Ch'an Commentary on Drama: A Buddhist Cultural History Approach.

This article attempts to illuminate the development of the concept that life is similar to drama, and to analyze its interaction with Buddhist thought, especially that of the Ch'an school(...). Although many studies have been done on the connection between life and literature, they mostly focus on poetry or the theme of karmic retribution in novels. In this paper, I would like to emphasize that traditional Chinese values are deeply rooted in Buddhism. For example, we can find the beginnings of the "life as drama" concept in an early Chinese translation of Mahayana Buddhist sutras. From the late Tang dynasty through the Song, the masters of the Ch'an school used the medium of drama to explain their philosophical system, a practice that reached its full flowering during the late Ming and early Qing. Of course the influence of the "life as drama" concept corresponded to the flourishing of the theater. The masters of the Ch'an school were quite interested in this new art form, and made comments on drama which were similar to those of professional drama composers. Moreover, upon comparison with the comments of Confucians on drama, we find that the Ch'an masters adopted the new art form more enthusiastically than the common Confucians, with the exception of Wang Yangming (...). This phenomenon gives evidence to the inseparable connection between the Ch'an school and the arts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]