雪域的目连与地狱的格萨尔王--汉语传说中的救母主题在藏语叙事中的转化

Mulian in the Land of Snows and King Gesar in Hell--A Chinese Tale of Parental Death in Its Tibetan Transformations

汉语目连救母变文中的救母主题在藏语叙事中几经流变,对藏语文学的地落叙事体裁及藏文化中宗教仪式的形成和发展具有重要影响,其中尤以《格萨尔》史诗为最。比较目连传说和《格萨尔》史诗中的救母主题,认识前者在藏语叙事中的流变与影响以及后者对前者的吸收和同化,分析汉语叙事在转化为藏语叙事时所产生的新变,可以认识到两者的紧密关联,即无论在汉语叙事还是藏语叙事中,亲情伦理、宗教文化与文学艺术之间的紧密关系,两者的不同只是在于同一主题在宗教文化和仪式实践、文学体裁和主题呈现的不同侧重。

The impact of the Mulian Bianwen upon Tibetan narratives of parental death and untoward rebirth was considerably deeper than even the materials we have examined so far suggest.The Chinese Mulian traditions has legacy in Tibetan ritual and performing arts,just as the strong association of the bianwen with both of these dimensions of Chinese culture.It is also plausible to suggest that the Mulian Transformation Text is in the background of several of délok narratives.The proof text for this proposition is none other than the Tibetan national epic,the Epic of Ling Gesar.Though the Chinese ghost festival had no direct legacy,as far as we know,in the ritual life of Tibet,the tales of Mulian that formed a large part of their background nevertheless resonated well with Tibetan anxieties regarding the manner in which the merit and demerit of descendants may affect the status of ancestors,in this moral cosmology,the sins of the children are visited upon the parents.These concerns found their sharpest literary expression,however,not in the borrowed Chinese narratives insofar as these were known in Tibet,but in an indigenous Tibetan literature,and in the epic literature above all,in which earlier Chinese sources of inspiration were assimilated and transformed.