future
mind is not born, has not arisen; the present mind cannot be identified.” Inspired from
“A Record of Mahāmudrā Instructions II” by Pema Karpo (1527–92). At the center of
the circle is the word “mind” scribed in Uchen script.
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
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