Wang Wei (701-761), whose courtesy name was Mojie, was also known as Buddha?, and his given name was Vimalakīrti. Vimalakīrti was a lay practitioner of Mahayana Buddhism in Buddhism. A layman is a well-known lay bodhisattva, which means a person who is famous for being clean and free from pollution. It can be seen that Wang Wei's name has an indissoluble bond with Buddhism. During Wang Wei's lifetime, people considered him a master of contemporary poetry and a master of Zen philosophy. ("Preface to Rewarding the King"), and after his death, he was given the title of Poet Buddha. Wang Wei was born in a family of devout Buddhists. According to Wang Wei's "Please Shizhuang as the Temple Preface" written by Wang Wei: His deceased mother was the Juncui family of Boling County. She studied with Zen Master Dazhao for more than thirty years. Eat, observe precepts and meditate, live happily in mountains and forests, and seek tranquility. Wang Wei has been influenced by his mother since he was a child. At the same time, according to Volume 25 of "Collected Annotations of Wang Youcheng", there is an article "Inscription on the Pagoda of Dade Daoguang Zen Master of Dajianfu Temple", which talks about the relationship between the poet and the famous contemporary monk Daoguang Zen Master. : In the tenth year of Wei Dynasty, it can be seen that Wang Wei did have a close relationship with Buddhism, and he even lived a monk-like life in his later years. According to the "Old Book of the Tang Dynasty": In the capital, Chang Zhai, I prostrated myself without any clothes to receive instruction. I wanted to measure the void with the smallest detail, but it was useless. I just wanted to find out where the relics were. There were more than a dozen monks eating every day, and they enjoyed mystical talks. There was nothing in the house but a tea pot, medicine mortar, and a rope bed for sutras. After he retired from the court, he burned incense and sat alone, doing Zen chanting. At this time, Wang Wei was like a monk.
Wang Wei was endowed with literary talent in his youth. In the ninth year of Kaiyuan (721), he was awarded the rank of Jinshi and became Daluecheng. For some reason, he was relegated to Sicang, Jeju to join the army. Later he returned to Chang'an. In the 22nd year of Kaiyuan (734), it was the Zhongshu Order. Wang Wei was promoted to the position of Youshiyi. At that time, he wrote the poem "Xian Shi Xing Gong", which praised Zhang Jiuling's political ideas of opposing party establishment for personal gain and excessive use of honorary rewards, which reflected his mood at that time to demand something to be done. In the twenty-fourth year (736), Zhang Jiuling resigned as prime minister. The following year he was demoted to the governor of Jing. Ren Zhongshu Ling was a turning point in the politics of the Xuanzong period from relatively clear to increasingly dark. Wang Wei was very frustrated by Zhang Jiuling's demotion, but he did not withdraw from officialdom. In the twenty-fifth year of Kaiyuan, he was sent to Hexi Province to serve as deputy ambassador Cui Xiyi. Later, he served as the imperial censor Zhi Nanxuan. In Tianbaozhong, Wang Wei's official position was gradually promoted. Before the Anshi Rebellion, when officials were in trouble, he was tired and worried about the officialdom at that time, but on the other hand, he was still attached to his family and could not leave decisively. So he followed the popular trend and lived a semi-official and semi-hidden life for a long time...
Wang Wei's achievements in poetry are multifaceted, including frontier fortresses, landscape poems, rhymed poems, and quatrains. A good article that has been widely circulated among people. His poems are called the poems of Weimojie, and there are paintings in the poems. The paintings of Kanmojie are poems in the paintings. He indeed has unique attainments in describing natural scenery. Whether it is the magnificence of famous mountains and rivers, the vastness and coldness of frontiers and fortresses, or the tranquility of small bridges and flowing water, they can accurately and concisely create a perfect and vivid image, without much ink, lofty artistic conception, and complete poetic and painterly feeling. Fusion into a whole.
The Landscape Pastoral Poetry School is one of the two major poetry schools in the prosperous Tang Dynasty. This poetry school is the successor of "The Landscape Pastoral Poetry School", "The Landscape Pastoral Poetry School", "The Landscape Pastoral Poetry School" and "The Landscape Pastoral Poetry School". The style is also relatively close. By depicting quiet scenery, it reflects its peaceful state of mind or reclusive thoughts, so it is called the landscape pastoral school. Its main writers are Wang Wei, Chang Jian, and others. Among them, the most accomplished and influential ones are Wang Wei and Meng Haoran, also known as Wang Meng.
