古文运动视域下唐代佛像赞的演变

Evolution of Hymn to Buddhist Statues in the Tang Dynasty from the Perspective of Classical Chinese Literature Movement

佛像赞自六朝出现,到唐代文人笔下开始出现了背离序文骈偶、赞文四言的文体书写规范的现象,这些改变主要发生在中唐时期。这期间序文逐渐散文化,具体表现为采用介绍造像者的史传格式、以倒叙和插叙方式记事、引用人物话语、采用第一人称外视角,塑造出虔诚发愿的人物形象等特征。细节与情感的真实可信在序文中得到强调,这与中唐时期对“心性”的重视以及“人”的主体意识增强有关。与盛唐时期以偈为赞的写法不同,中唐时期的赞文或改变四言的章法安排,或采用七言等句式,以便更流畅地叙事表情。佛像赞中教义的言说和画面的描述最终让位于叙事言情,带来了体式的改变,使这一实用文体具有文学性和形式美,抒情传统与叙事传统在宗教韵文中得以交汇。这些革新应被视为唐代古文运动的一个环节,亦可借此看出宗教信仰与文体改革之间的张力。

Hymn to Buddhist statues first appeared in the Six Dynasties(222—589).When it came to the mid-Tang Dynasty,it did not follow the traditional verse style any more.Instead,it adopted the style of historical biography in writing a biography for the Buddhist statue makers,narrating the events with flashbacks,quoting the characters’remarks and taking the perspective of the first person to shape the faithful character.Thus,the details and emotions were presented in a more reliable way in the preface,which was closely related the emphasis of mentality and enhancement of subjectivity in this period.Different from that in the High Tang Period when it took gatha as hymn,the hymn in the mid-Tang Dynasty either changed the textual structure or the sentence length from four characters to seven characters for more fluent expression.The fact that traditional hymn of preaching the doctrines gave way to narration brought about the change of the style.The new style had both literary and formal beauty so the lyric and narrative tradition began to converge.These changes can be regarded as part of classical Chinese literature movement,from which we can see how religion faith worked on the change of literary style.