Religion, philosophy, literature and other humanities fields in India are closely related. Therefore, the research method of European scholars is to take the revision, publication, translation and research of Sanskrit literature as the main axis of Sanskrit literature research, while taking religion, philosophy, literature and other documents as the research objects of Sanskrit literature in a broad sense. Representative works include the works of A. Weber, J. N. Fa Gohar, M. Winternitz and others. Winternitz's work is Buddhist Literature (one of the Indian Buddhist literature histories, 1923), which was translated into Japanese by Yoshiaki Nakano and Buddha Wei. This book is an important work for academic circles to review Indian Buddhist literature and literature in the 20th century.
Europeans regard all Buddhist scriptures as one of the types of Indian literature and discuss them on the basis of Indian culture. Since Meiji, Japanese academic circles have generally followed this method for research and started to use the term' Buddhist literature'. For example, the History of Indian Buddhist Literature quoted by Winternitz before, or the Story of New Buddhist Literature (1952) in the text of Shenpu is an obvious example.
Because of the argument that Mahayana Buddhism is "non-Buddhist", the establishment of Mahayana classics and the research on the history of ideological development have made rapid progress, and even the attitude of treating Mahayana classics as literary works has begun to appear. For example, Satoshi Sasaki's Flowers Reflect the Heart (included in the Complete Works of Qiao Yue, Volume 5, 1928) and Zhelang's Beijing Newspaper Survey (included in Heart, Volume 1 ~ 7) are examples. Metaphorical literature, Buddhist biography literature, Buddhist ode literature and other words used as academic terms are also based on the attitude of European scholars towards Buddhist documents.
Buddhist literature famous for its Buddhist literature includes simile, Bunsen, nida^na and other works. These works are story-like documents aimed at secular believers, which have the significance of teaching and metaphor. In addition, the later Mahayana Buddhist classics are also important contents of Buddhist literature. Among them, as far as figurative literature is concerned, there are Abada Nas /at-aka, Divya^vada^na and Ja^takama^la^. As far as Bunsen Tan, which edited the past life story of the Buddha, Barry told many kinds of Bunsen stories. And a group of scriptures named' Nida^nakatha^' is also a collection of stories compiled by Bensheng Tan.
These stories, which are called metaphors, karma and primordial karma, are almost all related to Buddhism, so they all belong to the material of Buddhist literature. The representative works of Buddhist literature include The Great Event by A?vagho?a, The Solemn Sutra of Guangdang, Ode to Buddhist Academy, etc. Before Mahayana Buddhism, there were Suntuo Li Nan Tuo by A?vagho?a's and Zhibi by Molicha (Ma^tr! cet！ A) one hundred and fifty ode poems (S/Atapan ~-CA S/Atkastotra) and four hundred ode to Buddha (Catuh! S/atakastotra), and books such as "Dragon Xi Ji", which is a traditional opera created by the Japanese Lord of the Rings.
After the rise of Mahayana, the Mahayana classics compiled from the standpoint of praising Buddhism and Mahayana are quite different from the classics passed down by Buddhist monks and schools. Mahayana classics make Bixing literature and other systems form more advanced literature of praising Buddha and riding, thus opening up a new field of religious literature based on drama and literature. Such as Prajna, Huayan, Fahua, Nirvana and Baoji, all kinds of classics belong to it. In addition to these Buddhist scriptures called Buddhist literature, literary works that talk about Buddhist thoughts or quote a lot of Buddhist scriptures are also called Buddhist literature.
The achievements of Buddhist literary works are mainly in two aspects: first, they describe all aspects of urban social life, especially the activities of the middle and lower classes, which specifically reflect part of the times. The second is to develop the literary form of combining poetry and prose that has appeared in Brahma and Upanishads, as well as the long-popular poetic genre of analogical reasoning. The former is an important achievement of this kind of works. On the other hand, Buddhist works have their own style and content, although they are similar to many works such as epics. These two characteristics both come from folk literature and originated from the social foundation of early Buddhism.
Fables, legends and stories in Buddhist literature obviously come from different sources, and the degree of artistic processing is also uneven. Some are just short inserts attached to sermons, and some have developed into independent works. In relatively complete exclamations or independent works, some narratives are short and formulaic, just to illustrate the abstraction of an example of a dogma. Some of them are already literary creations, and it takes too much effort in structure to render what the author wants to emphasize and modify words.
Generally speaking, these works are not divorced from the characteristics of this historical period. Like epic, it is only a great progress to the previous period, and some works reached the highest artistic level of the same type at that time. From here, we can get a glimpse of the society at that time, and we can see the opposite of the idea advocated by the author from our point of view. In art, although it is often not as beautiful as later classical works, it retains the simple style of folk literature that classical writers can't, and some excellent parts can't be surpassed or caught up with by later similar works. We should acknowledge the great contribution of these Buddhist writers to the development of ancient Indian literature and affirm this precious heritage.
The Chinese translation of such works is attributed to many Indian and China monks from the Three Kingdoms to the early Tang Dynasty. The original version they translated was not Balinese, so the editing and narration were different. Many stories in Pali literature have been translated into Chinese, and some other works have been included in Chinese translated literature. These translations reflect the characteristics of China style of the times, and more or less retain the main style of the original text, which has become the literary heritage of our country.
