Buddhist Iconography and Chan Symbolism in Su Shi’s Poem “Paintings of Wang Wei and Wu Daozi”
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.4312/as.2015.3.2.163-196Keywords:
Su Shi, classical Chinese poetry, Song dynasty, Buddhism, Buddhist symbolismAbstract
This article analyzes the content of Su Shi’s (1037–101) poem “Paintings of Wang Wei and Wu Daozi”. One of the main goals of this discussion is to show that in the case of the above-mentioned poem the reader can obtain a more thorough understanding of it as a whole only if they are acquainted with its allusive and symbolical levels. This article further tries to shed some light on the background of these symbols and allusions, which in our case originate from the so-called Chinese “Buddhist tradition(s)” (Chan, Caodong, etc.) and basically pertain to the vocabulary or symbols by whose use the motives of the enlightenment and the enlightened sage were depicted in the above-named tradition.
Downloads
Download data is not yet available.
References
Bai, Juyi 白居易. 1985. Bai Juyi ji 白居易集 1‒4. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju.
Bai, Qianshen. 1999. “Image as Word: A Study of Rebus Play in Song Painting (960‒1279).” Metropolitan Museum Journal 34: 57‒72 + 12.
Beer, Robert. 2003. The Handbook of Tibetan Buddhist Symbols. Chicago & London: Serindia.
Benn, Charles. 2002. China’s Golden Age: Everyday Life in the Tang Dynasty. New York: Oxford University Press.
Brinker, Helmuth, Hiroshi Kanzawa in Andreas Leisinger. 1996. “Zen Masters of Meditation in Images and Writings.” Artibus Asiae 40: 3‒384.
Brotherton, Elizabeth. 2001. “Two Farwell Handscrolls of the Late Northern Song.” Archives of Asian Art 52 (2000/2001): 44‒62.
Broughton, Jeffrey L. 1999. The Bodhidharma Anthology: The Earliest Records of Zen. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Bukkyō hiyu reiwa jiten 佛教比喩例話辞典, uredil Mori Shōji. 1987. Tokyo: Tōkyōdō Shuppan.
Bunce, Friderick W. 1994. An Encyclopaedia of Buddhist Deities, Demigods, Godlings, Saints, and Demons with Special Focus on Iconographic Attributes (1 in 2). D. K. Printworld, New Delhi.
Chen, Pengnian 陈彭年. 2002. Song ben guang yun 宋本广韵. Nanjing: Jiangsu jiaoyu chuban she.
Chizen, Akanuma 赤沼智善. 1929. Kan-Pa shibu shi-Agon goshō-roku 漢巴四部四阿含照録. Nagoya: Hajinkaku shobō.
Chou, Yi-liang. 1945. “Tantrism in China.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 8 (¾): 241‒332.
Conze, Edward. 1967. Materials for a Dictionary of the Prajñāpāramitā Literature. Tokyo: Suzuki Research Foundation.
Dai Nihon Zokuzōkyō sōmokuroku 大日本續藏經総目録, uredil Eun Maeda. 1967. Tokyo: Zōkyō Shoin.
De Bary, Theodore in Irene Bloom. 1999. Sources of Chinese Tradition: From Earliest Times to 1600, Vol. 1. New York: Columbia University Press.
Debon, Günther. 1978. Grundbegriffe der Chinesischen Schrifttheorie: Und ihre Verbindung zu Dichtung und Malerei. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag.
Eberhard, Wolfram. 1990. Dictionary of Chinese Symbols: An Essential Guide to the Hidden Symbols in Chinese Art, Customs and Beliefs. Singapore: Federal Publications.
Ebrey, Patricia B. in Gregory Peter N., ur. 1993. Religion and Society in T‘ang and Sung China. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
Egan, Ronald C. 1983. “Poems on Paintings: Su Shih and Huang T‘ing-chien.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 43 (2): 413‒51.
Feng, Qi 冯契. 1998. Zhongguo gudai zhexue de luoji fazhan 中国古代哲学的逻辑发展 1., 2. in 3. del. Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chuban she.
