论七言佛偈传译与东晋南朝七言诗

On the Translation and Spread of the Gāthā of Seven Characters and the Writing of the Poems of Seven Characters in East-Jin to South Dynasty

虽然四句为一偈之说广见于历代佛教经疏中,但一偈并非皆由四句构成。随着佛教渐然融入中国人的生活之中,"偈"逐渐用来命名具有宗教意味的哲理诗。汉魏以来的七言佛偈的译入,尤其是东晋南朝大量七言佛偈的传译,为七言偈颂式诗歌提供了"通体七言"和"两句两句衔接贯连"的结构形式,加之与本时期中土四言及五言诗"隔句押韵"方法的长期共同作用,为梁代作家如萧绎、庾信、刘孝威等人提供了可以遵循的成熟的七言诗范式。这一范式的形成奠定了七言诗发展的基本前提。

Although the theory of four sentences making up a Gathd is a parlance in past dynasties in Buddhism classics, not only four sentences make up all the Gatha. As Buddhism became common with Chinese in ordinary life in that time, Gdtha be- came the name of religious poem generally. From Han dynasty, the translation of the Gatha of Seven Characters, especially from East-jin to South dynasty provided the frame of the Gatha Poems of Seven Characters from top to toe with two sentences linking to another two sentences. The frame together with the rhyming of interval by a sentence, which came from the Poems of Four Characters and the Poems of Five Characters in the period, provided the mature form for the writers in Liang Dynasty such as Xiao Yi, Yu Xing, Liu Xiao-wei, and so on. The form settled the evolution of the Poems of Seven Characters.