Chapter 14 Chapter 7 The Book of Shishi’s Assistant Teaching

When talking about the influence of India on the novels of Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, Mr. Lu Xun once said: "China originally believed in witches. Since the Qin and Han Dynasties, the theory of immortals has prevailed. At the end of the Han Dynasty, witchcraft became popular, and the way of ghosts became more and more popular; knowing Theravada Buddhism also entered it. Soil, gradually spread. All these are about ghosts and gods, and they are praised for supernatural beings. Therefore, from Jin to Sui, there are many books about ghosts and spirits." He also said: "Since the Wei and Jin Dynasties, the interpretation of the scriptures has been gradually translated, and the stories of Tianzhu have also been passed down to the world. The literati like their uniqueness, and use it intentionally or unintentionally, and then degenerate into state-owned." He also said: "The book of Shi's auxiliary teaching... probably records the obvious effect of the scriptures and images, and shows the reality of the fulfillment, so as to shock the world and make people If you have a heart of respect and faith, future generations may regard it as a novel."

These three passages of Mr. Lu Xun respectively explain three problems: first, there are two main reasons for the rise of strange novels in the Six Dynasties, one is the ancient Chinese tradition of believing in witches and gods, and the other is the influence of Indian Buddhism.Second, Indian stories spread in China along with the translation of Buddhist scriptures, and were transformed into Chinese stories through literati processing.Third, during the Six Dynasties, there appeared some works dedicated to promoting Buddhist karma, and later generations often regarded them as novels. Lu Xun's words are correct.During this period, due to the introduction of Buddhism, a large number of monks from the Western Regions came to China, and a large number of translations of Buddhist scriptures brought the Indian Buddhist outlook on the universe, life, morality, and way of thinking into China.For example, Buddhism believes that everything in the universe rotates endlessly like a wheel, and life is a process of continuous reincarnation. Doing good can accumulate virtue and ascend to heaven, and doing evil will result in retribution and hell, etc.This has something in common with ancient Chinese witchcraft beliefs and ghost beliefs, so it contributed to the emergence and development of ghost novels in the Six Dynasties.Buddhism also brought some ancient Indian literary stories into China.In Buddhist literature, there are many literary works, such as the biographical stories of the Buddha's life, the Jataka stories of the Buddha's previous reincarnations as Bodhisattvas, the metaphorical stories used to explain the truth when the Buddha preached, and the stories of the Buddha and his disciples. Examples of what his disciples saw and heard in the past (karmic stories), and so on.Many of these stories are ancient Indian myths and legends, fables, fairy tales, etc., which have been processed and rewritten by Buddhists; record of what happened.In short, Buddhist scriptures are not all empty dogmas and abstract theories. On the contrary, there are many scriptures with high literary value.In particular, many of these stories fully demonstrate the wisdom and fantastic imagination of the Indian people, which are very novel to the Chinese, so these stories are easily accepted by people and turn them into their own.In addition, using literary works to serve religion is a specialty of Indian Buddhists, and some Chinese Buddhist believers also make full use of this point, and the "Book of Shi Shi's Auxiliary Teaching" appeared during the Six Dynasties period of China.Here are a few specific examples.

There is such a story in the first and third volumes of "Sou Shen Ji" written by Jin Ganbao: Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty excavated Kunming Pool, which was extremely deep, full of black ash, and no soil.Nobody knows why.Dongfang Shuo said, you can ask people from the Western Regions.Later, when Emperor Ming of the Han Dynasty came, Taoists from the Western Regions came to Luoyang. Someone remembered Dongfang Shuo's words and asked him.He said: "It is said in Buddhist scriptures, 'When the world is about to end, the kalpa will be burned.' This is the remnant of the kalpa."

The same story can also be found in Liu Yiqing's "You Ming Lu" and Cao Pi's "Zhiguai" in the Southern Dynasty.In the story, Taoists from the Western Regions refer to monks from India. "Kalpa" is a unit of time in ancient India.According to Buddhist legend, after a long time, the world will be destroyed once, and then there will be a calamity fire that will burn everything down.The universe is then regenerated.This process is called a calamity.This story is bizarre, and the time concept of "kalpa" is also new to the Chinese. There is a story in the third volume of "Ling Gui Zhi" written in the Jin Dynasty: There is a Taoist (referring to monks here) who came from a foreign country.Once he was walking on the road and saw a person carrying a load with a small cage on it, so he said to the bearer, "I'm tired from walking, let me go to your cage." The bearer felt very strange and thought he was Crazy, agree.When a Taoist enters a cage, the cage does not appear large, the Taoist does not appear small, and the burden does not appear heavy.The porter stopped to rest, and the Taoist did not come out of the cage.Instead, he placed vessels containing food and drink in the cage, and spit out a woman from his mouth to eat with him.He fell asleep after eating, and the woman spit out another man to eat with him.In this way, there are three people in the cage, but it still does not appear crowded.When the Taoist was about to wake up, the woman swallowed the man.The Taoist stood up, swallowed the woman into his mouth, and then into the vessel, and said to the porter, "You can go."

There is a story of "Yangxian Scholar" in "Continued Qi Harmony" by Wu Jun, a native of Liang in the Southern Dynasties, and the plot is similar.This story is a variant of an Indian story, which was pointed out by Duan Chengshi of the Tang Dynasty in "Youyang Miscellaneous", and also by Lu Xun in "Youyang Zazu".It comes from the story of "Fanzhi spit out the pot" in "Old Miscellaneous Metaphors".The novel space concept and rich imagination in the story made the Chinese imitate it again and again, until the Ming and Qing Dynasties some people were adapting it.

There is such a story in Volume 3 of Liu Yiqing's "You Ming Lu" in the Southern Dynasty: Huan Miao's eldest son had a dream at night, in which four men in black begged him for help.When he woke up, he saw that his family was going to kill four black ducks, so he stepped forward to save the ducks and bought meat as a substitute.Later, at night, I dreamed that those four people came to thank me. Buddhism warns people not to kill, saying that killing will result in bad retribution, and not killing will result in good retribution.In the Jataka story of Buddha, there is also a story about a king who cut off his own flesh to save the lives of pigeons.These all influence the story of China.Conversely, this story is a conscious promotion of Buddhist ideas, and it can be regarded as "the book of Shi Shi's auxiliary teaching".

In short, there are still many examples of such Indian Buddhism-influenced novels in the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties.They all show that in the history of the development of Chinese novels, they have been influenced by Indian literature.