Biography
He was precocious, and he and his brother Jin, who was one year younger, were both smarter at an early age. When he was fifteen years old, he went to the capital to take the exam. Because he could write good poems, was good at calligraphy and painting, and had musical talent, the young Wang Wei immediately became the favorite of the princes and nobles of the capital as soon as he arrived in the capital. Regarding his talent in music, there is a story in "Supplement to the History of the Tang Dynasty": Once, a man got a music picture, but he didn't know why he titled it. After seeing it, Wang Wei replied: This is the first beat of the third stack of "The Song of Colorful Feather Clothes". We invited musicians to perform, and it turned out to be exactly the same (according to the textual research on calligraphy and painting in Volume 17 of "Mengxi Bi Tan"), the third piece of "Nishang Feather Clothes Song" was not shot, and it is a Sanqu. This point. Shen Kuo is proficient in music, and his words are credible. It is recorded in official history, but this story is fabricated).
In terms of poetry, there are documented materials written when he was fifteen, seventeen, or eighteen years old. It can be seen that he was already a famous poet in his teens. This is rare among poets. At that time, in that aristocratic society, a versatile talent like Wang Wei would naturally be highly appreciated. Therefore, he passed the Jinshi examination at the age of twenty-one.
After becoming an official, Wang Wei used his spare time in bureaucratic life to build a villa at the foot of Nanlantian Mountain in the capital to cultivate his body and mind. The villa was originally owned by the first emperor. It was a very spacious place with mountains, lakes, woods and valleys, and several buildings scattered among it. At this time, Wang Wei lived a leisurely life with his close friends. This is his semi-official and semi-hidden life.
Wang Wei, who had always lived a comfortable life, was involved in unexpected waves in his later years. The Anshi Rebellion broke out in the fourteenth year of Xuanzong Tianbao's reign (755). During the war, he was captured by the rebels and forced to become a puppet official. This became a serious problem after the war subsided, and he was handed over for interrogation.
It was reasonable to say that he should be executed for joining the rebels. Fortunately, he had written a poem about yearning for the emperor during the rebellion, and his younger brother, who was the Minister of Justice at the time (who had fled with the emperor), begged for mercy and begged that his official position be exchanged for his brother's life, so Wang Weicai was spared. Due to difficulties, he was only demoted. Later, he was promoted to the position of Minister Youcheng.
Wang Wei had positive political ambitions in his early years and hoped to accomplish a great cause. Later, when the political situation changed, he gradually became depressed and started eating fast and chanting Buddha's name. When he was in his forties, he specially built a villa in Wangchuan, Lantian County, southeast of Chang'an, and lived a semi-official and semi-hidden life. The poem "Wangchuan Leisurely Presented to Pei Xiu Caidi" is a chapter in his secluded life. The main content is to express his aspirations and describe the poet's desire to stay away from the world and continue to live in seclusion. The scenery described in the poem is not deliberately laid out, it is natural and fresh, as if it were picked up at hand, and the distant scenery can be seen by itself, which has a great legacy of Yuan Ming.
"Old Tang Book·Biography of Wang Wei"
Wang Wei, courtesy name Mojie, was born in Qi, Taiyuan. His father was born in Lian and died in Fenzhou Sima. He moved to Pu and became a native of Hedong. In the ninth year of Wei Kaiyuan's reign, he was promoted to Jinshi. Cui, the mother-in-law, heard of it as a filial piety. He and his younger brother Jin were both talented and equally famous for their erudition and many arts. They were close friends with each other and were highly regarded by many scholars. Li You was responsible for collecting relics, supervising the censor, Zuo Buque, and being a doctor in the Treasury Department. When the mother of the house is mourned, the firewood is destroyed and the bones are left standing. The mourning is almost unbearable. Serve the emperor and pay homage to the doctor from the Ministry of Officials. At the end of Tianbao, it is for giving.
