論佛祖統紀對紀傳體裁的運用

A STUDY OF THE HISTORIOGRAPHICAL FUNCTIONS OF THE CHINESE HISTORY IN ANNAL-BIOGRAPHY STYLE REFLECTED FROM FO-TAU-T'UNG-CHI-A BUDDIHIST HISTORY

曹仕邦(Tso Sze-Bong)

《新亞學報》 9卷1期 (1969/06) Pp. 121-180+ap5-6

並列摘要

Fo-tsu-t'ung-chi (佛祖統紀) or ＂The Record of the Orthodox Line of Successions of the Patriarchs Descending from the Buddha＂ is a Buddhist sectarian history composed in the Sung Dynasty by Chih-p'an(志磐). Though it is a religious history, its author imitated the whole system of the traditional style of the Chinese Standard History (正史), i. e. Annal-Biography Style (紀傳體) or Composite Style. By doing so, Chih p'an wanted to show that his own sect, the T'ien-t'ai Sect (天台宗) or Lotus Sect, had descended in a straight line from the Buddha. In the T'ung-li (通例) or ＂General Principles＂ of his book he stated: ＂I record the lives of the Buddha and the twenty-nine patriarchs of the T'ien-t'ai Sect in the Basic Annals (本紀) form, patterning it after the secular history the rightful successions to the throne, in order to show their oxthedox line of successions.＂ Notwithstanding Chih-p'an's presumptuousness in this respect, his work is a contribution to the Annal-Biography Style from the Chinese historiographical point of view. As a matter of fact, the pattern of secular history has been developed for meterial quite different from that of religious history. Therefore, the adoption of the secular pattern for writing religious history could not be done without some inconsistencies. But Chih-p'an had a thorough grasp of the principles of the Annal-Biography Style and utilized them skillfuly so as to compromise the inconsistencies which unavoidably happened to his book. For instance, the chronological Fa-yun-t'ung-se-chih (法運通塞志) or ＂A Treatise on the Vicissitudes of the Dharma's Fate＂, which would never appear in the secular history of the same style, was used as a substitute for the Basic Annals which were unable to exert their proper function after being converted into the record of monks' career instead of the emperors' reign. As Chih(志) or Treatise＂, like Basic-Annals, is one of the fundamental structures in the framework of the Composite Style, Chip-p'an did not distort the style from its original form. Thus, Chih-p'an's work has the merit of making two important contributions: first, leading the Annal-Biography Style into a new territory, and second, reflecting most of the historiographical functions of this style which even the secular history itself sometimes finds it hard to reflect. This article is mainly a study of the second contribution of Chih-p'an's work mentioned above, aimed at finding out, and making known to the modern world, the functions of this sort of traditional Chinese history.