釋道宣(596-667)繼承了唐代傳記自覺意識、文體多元的傳統,常在諸多著作的序、跋中書寫生平經歷,寄託情感思想,但在所撰的《續高僧傳》反而未見自傳,甚至連自序傳也沒有,僅在諸多他傳中,透過「余」如何如何的敘述,斷裂而隱晦地自我書寫。然經由本文研究即可發現,有別於宋代的各種〈道宣傳〉,或道宣律學著作的自序,其中多屬單一聲部的自我書寫。而道宣在《續高僧傳》中,不僅為「撰者」,同時還「扮演」諸般角色,如學生、共學及晚輩……等不同身分。這些並存的諸多聲影,可視為道宣在貞觀19年以前的五十遊方自述,也可謂是一種自傳記憶。在此試圖發掘這些自傳敘述下所隱藏的諸多訊息,包括主導因素、歷史條件和宗教性,從而探究其人與其時,也即是唐代宗教與社會的關係及其意義。換言之,就是緊扣道宣個人敘述的同一性,探索其師承與律學系譜,即可發現這些追憶性的話語都籠罩在北朝、隋朝的末法思想之後,亟欲復興佛學的社會框架下,透過晉、并律師行教,以及鄴都律師講律等多重他者的映照,展開種種律學理念的競爭,以加深對其自我律學主張的認知;另一方面,也藉由自己與受業師慧頵(564-637)、受戒師智首(567-635),乃至於親見的法師慧休(548-645)、曇榮(556-640)等的對話,正反辯證,形成可資依從的律學事例。由此展現了其「我是如此」,也更進一步期待促使讀者理解當時諸多僧人亟欲「我們正是如此」,強調佛教內部律法的宗教實踐。
Shi Daoxuan (596-667) inherited the tradition of self-consciousness and stylistic diversity in Tang Dynasty biographies, and often interspersed his life experience, emotion and thoughts into the prefaces and postscripts of his Buddhist precepts works. However, he did not write an autobiography in the Continued Biography of Eminent Monks, not even in the preface to the work. Instead, we find details about him only in numerous other biographies in the book, where narratives about "I" sporadically and implicitly told stories about himself. This paper proves that this narrative discourse is different from those in the various Daoxuan biographies of the Song Dynasty or the prefaces and postscripts of Daoxuan's Buddhist precepts works, most of which use the single voice of self-writing. Daoxuan is not only the "writer" in the Continued Biography of Eminent Monks, but also "performer" of many roles, such as a student, a partner in learning, a latecomer and so on. The different yet co-existing tones and shades can be regarded as Daoxuan's self-descriptions of his itinerant practice at fifty before the 19th year of Zhenguan, and an autobiographical memory. The paper studies the hidden messages in Daoxuan's self-narration, including dominant factors, historical conditions, and religiosity, to gain an understanding of him and his times and reveal the significance of the relationship between religion and society in the Tang Dynasty. In other words, by closely examining the uniformity of Daoxuan's personal narrative and exploring his patriarchal lineage on the Buddhist precepts, we find that these retrospective discourses are shrouded by the urgent desire in the Buddhist community to revive Buddhism in the aftermath of the Buddhist eschatology of the Northern Dynasty and Sui Dynasty. Daoxuan reflected on the conflicting doctrines of Buddhist precepts in the teaching of multiple others, such as preceptors in the Jin and Bing prefectures, as well as in the capital of Ye, to deepen his own grasp of Buddhist precepts. On the other hand, by engaging in positive and negative dialectical dialogues between his own understanding and what he learned from practitioner Hui Yun (564-637), the ordained master Zhi Shou (567-635), and even masters Hui Xiu (548-645) and Tan Rong (556-640), whom he personally met, he proposed examples to illustrate Buddhist precepts that can be followed. These show the paradigm of "I am such." Furthermore, they prompt the readers to understand that many monks at the time, including himself, were eager to demonstrate the tenet of "that is exactly how we are," which promotes religious practice within the boundary of Buddhist precepts.