When Lushan fell into the two capitals, Xuanzong was lucky, but Wei Hu was never able to catch up and was captured by thieves. We take medicine to get dysentery, falsely calling it fistula. Lushan Su took pity on him and sent people to meet him in Luoyang. He was detained in Pushi Temple and forced to give him a fake certificate. Lushan hosted a banquet for his disciples in Ningbi Palace, and the musicians were all disciples of the Liyuan School and workers of the teaching workshop. Wei was so sad after hearing this that he composed a poem and wrote: "Thousands of households are sad and smoke is growing wild. When will hundreds of officials turn to heaven again?" Autumn locust flowers fall in the empty palace, and orchestral music plays on the head of the Ningbi Pond. If the thief is defeated, the officer who traps the thief will be convicted by the third class. Wei heard of "Ningbi Poetry" in Xingzai, and Suzong praised it. Huijin asked him to cut off his minister of punishment to atone for his brother's sins. He especially pardoned him and awarded the crown prince Zhongyun. During the Qian and Yuan Dynasties, he was moved to the throne as the concubine of the Crown Prince and the wife of Zhongshu. He paid homage to Shizhong again and was transferred to Youcheng, the Minister of the Secretariat.
Wei was famous for his poetry in Kaiyuan and Tianbao. The officials of Kunzhong traveled to the two capitals. All princes and princes who came to the door of a noble family would welcome them with their hands on their mats. King Ning and King Xue treated him like a teacher and friend. . Weiyu is a long five-character poem. Calligraphy and painting are particularly wonderful. The strokes reflect thoughts and participate in creation. However, the creative sutras and pictures are lacking. For example, the mountains are far away, the clouds and peaks are colorful, and the secrets of heaven are lost. They are beyond the reach of the painter. Someone got the "Picture of Playing Music" but didn't know its name. Wei looked at it and said: "The first beat of the third stack of "Neon Clothes". ?Those who do good things gather musicians to work on them, and there is nothing wrong with them. I am convinced of their fine thinking.
Brothers Wei all worshiped the Buddha. They always lived on a vegetarian diet and did not eat meat or blood. They fasted for a long time in their later years and did not wear elegant clothes. Went to Song Zhiwen's Lantian villa at Wangkou. The water in Wangwang circled under the house, and he went to Zhuzhou Huawu. He went on a floating boat with his Taoist friend Pei Di, played the piano, composed poems, and chanted all day long. The poems he wrote in his countryside were titled "Wangchuan Collection". There were more than ten monks in the capital every day, enjoying mystical talks. There is nothing in the house, just a tea pot, a medicine mortar, a sutra case, and a rope bed. After retreating from the court, he burned incense and sat alone, doing meditation and recitation. After the death of his wife, he no longer married, and for thirty years he lived alone in a single room, isolated from all the dust. He died in July of the second year of Qianyuan. On his deathbed, Jin was in Fengxiang, and he suddenly took out his pen to write a farewell calligraphy on the Jin. He also wrote several farewell letters to his relatives and friends. He gave up his pen in order to cultivate his mind in accordance with the Buddha's instructions.
During the reign of Emperor Daizong, Jin was the prime minister. Emperor Daizong was good at writing, and often said to Jin: Your uncle is the most famous poet in Tianbao. I have tasted and heard his music in the throne room. How many collections of essays are there today? Can you please come in? Jin said: Brother Chen wrote more than one hundred thousand poems in the Kaiyuan Dynasty. After the Tianbao incident, not even one of ten remained. Compared with Chinese and foreign relatives and friends, there are more than 400 chapters. The next day, the emperor issued an edict to praise him. Jin has his own biography.
Poetry attainments
He is a representative of the poets of the prosperous Tang Dynasty. Wang Wei had been an official in the capital for many years, and had many interactions with princes and noble lords. His literary reputation was extremely prosperous, and he was recognized as the Wenzong of the Kaiyuan and Tianbao periods. He is good at five-character poems, and because he is proficient in music, his five-character poems are easy to listen to, spread widely, and have a high reputation. The modern poetry written by Wang Wei strictly adheres to the rhythm and is bold in mood. Most of the landscape poems he wrote are scenes. Yin Fan commented on his poems and said: Wei's poems are elegant and graceful, with new ideas and pleasant ideas. They are pearls in the spring and painted on the wall. Every word and every sentence is out of the ordinary. Wang Wei has a high level of achievement in poetry writing skills, but because of his negative thoughts of reclusiveness, many of his poems contain negative elements of escaping reality. Therefore, in the history of literature, he and Meng Haoran are called representatives of the hermit poetry school. Emperor Daizong of the Tang Dynasty spoke highly of Wang Wei's poems. He said in the "Commentary to the Collection of Biaoshou Edicts": Qing Zhibo's family, Tian Wenzong, experienced the previous dynasties, and was named Gao Xidai. population. At the end of the Tang Dynasty, Liyuan disciples still sang Wang Wei's quatrains, which shows his profound influence.