Poems in early Buddhist classics have lost many literary skills of the original poems in the five-character (four-character or seven-character) blank poems translated into Chinese, and often become the rhyme form of twisted characters. But in India, these mystery poems have an important position, and they have had a great influence in some Buddhist countries. The contents of these poems were decadent and no longer attractive, but they were fresh at that time. This kind of epigram poem, which is widely used in metaphor and expressed in simple and clear words, was a fresh moral thought at that time, which was in contrast with some old Brahmin poems at that time and supplemented some epigrams in the epic. This genre is obviously derived from folk songs and proverbs, and has been an almost indispensable part of classical literature ever since. Some verses in Pali classics are simple in form and harmonious in tone, which are easy to remember. There must have been a great publicity effect at that time, and it was orally recited by people in Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos and other Buddhist countries.
Among Pali literature, the most popular ones are Fa Sentence Jing and Jing Ji in Xiao Bu. This is a compilation of some scriptures that Buddhists often read. There are four different versions of Faju Jing. During the Three Kingdoms period (the third century), it began to be translated into Chinese, with more contents than Pali, but some Pali poems were not translated into Chinese. Classic Collection is divided into five parts. There are fifty-four classics in the first four books, and the fifth one is a long poem with sixteen books, seventy-two books of songs and some essays explaining the background. Due to different factions, there is no such collection of Chinese translation classics, but most of them are scattered in many Chinese translation classics, laws and theories. This proves that they are works spread in the early days of Buddhism, and all factions have kept some.
Fa Sentence Jing is the most respected and widely circulated one in meditation. There are 523 poems in Pali, which are divided into 26 categories. Except for a few stanzas, each stanza is a four-sentence ode. The content is basic teachings and moral lessons. In Xinjiang, China, a part of the Sanskrit edition of Fa Ju Jing was discovered. This shows that the ancient version of the language is also different. At the beginning of Pali, it is established that idealism and karma are the two main parts. Happiness and pain are accompanied by kindness and nausea, just like the wheels following the hooves of livestock, which go hand in hand. There are thirty-nine chapters (chapters) in the Chinese translation of Fa Sentence Jing. It was said that everything is not eternal, and there is life and death, just like pottery. Like a river, it will never return; Life is like this, the dead don't return it. "The persevering will exhaust, and the highest will also drop, and will leave, and the living will die. These poems with simple dialectical thoughts cannot be found in Pali. The eight-mile literature of Faju Jing has detailed annotations and tells many stories. The Chinese versions of Analogy of French Sentences and Exotic Classics are also books with prose annotations. Due to different sects, Fa Sentence Jing has not received enough attention in the Buddhist circles in China.
The Sixteenth Auspicious Sutra is a 12 line poem, which is often read by Sri Lankan Buddhists. It briefly expresses the main views of this Buddhist school on the moral requirements of living in the world. The last chapter of the Chinese version of the Classic of French Sentences, "Lucky Goods", is roughly equivalent to this chapter, but it is different. There are two progressive sections in the Chinese version, but the Pali version does not say,' It is the most auspicious not to follow the heaven and man, to hope for good luck and not to worship the temple gods.' Everything is for the world, and it is most auspicious to make great contributions, cultivate benevolence and settle all beings. The Chinese version of Pali emphasizes birth, but the Chinese version does not say:' It is the most auspicious thing to be touched by the laws of the world, not to be moved, to be carefree, and to be hidden. Obviously, different factions, different ideas and different scriptures. It seems that the scope of Chinese translation of Confucian classics is wider.
In addition, the literary elements of Buddhist literature also include some mythical works. This is less in Pali literature and more in Chinese translation literature. This is the processing and development of some legends of buddhas and bodhisattvas. This book is similar to other non-Buddhist books in content and literary genre.
In the field of literature, the mixture of Buddhist poetry and prose has had a far-reaching impact on China literature. Formally, Buddhist classics are mostly translated in vernacular Chinese, which promotes the use of vernacular Chinese. For example, the quotations of Zen Buddhism are written in simple and direct popular language. More importantly, it adds a rich theme of imagination to China literature.
Taoist literature, such as Zhuangzi, shows that China people have rich imagination. However, because the Confucian classics in the mainstream position are always more formal, formal and practical, this mysterious imagination gradually fades. Confucian works pay attention to daily moral ethics and social responsibility, and have a strong sense of history, which is insufficient when it comes to myths and stories. Since India translated Mahayana classics, because Indians have great creative freedom and rich imagination in literature, heaven, hell and earth are like Ganges sand; The vastness of time and space is unbelievable. For China people who pay more attention to the realistic relationship, this can really open their eyes. This kind of imagination in Buddhist scriptures can be represented by the seventh chapter of Hokkekyo:
The Buddha told the monks, but after the infinite and incredible robbery of the monks, I sometimes have a Buddha name, Datong, to outsmart the Buddha. The extinction of the Buddha has come, a long time ago. For example, there are three thousand places in the world, some people think it is ink, that is, the next point is too east and as big as dust; More than 1000 countries, even more. In this case, the ink is planted. What does this mean to you? Do you know the number of countries? Since the death of the Buddha, there have been countless times to rob the monk Jin Moru. "
Faced with such a rich imagination, China people are willing to use it again. One of the best examples is The Journey to the West and Biography of Immortals in Ming Dynasty. The Journey to the West is a fictional story, describing the thrilling journey of Tang Priest's learning from the West. Thanks to the protection of his disciples the Monkey King and Pig Bajie along the way, he overcame the devil and went through many hardships before reaching his destination safely. "Romance of the Gods" tells the story of attacking Zhou. With the participation of the gods, each used its own exquisite weapons. These stories are so wonderful and incredible that there is a proverb in China called' A Chinese Odyssey'. In addition, some people think that you will tell lies all your life after reading the book Fairy Biography. Therefore, under the influence of Mahayana Buddhist literature, China people's thoughts became rich, romantic and free, which resulted in weird novels in Ming and Qing Dynasties.