Brief introduction of master kong hai of Lingyin temple

Konghai liked calligraphy when he was a teenager. He studied calligraphy with Yu Yang, a famous Japanese calligrapher in Li Yan's time, and his works were very skillful. His manuscript "The Return of the Deaf", which he started writing at the age of 18, is regarded as a Japanese national treasure and has been treasured in Mount Kumgang Temple in Gao Yanei. After entering the Tang Dynasty, apart from studying Buddhism hard, Konghai was also keen on the art of calligraphy. He studied the ink calligraphy works of China calligrapher Wang Xizhi and famous calligraphers Cai Yong, Yan Zhenqing. After studying in China, he made further progress in calligraphy. He was one of the three great calligraphers in heian period, and he was also called "three brushes" with E Shi and Ju. Their calligraphy art is an important stage in the long history of Japanese calligraphy. During the Tang Dynasty, Konghai also collected many inscriptions and famous Mo Bao, and brought them back to Japan. These rich calligraphy materials are very beneficial for Japanese to learn and study China's calligraphy and the later development of Japanese calligraphy and Taoism. According to Japanese historical records, after returning to China, Emperor Xie liked his calligraphy ink very much, specially asked him to be a teacher, and asked him to write the front door on the south side of the imperial city. After returning to China from the Tang Dynasty, Konghai not only made innovations in calligraphy art, but also made achievements in calligraphy theory. Japanese scholars believe that before Konghai, Japanese calligraphy completely followed China, but Konghai's calligraphy had some Japanese characteristics and became the origin and model of Japanese calligraphy. Konghai also wrote a volume of calligraphy monograph "The Method of Holding a Pen", which introduced the methods and principles of calligraphy art to the Japanese people. It is the oldest calligraphy work in China. Most of the words in this book are written in Chinese, and the rules and fingering are exactly the same as those in Chinese. It is a remarkable sign that China calligraphy art was introduced into Japan (Figure 3). Master Kong Hai also has immortal achievements in the history of Japanese education, that is, he founded various schools and advocated civilian education. During the Tang Dynasty, there were many schools in China, and the popularity of education was very high. At that time, in addition to government-run universities, there were also private institutions in Japan, such as New Counseling College, Yibo College, Yibo Scholarship College, Wang College, Sugawara College, etc., but they were all institutions for educating aristocratic children, and ordinary children could not enter school. Master Kong Hai believes that both nobles and civilians should have the opportunity to go to school, and it is unreasonable that education is not open to the general public. There are many talented people among the people, but they can't give full play to their strengths because they have no chance to receive education. Therefore, he was determined to follow the example of the Tang Dynasty and set up schools for the common people. With the support of Fujiwara Sanshou, Konghai founded the Variety Training Institute in the fifth year of Zonghe in Japan (AD 828), which was the first school for ordinary people in the history of Japanese education. The variety school founded by Mr. Kong Hai is no different from the Tang Dynasty in terms of students enrolled, subjects taught and teaching forms. Students can enter the school regardless of their level or wealth. You can learn Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism, or just one or two. At that time, both official and private schools in Japan taught Confucian classics. It is a great initiative to openly teach Buddhism and Taoism in the education circle centered on Confucianism. Konghai has also made great achievements in literature. His first novel, Deaf Gui Zhi (started at the age of 65,438+08 and completed at the age of 24), was gorgeous, beautiful and rich in content, which brought an atmosphere of discussion and criticism to Japanese prose creation at that time. Although it was his masterpiece before entering the Tang Dynasty, it was also influenced by China's classical literature in structure and language, especially by Sima Xiangru's Selected Works, Zi Xufu and Shang, and the written language used was also Chinese. The Return of the Deaf also draws lessons from the novel You Xian Dong in the Tang Dynasty, quoting and involving 69 Han books and 27 Buddhist scriptures. This shows that he was quite familiar with China's classics when he was young. After returning to China, Master Kong Hai wrote a book about China's poetry, which is the most famous book in the history of Japanese literary criticism, about the secret room in the mirror. This book absorbed many poetic theories from the Six Dynasties to the Tang Dynasty, referred to Shen Yue's Four Tones, Wang Changling's poems, Liu Xie's Wen Xin Diao Long and other important books, and also compiled many poems of Chinese literati before the Tang Dynasty. During the Heian Dynasty, there was an upsurge of learning Chinese poems in Japan, but most of the works appeared at this time were the reappearance of Japanese court literature in the early Tang Dynasty, mostly in the form of five or seven-character ancient poems, and the modern poems in the prosperous Tang Dynasty were rare. On the Chamber of Secrets in the Mirror introduces the metrical poems in the prosperous Tang Dynasty, and the modern poems that have been perfected since then have been widely circulated in Japan. It has a very important influence on the development of Japanese literature, and also preserves many important linguistic and phonological materials in China, which is a witness to the cultural exchange between China and Japan and the development of Japanese culture. Master Kong Hai also imitated the Tang Dynasty's "Kai Yuan Zi Yin Yi", and presided over the compilation of 30 volumes of "The Name of Zhuanli Vientiane". This is a book with concise sound and meaning compared with seal script and official script. This is the earliest Japanese-Chinese dictionary compiled by him for further study of China culture. Its publication provides convenience for Japanese to learn Chinese. Master Kong Hai also made great contributions to ancient Japanese arts and crafts. So far, ancient buildings, including towers, temples, prayer halls, Buddha statues, reliefs, murals and so on, have been preserved in the Jingangfeng Temple and Dongsi Temple in Guwushan, Kyoto. Many of them were built according to the instructions of Konghai, or modeled after the Buddha statues, portraits, sculptures and paintings that Konghai brought back from the Tang Dynasty. In the Tang Dynasty, Huiguo spread to two large-scale colorful mandalas: the diamond circle in the empty sea and the tire-hidden circle. After returning home, Huiguo was copied many times by Dongsi Shinkansen Temple. This China-style Buddhist painting art has had a far-reaching impact on Japan. It is not in Lingyin Temple in Hangzhou, but a statue.