There are less than 400 of Wang Wei's poems in existence. Among them, the most representative of his creative features are poems depicting natural scenery such as mountains, rivers and pastoral areas, and singing about hermit life. Wang Wei's high achievement in depicting natural scenery made him unique in the poetry world of the prosperous Tang Dynasty and became a representative figure of the landscape pastoral poetry school. He inherited and developed the tradition of writing landscape poetry initiated by Xie Lingyun, and also absorbed the freshness and nature of Tao Yuanming's pastoral poetry, which brought the achievement of landscape pastoral poetry to a peak and thus occupied an important position in the history of Chinese poetry. Together with Meng Haoran, he is a representative figure of the landscape pastoral school in the Tang Dynasty. "Old Book of Tang·Biography of Wang Wei" says that during the reign of Emperor Daizong, Wang Jin compiled more than 400 poems by Wang Wei. Wang Jin's "Jin Wang Youcheng Ji Biao" also compiled 10 volumes of Wang Wei's poetry and prose. Shugutang originally had 10 volumes of "Collected Works of Wang Youcheng" written by Yao Sha in the Southern Song Dynasty, and later returned to Lu Xinyuan's Songlou.
The Beijing Library has 10 volumes of the Song and Shu editions of "Collected Works of Wang Mojie", which were photocopied and published by Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House in 1982. In the Yuan Dynasty, Liu Xuxi commented on "The Collection of Wang Youcheng" (Collected Poems) in 6 volumes, and the "Sibu Congkan" was copied based on it. There are also works by Yao Xiang, Yao Xiang and others. Gu Qijing of the Ming Dynasty has 10 volumes of "Leijian Collection of Poems by Tang Wang Youcheng" and 4 volumes of attached essays. This is the earliest existing annotated version of Wang Wei's poems. "Wang Youcheng's Collection of Notes" by Zhao Diancheng of the Qing Dynasty is by far the better annotated version. In addition to explanatory notes on all the poems, it also includes comments, explanations of the poems whose authors are doubtful, and occasional textual research. It also collects information about Wang Wei's life and poetry and painting criticism as an appendix. In 1961, the Shanghai Editorial Office of Zhonghua Book Company revised and revised Zhao's annotated version, typed and published it. In addition, Zheng Zhenduo once used the "Sibu Congkan" as the base, revised it with Zhao Diancheng's annotated version and other four editions, and included it in the "World Library". Deeds can be seen in the new and old "Tang Shu" biography. Both Gu Qijing's annotated version and Zhao Diancheng's annotated version are accompanied by Wang Wei's chronology written by the annotator. Today's Chen Yi has an article "A Preliminary Study of Wang Wei's Life and Deeds", followed by a "Brief Chronology of Wang Wei" (contained in "Tang Poetry Series").
Wang Wei’s creative talents are multifaceted. He has the highest attainments in Wulu and Wu and Qiyan, and he is also good at other genres. This is quite outstanding in the entire Tang Dynasty poetry circle. His Qilu can be either powerful and gorgeous, or pure and elegant, which were learned by the Seventh Son of the Ming Dynasty. The seven ancient poems "A Journey to Taoyuan", "The Journey of an Old General", "Tong Yao Fu's Answer to a Wise Brother", etc., are neat in form and flowing in momentum, and can be regarded as the best among the seven ancient poems in the prosperous Tang Dynasty. There are also excellent works of prose. ?"The Book of Di Shu in the Mountains with Pei Xiucai" is quiet and meaningful, very poetic and picturesque, and is similar to the style of its landscape poetry.
The most undesirable things in Wang Wei's collection are those Yingzhi poems praising virtues, flattering singing poems and works that directly promote Buddhism. Their content is often trivial, and their language is cliche or boring. But there are also a few famous poems and poems in it, such as the two wind towers in Yunli Imperial City, thousands of houses are planted in spring in the rain ("The work of Fenghe Shengzhi from Penglai to Xingqing Pavilion Road to stay in the spring rain in the spring rain"), the atmosphere is high Hua, whose body is delicate, is also praised by people. Illustrations of Wang Wei's poem "Youth Journey" are selected from the "Seven-Character Painting Book of Tang Poems" written by Wanli Jiyazhai in the Ming Dynasty.