Language strategy of explaining the Buddhist notion “The Other Shore” in Yu Jian’s poem-play

Authors

  • Yulia Kuznetsova Moscow State University, 11, ul. Mokhovaya, Moscow, 125009, Russian Federation

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.21638/spbu13.2018.404

Abstract

Сertain Buddhist schools (Chan, Linji) took a sceptical attitude towards verbal transmission of awakening experience. But nevertheless language here wasn't marginalized — its potentional, its limits of expression were explored and skilfully used. In this article attention is drawn to gong-an — formally-derived-of-common-sense texts structured as questions/answers of a teacher and disciples — along with the strategy of this specific communication, its functioning in traditional and modern literature. The research aims at pointing out a visible connection between gong-an texts and Yu Jian's poem-play «Grammar discussion on “The Other Shore”» (1998) in terms of speaking about the other shore — the state of non-duality/awakening. Despite the fact that Yu Jian is a vivid figure of China's avant-garde poetic world, none of the Chinese, European or American researchers has yet touched upon the analysis of this poem-play, which seems important in terms of comprehending dynamic permeation of the tradition of gong-an texts into the composition of the poetic and dramatic work of Yu, where he touches on the question of describing the transcendental. Further analysis and comparison of gong-ans and Yu Jian's text makes it clear that the latter stylistically originates from a detailed description of different solutions to the gong-an about the other shore. As a result, Yu Jian's search for an articulation of the concept “the other shore” becomes rooted in Buddhist philosophy. This in its turn shows vitality of this tradition in the modern literary text.

Keywords:

Buddhism, language communication, gong-an, the other shore, poem-play, Yu Jian

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Published

2018-12-20

How to Cite

Kuznetsova, Y. (2018). Language strategy of explaining the Buddhist notion “The Other Shore” in Yu Jian’s poem-play. Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Asian and African Studies, 10(4), 467–478. https://doi.org/10.21638/spbu13.2018.404

Issue

Vol. 10 No. 4 (2018)

Section

Literary studies

License

Articles of "Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Asian and African Studies" are open access distributed under the terms of the License Agreement with Saint Petersburg State University, which permits to the authors unrestricted distribution and self-archiving free of charge.