Buddhist Poetry of China

Abstract

Buddhism entered China sometime in the first century ce, first in relatively small communities of foreign merchants, only to take hold among the elites in the following centuries. It should be no surprise, then, that it soon interacted with the indigenous poetry of China, the most highly regarded literary art of the elites. Comprised of multiple broad terms, “Buddhist poetry of China” eludes easy definition, which has led to some scholarly confusion. In this bibliography, we define “poetry” as any rhymed verse form (including but not limited to shi詩); “Buddhism” as the institutions, practices, people, and texts that located spiritual authority in a Buddha, especially the historical Buddha Siddhārtha Gautama; and “of China” as works written in the Sinitic languages as they were used in the polities that claimed continuity with the Qin and Han dynasties (thus excluding much noteworthy Buddhist Sinitic verse composed in Korea, Japan, Vietnam, and elsewhere). Chinese poetry intersected with Buddhism in a variety of ways, which varied considerably by time, place, and social setting. Some poems drew upon Buddhist scriptures for stories and images, some were composed at Buddhist settings, some passed on Buddhist teachings, some were informed by Buddhist doctrines, some were written by or addressed to Buddhist practitioners, some were recited during Buddhist rituals or sermons, and some were designed to perform Buddhist practices themselves. Buddhist institutions were ambivalent toward poetry. Canonical scriptures warned against excessive indulgence in literary and other arts, and later monastic rulebooks shared many of these concerns. At the same time, Buddhist institutions recognized that facility with literary language could be a powerful tool for expression and proselytization, and that certain kinds of aesthetic refinement was important for ritual efficacy. Individual Buddhists held all kinds of attitudes toward poetry—some monks denounced it as a dangerous, slippery slope toward laicization, while others obsessively wrote thousands of poems, sometimes justifying it in Buddhist terms and other times not. Most seem to have come to peace with poetry as an integral part of the Chinese cultural sphere that could not be completely proscribed. The Buddhist poetry of China remains a vibrant, living tradition to this day. This bibliography focuses on English-language studies (but includes some in other languages, especially Chinese) and is arranged by the categories typically addressed in existing scholarship: Buddhist poetry by literati, poetry by Buddhist monks, poetry by legendary Buddhists, practical and didactic Buddhist verse, and the influence of Buddhism on poetic theory.