Faure, Bernard. 1997. The Will to Orthodoxy: A Critical Genealogy of Northern Chan Buddhism. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Foguang da cidian 佛光大辞典, uredil Xing Yun. 2000. Taibei: Foguang chuban she.
Foong, Ping. 2000. “Guo Xi’s Intimate Landscapes and the Case of Old Trees, Level Distance.” Metropolitan Museum Journal 35: 87‒115.
Foxue da cidian 佛學大辭典, uredil Ding Fubao. 1925. Beijing.
Foxue jinghua 佛学精华 1‒3, uredil Fang Litian. 1994. Beijing: Beijing chuban she.
Grant, Beata. 1994. Mount Lu Revisited; Buddhism in the Life and Writings of Su Shi. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
Gulik, Robert van. 1939. “The Lore of Chinese Lute: An Essay in Ch’in Ideology.” Monumenta Nipponica 2 (1): 75‒99.
Harrist, Robert E. 1991. “Watching Clouds Rise: A Tang Dynasty Couplet and Its Illustration in Song Painting.” The Bulletin of Cleveland Museum of Art 78 (7): 301‒23.
Hawes, Colin S. 2005. The Social Circulation of Poetry in the Mid-Northern Song: Emotional Energy and Literati Self-Cultivation. New York: SUNY.
Ho, Peng Yoke, Thean Chye Goh in D. Parker. 1974. “Po Chu-i’s Poems on Immortality.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 34: 163‒86.
Hsing, Yun. 2001. Describing the Indescribable. Boston: Wisdom Publications.
Hurvitz, L. 1967. “The Surangama Sutra.” Review in Journal of Asian Studies 26: 482‒84.
Jullien, Francois. 1995. The Propensity of Things: Toward a History of Efficacy in China. New York: Zone Books.
–––. 2000. Detour and Access: Strategies of Meaning in China and Greece. New York: Zone Books.
Kalupahana, David J. 1992. A History of Buddhist Philosophy: Continuities and Discontinuities. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
Kieschnick, John. 2003. The Impact of Buddhism on Chinese Material Culture. Princeton, Oxford: Princeton University Press.
Lao Tzu. 2005. Tao Teh Ching, prevedel John C. H. Wu. Boston, London: Shambhala Classics.
Lai, Whalen. 1979. “Ch’an Metaphors: Waves, Water, Mirror, Lamp.” Philosophy East and West 29 (3): 243‒53.
Lavrač, Maja. 1999. Onkraj belih oblakov: Daoistična in budistična simbolika v poeziji kitajskega pesnika Wang Weija. Ljubljana: Založba Obzorja.
Liu, Heping. 2002. “The Water Mill and Northern Song Imperial Patronage of Art, Commerce and Science.” The Art Bulletin 84 (4): 566‒95.
Liu, Zongyuan 柳宗元. 1979. Liu Zongyuan ji 柳宗元集. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju.
Maeda, Robert J. 1971. “The 'Water' Theme in Chinese Painting.” Atribus Asiae 33 (4): 240‒90.
Mörth, Christian R. 1987. Das Lin-chi lu des Ch‘an-meisters Lin-chi Yi-hsüan: Der Versuch einer Systematisierung des Lin-chi lu. Hamburg: MOAG.
Mu, Soeng. 2000. The Diamond Sutra: Transforming the Way we Perceive the World. Boston: Wisdom Publications.
Murck, Alfreda. 2000. The Subtle Art of Dissent; Poetry and Painting in Song China. Cambridge (Massachusetts) Harvard University Press.
Nelson, Susan E. 1999. “Picture Listening: The Sight of Sound in Chinese Painting.” Archives of Asian Art 51: 30‒55.
Nienhauser, William H. 1979. P’i Jih-Hsiu. Boston: Twayne Publishers.
Notz, Klaus-Josef. 2007. Herders Lexikon des Buddhismus. Erfstadt: HOHE.
