《西游记》灵感大王故事源流考——兼论故事中的中国祭祀文化元素

A Study on the Origin of the Story of the Afflatus King in Journey to the West:On the Elements of Chinese Sacrificial Culture in the Story

《西游记》通天河故事中灵感大王吃童男女的主体情节应源于印度史诗《摩诃婆罗多》钵迦伏诛篇中的独轮城故事。汉译佛经在史诗的基础上提炼出“罗刹鬼定期食人”的故事框架并影响了后世中国小说,致使一批融入中国文化元素的本土罗刹鬼故事诞生。《西游记》的作者吸取了本土罗刹鬼故事的创作经验,将取经见闻中的罗刹鬼故事高度文学化。可以说灵感大王故事的骨架是由印度文学搭建的,但其血肉是由中国祭祀文化填补的,该故事正是中印文化碰撞下共同孕育的硕果。

The main plot of the Afflatus King eating boy and girl in the story of Tongtianhe in journey to the West should be derived from the story of the one wheel city in the bhagavradu chapter of the Indian epic Mahabharata.The Chinese translation of Buddhist scriptures extracted the story framework of“Luocha ghost regularly eats people”on the basis of epics,and influenced later Chinese novels,resulting in the birth of a number of local Luocha ghost stories with Chinese cultural elements.The author of journey to the West has absorbed the creation experience of the local Luocha ghost stories,and highly literalized the Luocha ghost stories in the Sutra stories.It can be said that the skele⁃ton of the story of the Afflatus King of is built by Indian literature,but its flesh and blood is filled by Chinese sacrifice culture.This story is the fruit of the cultural collision between China and India.