佛国梵天的架构与解构——《西游记》佛教思想论略

On the Construction and Deconstruction of the Buddhist World: A Study of the Buddhist Thoughts in A Journey to the West

西游故事在演化过程中,表现为佛教思想的淡化和世俗化特色的增强。百回本《西游记》架构了一个庞大的佛教世界:从大的结构框架来看,作品没有脱离取经故事的佛教性质,描写了完整的佛教世界,塑造了一系列佛教人物,表现了佛教的心性学说、救度观念、因果报应观念和地狱观念,宣扬了佛教教义。同时,百回本《西游记》又解构了自己所架构的佛教世界:作品并没有将西牛贺洲及天竺国描写成为真正的佛国净土,对不少佛教人物都有所批评和讽刺,对某些教义持批判态度,甚至作品的某些内容是违背佛教的。从这层意义讲,作品的佛教内容,只是作者构建故事、表达思想的手段。

The stories concerning the journey to the west have evolved to the weakening of Buddhist thoughts and en- hancement of secular features. The novel A Journey to the West of one-hundred-chapter edition has constructed a gigantic Bud- dhist wor[d. From its frame, the work has not broken away from the Buddhist nature of all the stories which are around Bud- dhist scriptures, and it has described a complete Buddhist world and molded a series of Buddhist figures, which shows the Bud- dhist conceptions concerning human nature, salvation, karma, and underworld, and it preaches the Buddhist doctrine. At the same time, the novel has deconstructed the Buddhist world built by itself. The work does not describe the Xiniuhe state and ancient India as the really pure Buddhist places, and has criticized and satirized some Buddhist figures and some doctrines. Mo- reover, some content is even not in accordance with Buddhism. In this sense, the Buddhist content of the work is merely the means for the author to make up stores and express his ideas.