Owen, Stephen. 2006. The Late Tang: Chinese Poetry of the Mid-Ninth Century (827‒860). Cambridge (Massachusetts) & London: Harvard University Asia Center.
Quan Tang shi 全唐詩 1‒25, uredil Pedng Dingqiu. 1979. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju.
Quan Tang wen 全唐文. 1990. Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe.
Rošker, Jana. 2005. Iskanje poti – Spoznavna teorija v kitajski tradiciji: 1. del – od protofilozofskih klasikov do neokonfucianstva dinastije Song. Ljubljana: Filozofska fakulteta.
Schlütter, Morten. 2002. “Silent Illumination, Kung-an Introspection and the Competition for Lay Patronage in Sung Dynasty Chan.” V Buddhism in Sung, uredila P. Gregory in D. Getz, 109‒49. Kuroda Institute Studies in East Asian Buddhism 13. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
Shaw, Miranda. 1988. “Buddhist and Taoist Influences on Chinese Landscape Painting.” Journal of the History of Ideas 49 (2): 183‒206.
Sirén, Osvald. 2003. The Chinese on the Art of Painting: Texts by the Painter-Critics, from the Han through the Ch‘ing Dynasties. Mineola: Dover Press.
Smith, Paul Jakov in Denis Twitchet. 2009. The Cambridge History of China: The Song Dinasty and its Presursors, 907–1279. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Spring, Madeline. 1991. “The Celebrated Cranes of Po Chü-i.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 111 (1): 8‒18.
Songling ji 松陵集, uredila Lu Guimeng in Pi Rixiu. 1994. Shanghai: Shanghai shudian.
Su, Shi 苏轼. 1982. Su Shi shi ji 苏轼诗集 1‒8, uredil Wang Wengao. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju.
Suzuki, Daisetz T. 1956. The Lankavatara Sutra: A Mahayana Text. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd.
–––. 1998. Studies in the Lankavatara Sutra. New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers.
Taishō Shinshū Daizōkyō 大正新脩大藏經 1‒100. 1988. Tokyo: Daizō shuppan kabushiki-gaisha.
Tang, Gaocai, ur. 1985. Tang shi jianshang cidian 唐诗鉴赏辞典. Shanghai: Shanghai cishu chuban she.
Tomlonovic, Kathleen M. 1974. Poetry of Exile and Return: A Study of Su Shi (1037–1101). Ann Arbor: UMI Dissertation Services.
Van Zoeren, Steven J. 1991. Poetry and Personality: Reading, Exegesis, and Hermeneutics in Traditional China.Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Xiao, Lihua 萧丽华. 1996. Tangdai shige yu foxue 唐代诗歌与佛学. Taibei: Dongda tushu gongsi.
Xuyangjing yangben 續藏經様本. 1923. Shanghai: Shangwu Yinshuguan.
Watson, Burton. 1997. The Vimalakirti Sutra. New York: Columbia University Press.
Williams, Charles A. S. 1974. Chinese Symbolism and Art Motifs; A Comprehensive Handbook on Symbols in Chinese Art Through the Ages. Tokyo: Tuttle Publishing.
Winternitz, Moritz. 1983. A History of Indian Literature. Vol. 2: Buddhist Literature and Jaina Literature, prevedel Srinivasa Sarma. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.
Wright, Arthur F. 1957. “Buddhism and Chinese Culture: Phases of Interaction.” The Journal of Asian Studies 17 (1): 17‒42.
Zaccheti, Stefano. 1996. “Dharmagupta’s Unfinished Translation of the Diamond-Cleaver.” T‘ong Pao, Second Series 82 (1/3): 137‒52.
Zhang, Gengguang 张耿光. 1991. Zhuangzi quanyi 庄子全译. Guiyang: Guizhou renmin chuban she.
Zhang, Xiang 張相. 1954 Shi ci qu yuci huishi 詩詞曲語辭匯釋. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju.
