Biographies of Eminent Monks in a Comparative Perspective: The Function of the Holy in Medieval Chinese Buddhism

在本論文中，作者提出一個解讀慧岐《高僧傳》的新方向。首先針對亞瑟﹒賴特的力作《傳記與聖賢傳：慧峻的高僧傳》，提出討論和批評。有關慧校對於神異事蹟的態度，我與賴特的看法並不相同；賴特認為，慧岐「比較不想、以神異的描述來讓普通人畏敬，比較注重說服貴族和知識分子，讓他們相信佛教的學理淵深值得尊敬，佛教僧但也過著濟世的、有創發性的、戒律嚴謹的生活。」因此，賴特就引用彼得﹒布朗在研究基督教史所使用和所批評的「雙層模式」，來研究中世紀的中國佛教。我主張我們必須放棄賴特所使用的廣泛闡釋架構：相對於精英分于的宗教，另有一種廣大庶民的宗教。我也主張我們必須暨疑賴特對於那種精英文化的看法：鄙視神異故事和神通。同時，我們必須仔細而深入地探討慧岐《高僧傳》的實際內容。事實上，只要我們仔細研究《高僧傳》和相關典籍，就可以發現慧岐對於神異事蹟和神異僧的看法，絕非如賴特所說。賴特和其他人在分析慧校《高僧傳》的內容時，大都依據慧峻的序。我提醒大家注意慧峻的觀點主要來自寶唱，因此我認為慧岐序別有目的，而且在序 ( 包括把傳記分成十科 ) 和內文之間可能存有相當大的差距。對於慧餃《高僧傳》內容的研究，如果以他的序為主要論點 ( 就像賴特的古典研究一樣 )，就必須重新給以檢驗，我們應該把重點放在個別的傳記之上，而非編輯者對於這些傳記的觀點。在本論文的第二部分，我認為彼得﹒布朗在研究西方近古時期的「神」和「聖者」時所採用的功能主義方法，可以提供給我們在研究中國《高僧傳》時的借鏡，也許會讓我們發現一片新天地。我當試以討論〈習禪科〉的曇超 (419~492)傳,來說明這種研究方法。我試著以功能主義的觀點來解讀曇超的生平，認為維持社會秩序是〈曇超傳〉的主要關注點之一。曇超在此世界的村民和統治彼世界的龍之間坐禪。下雨的神異故事，構成傳中的主要部分，並不否認此世界與彼世界的基本結構，在這個結構中，此世界隱約受到彼世界的支持。當這個結構的運作不良或脫序時，便需要曇超的介入。人們在無意中擾亂到龍宮，激怒了龍，使得龍因忿立誓要停止下雨，這時候就必須請來局外人的禪師，他以特殊神通力聞名，甚至可以與天神交往。一直要等到這位禪師降服龍皈依佛教之後，龍才肯收回咒誓，把兩降下來。我進一步認為，曇超在靈苑山的示現神通 ( 重點在降服當地的龍皈依 )，也可以解讀為描述佛教如何在離京城不太遠的地區被當地人所接受。

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In this paper I propose a new direction for the study of Huijiao's Biographies of Eminent Monks. I begin the discussion with some comments on Arthur Wright's influential study Biography and Hagiography: Hui chiao's Lives of Eminent Monks. I take issue with Wright's view on Huijiao's attitude toward miracle stories; according to Wright, Hujiao was less concerned to awe the simple with accounts of miracles than to persuade the nobles and the literati that Buddhism was intellectually respectable and that its clergy had led useful, creative, and well disciplined lives. With this statement Wright imports into the study of medieval Chinese Buddhism the kind of ＂two-tier model＂ that Peter Brown saw in the scholarship on the history of Christianity and criticized. I argue that we need to dispense with the broad interpretive framework that Wright uses, namely that there is a religion of the masses that is opposed to a religion of the elite, and that we must question Wright's characterization of that elite culture as disdainful of tales of miracles and the supernatural. At the same time we must turn to a careful and detailed consideration of the actual contents of Huijiao's biographical collection. In fact from a careful reading of the collection and related texts a remarkably different picture of Huijiao's view of miracles and miracle workers begin to emerge. Wright and others relied heavily on Huiiiao's preface in their analysis of the nature of this biographical collection. Calling attention to Huijiao's heavy dependence on Baochang, I suggest that Huijiao's preface may have been a rather tendentious document and that significant gaps may have existed between this preface (including the tenfold scheme of classifying biographies) and the actual content of the work itself. An account of the content of the collection that relies heavily on Huijiao's preface, as is the case with Wright's classic study, needs to be reexamined in the light of studies that focus on individual biographies in the collection rather than the editor's presentation of these biographies. In the second part of this paper, I argue that Peter Brown's functionalist study of ＂the holy＂ and ＂holy men＂ in late antiquity in the West offers us some useful insights that might lead us to a very different approach to the study of Chinese ＂Biographies of Eminent Monks.＂ I attempted to illustrate this approach by discussing the biography of Tanchao (419 - 492), which is found in the ＂meditation masters＂ section of Huijiao's collection. I attempt a functionalist reading of Tanchao's life here, suggesting that one of its main concerns was the preservation of the order of society. Tanchao mediated between the villagers in this world and the dragons who rule in the other world. The rain miracle story that constitutes the main part of the story told in this biography does not deny the basic structure of dual hierarchies in which the worldly hierarchy is implicitly supported by an other worldly hierarchy. The situation that necessitated Tanchao's intervention was a malfunctioning or disorder of this structure. It was by accident that people disturbed the dragon's residence. When the dragons were infuriated and made an oath to stop the rain, a monk, who was an outsider and had a reputation for extraordinary spiritual power that reached even to the gods, had to be brought in. Only after the monk had succeeded in converting the dragons to Buddhism could the dragons be persuaded to abandon their oath and bring down rain. I suggest further that the story of Tanchao's miraculous feat at Mt. Lingyin, with its emphasis on converting local dragons, could also be read as a story that describes how Buddhism came to be accepted locally in an area that was not very far from the capital.