Zong, Desheng. 2005. “Three Language-Related Methods in Early Chinese Chan Buddhism.” Philosophy East and West 55 (4): 584‒602.
Zhong, Cunyuan 中村元. 1984. Zhongguo fojiao fazhan shi (shang) 中国佛教发展史 (上). Taibei: Tianhua chuban gongsi.
Bai, Qianshen. 1999. “Image as Word: A Study of Rebus Play in Song Painting (960‒1279).” Metropolitan Museum Journal 34: 57‒72 + 12.
Beer, Robert. 2003. The Handbook of Tibetan Buddhist Symbols. Chicago & London: Serindia.
Benn, Charles. 2002. China’s Golden Age: Everyday Life in the Tang Dynasty. New York: Oxford University Press.
Brinker, Helmuth, Hiroshi Kanzawa in Andreas Leisinger. 1996. “Zen Masters of Meditation in Images and Writings.” Artibus Asiae 40: 3‒384.
Brotherton, Elizabeth. 2001. “Two Farwell Handscrolls of the Late Northern Song.” Archives of Asian Art 52 (2000/2001): 44‒62.
Broughton, Jeffrey L. 1999. The Bodhidharma Anthology: The Earliest Records of Zen. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Bukkyō hiyu reiwa jiten 佛教比喩例話辞典, uredil Mori Shōji. 1987. Tokyo: Tōkyōdō Shuppan.
Bunce, Friderick W. 1994. An Encyclopaedia of Buddhist Deities, Demigods, Godlings, Saints, and Demons with Special Focus on Iconographic Attributes (1 in 2). D. K. Printworld, New Delhi.
Chen, Pengnian 陈彭年. 2002. Song ben guang yun 宋本广韵. Nanjing: Jiangsu jiaoyu chuban she.
Chizen, Akanuma 赤沼智善. 1929. Kan-Pa shibu shi-Agon goshō-roku 漢巴四部四阿含照録. Nagoya: Hajinkaku shobō.
Chou, Yi-liang. 1945. “Tantrism in China.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 8 (¾): 241‒332.
Conze, Edward. 1967. Materials for a Dictionary of the Prajñāpāramitā Literature. Tokyo: Suzuki Research Foundation.
Dai Nihon Zokuzōkyō sōmokuroku 大日本續藏經総目録, uredil Eun Maeda. 1967. Tokyo: Zōkyō Shoin.
De Bary, Theodore in Irene Bloom. 1999. Sources of Chinese Tradition: From Earliest Times to 1600, Vol. 1. New York: Columbia University Press.
Debon, Günther. 1978. Grundbegriffe der Chinesischen Schrifttheorie: Und ihre Verbindung zu Dichtung und Malerei. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag.
Eberhard, Wolfram. 1990. Dictionary of Chinese Symbols: An Essential Guide to the Hidden Symbols in Chinese Art, Customs and Beliefs. Singapore: Federal Publications.
Ebrey, Patricia B. in Gregory Peter N., ur. 1993. Religion and Society in T‘ang and Sung China. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
Egan, Ronald C. 1983. “Poems on Paintings: Su Shih and Huang T‘ing-chien.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 43 (2): 413‒51.
Feng, Qi 冯契. 1998. Zhongguo gudai zhexue de luoji fazhan 中国古代哲学的逻辑发展 1., 2. in 3. del. Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chuban she.
Faure, Bernard. 1997. The Will to Orthodoxy: A Critical Genealogy of Northern Chan Buddhism. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Foguang da cidian 佛光大辞典, uredil Xing Yun. 2000. Taibei: Foguang chuban she.
Foong, Ping. 2000. “Guo Xi’s Intimate Landscapes and the Case of Old Trees, Level Distance.” Metropolitan Museum Journal 35: 87‒115.
Foxue da cidian 佛學大辭典, uredil Ding Fubao. 1925. Beijing.
Foxue jinghua 佛学精华 1‒3, uredil Fang Litian. 1994. Beijing: Beijing chuban she.
Grant, Beata. 1994. Mount Lu Revisited; Buddhism in the Life and Writings of Su Shi. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
Gulik, Robert van. 1939. “The Lore of Chinese Lute: An Essay in Ch’in Ideology.” Monumenta Nipponica 2 (1): 75‒99.
Harrist, Robert E. 1991. “Watching Clouds Rise: A Tang Dynasty Couplet and Its Illustration in Song Painting.” The Bulletin of Cleveland Museum of Art 78 (7): 301‒23.
Hawes, Colin S. 2005. The Social Circulation of Poetry in the Mid-Northern Song: Emotional Energy and Literati Self-Cultivation. New York: SUNY.
Ho, Peng Yoke, Thean Chye Goh in D. Parker. 1974. “Po Chu-i’s Poems on Immortality.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 34: 163‒86.
Hsing, Yun. 2001. Describing the Indescribable. Boston: Wisdom Publications.
Hurvitz, L. 1967. “The Surangama Sutra.” Review in Journal of Asian Studies 26: 482‒84.
Jullien, Francois. 1995. The Propensity of Things: Toward a History of Efficacy in China. New York: Zone Books.
–––. 2000. Detour and Access: Strategies of Meaning in China and Greece. New York: Zone Books.
Kalupahana, David J. 1992. A History of Buddhist Philosophy: Continuities and Discontinuities. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
Kieschnick, John. 2003. The Impact of Buddhism on Chinese Material Culture. Princeton, Oxford: Princeton University Press.
Lao Tzu. 2005. Tao Teh Ching, prevedel John C. H. Wu. Boston, London: Shambhala Classics.
Lai, Whalen. 1979. “Ch’an Metaphors: Waves, Water, Mirror, Lamp.” Philosophy East and West 29 (3): 243‒53.
Lavrač, Maja. 1999. Onkraj belih oblakov: Daoistična in budistična simbolika v poeziji kitajskega pesnika Wang Weija. Ljubljana: Založba Obzorja.
Liu, Heping. 2002. “The Water Mill and Northern Song Imperial Patronage of Art, Commerce and Science.” The Art Bulletin 84 (4): 566‒95.
Liu, Zongyuan 柳宗元. 1979. Liu Zongyuan ji 柳宗元集. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju.
Maeda, Robert J. 1971. “The 'Water' Theme in Chinese Painting.” Atribus Asiae 33 (4): 240‒90.
Mörth, Christian R. 1987. Das Lin-chi lu des Ch‘an-meisters Lin-chi Yi-hsüan: Der Versuch einer Systematisierung des Lin-chi lu. Hamburg: MOAG.
Mu, Soeng. 2000. The Diamond Sutra: Transforming the Way we Perceive the World. Boston: Wisdom Publications.
Murck, Alfreda. 2000. The Subtle Art of Dissent; Poetry and Painting in Song China. Cambridge (Massachusetts) Harvard University Press.
Nelson, Susan E. 1999. “Picture Listening: The Sight of Sound in Chinese Painting.” Archives of Asian Art 51: 30‒55.
Nienhauser, William H. 1979. P’i Jih-Hsiu. Boston: Twayne Publishers.
Notz, Klaus-Josef. 2007. Herders Lexikon des Buddhismus. Erfstadt: HOHE.
Owen, Stephen. 2006. The Late Tang: Chinese Poetry of the Mid-Ninth Century (827‒860). Cambridge (Massachusetts) & London: Harvard University Asia Center.
Quan Tang shi 全唐詩 1‒25, uredil Pedng Dingqiu. 1979. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju.
Quan Tang wen 全唐文. 1990. Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe.
Rošker, Jana. 2005. Iskanje poti – Spoznavna teorija v kitajski tradiciji: 1. del – od protofilozofskih klasikov do neokonfucianstva dinastije Song. Ljubljana: Filozofska fakulteta.
Schlütter, Morten. 2002. “Silent Illumination, Kung-an Introspection and the Competition for Lay Patronage in Sung Dynasty Chan.” V Buddhism in Sung, uredila P. Gregory in D. Getz, 109‒49. Kuroda Institute Studies in East Asian Buddhism 13. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
Shaw, Miranda. 1988. “Buddhist and Taoist Influences on Chinese Landscape Painting.” Journal of the History of Ideas 49 (2): 183‒206.
Sirén, Osvald. 2003. The Chinese on the Art of Painting: Texts by the Painter-Critics, from the Han through the Ch‘ing Dynasties. Mineola: Dover Press.
Smith, Paul Jakov in Denis Twitchet. 2009. The Cambridge History of China: The Song Dinasty and its Presursors, 907–1279. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Spring, Madeline. 1991. “The Celebrated Cranes of Po Chü-i.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 111 (1): 8‒18.
Songling ji 松陵集, uredila Lu Guimeng in Pi Rixiu. 1994. Shanghai: Shanghai shudian.
Su, Shi 苏轼. 1982. Su Shi shi ji 苏轼诗集 1‒8, uredil Wang Wengao. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju.
Suzuki, Daisetz T. 1956. The Lankavatara Sutra: A Mahayana Text. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd.
–––. 1998. Studies in the Lankavatara Sutra. New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers.
Taishō Shinshū Daizōkyō 大正新脩大藏經 1‒100. 1988. Tokyo: Daizō shuppan kabushiki-gaisha.
Tang, Gaocai, ur. 1985. Tang shi jianshang cidian 唐诗鉴赏辞典. Shanghai: Shanghai cishu chuban she.
Tomlonovic, Kathleen M. 1974. Poetry of Exile and Return: A Study of Su Shi (1037–1101). Ann Arbor: UMI Dissertation Services.
Van Zoeren, Steven J. 1991. Poetry and Personality: Reading, Exegesis, and Hermeneutics in Traditional China.Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Xiao, Lihua 萧丽华. 1996. Tangdai shige yu foxue 唐代诗歌与佛学. Taibei: Dongda tushu gongsi.
Xuyangjing yangben 續藏經様本. 1923. Shanghai: Shangwu Yinshuguan.
Watson, Burton. 1997. The Vimalakirti Sutra. New York: Columbia University Press.
Williams, Charles A. S. 1974. Chinese Symbolism and Art Motifs; A Comprehensive Handbook on Symbols in Chinese Art Through the Ages. Tokyo: Tuttle Publishing.
Winternitz, Moritz. 1983. A History of Indian Literature. Vol. 2: Buddhist Literature and Jaina Literature, prevedel Srinivasa Sarma. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.
Wright, Arthur F. 1957. “Buddhism and Chinese Culture: Phases of Interaction.” The Journal of Asian Studies 17 (1): 17‒42.
Zaccheti, Stefano. 1996. “Dharmagupta’s Unfinished Translation of the Diamond-Cleaver.” T‘ong Pao, Second Series 82 (1/3): 137‒52.
Zhang, Gengguang 张耿光. 1991. Zhuangzi quanyi 庄子全译. Guiyang: Guizhou renmin chuban she.
Zhang, Xiang 張相. 1954 Shi ci qu yuci huishi 詩詞曲語辭匯釋. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju.
Zong, Desheng. 2005. “Three Language-Related Methods in Early Chinese Chan Buddhism.” Philosophy East and West 55 (4): 584‒602.
Zhong, Cunyuan 中村元. 1984. Zhongguo fojiao fazhan shi (shang) 中国佛教发展史 (上). Taibei: Tianhua chuban gongsi.
Downloads
Published
30. 12. 2015
Issue
Section
ASIAN STUDIES IN SLOVENIA
License
Copyright (c) 2016 Jan Vrhovski
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
How to Cite
VRHOVSKI, Jan. 2015. “Buddhist Iconography and Chan Symbolism in Su Shi’s Poem ‘Paintings of Wang Wei and Wu Daozi’”. Asian Studies 3 (2): 163-96. https://doi.org/10.4312/as.2015.3.2.163-196.
