Issuu

East Side Story

Papers on Chinese Storytelling by Věnceslava Hrdličková

(eds.)

Tereza Slaměníková

Markéta Koklarová

Olomouc 2025

Editorial 7

Věnceslava Hrdličková: A Devoted Pioneer of Chinese and Japanese Oral Storytelling (Field) Research 11

The First Translations of Buddhist Sūtras in Chinese Literature and Their Place in the Development of Storytelling 17

Some Questions Connected with Dunhuang Bianwen 51

Some Observations on the Chinese Art of Storytelling 73

The Professional Training of Chinese Storytellers and the Storytellers’ Guilds 104

The Chinese Storytellers and Singers of Ballads: Their Performances and Storytelling Techniques 131

The Motif of the God of the Hearth and the Division of the Joint Family in Chinese Chap-Books 148

Tradition and Individual Creativity in the Chinese and Japanese Storytelling 169

The Significance of the Dunhuang Jiangjing Wen for Chinese Literary History 175

Acknowledgments

Our deepest gratitude goes first and foremost to the heirs of doc. PhDr. Věnceslava Hrdličková, CSc., who kindly granted permission for the re-publication of her texts. We extend special thanks to V. Hrdličková’s grandson, Mgr. Zdeněk Hrdlička, who facilitated contact with the heirs and generously contributed the introductory text.

We would also like to acknowledge the contributions of Mgr. Jan Brzobohatý and Mgr. Martina Jemelková, Ph.D. students at the Department of Asian Studies, Faculty of Arts, Palacký University Olomouc, for their valuable assistance in the digitalization process and initial proofreading of the texts. Their contributions were essential to the preparation of this issue and are gratefully acknowledged. Our appreciation also goes to Mgr. Klára Adámková from the Interlibrary Loan Service at the Central Library of Palacký University Olomouc for her kind support in collecting English-language papers.

Last but not least, we would like to thank the employees of the Publishing House of Palacký University who made our intention to honor V. Hrdličková’s work possible, namely the responsible editor Mgr. Jiří Slavík, Ph.D., the technical editor Jiří K. Jurečka, and the authors of the cover Kateřina Janků and Lenka Wünschová.

Editors

Olomouc, 20 October 2025

EDITORIAL

This book is a collection of academic papers written in English on Chinese storytelling by the Czech sinologist and Japanologist Věnceslava Hrdličková

The book continues the tradition that was started within the journal Dálný východ [Far East]. Specifically, it is the fourth collection in the series, which presents the foreign-language works of a significant Czech orientalist in a comprehensive form.1

Chinese and Japanese oral literature, along with the aesthetics of Chinese and Japanese gardens, were the two most important topics of V. Hrdličková’s scientific interest. Particularly in the case of Chinese storytelling, she wrote a series of studies in English, a representative selection of which is presented in this collection. It is worth mentioning that, in addition to a careful analysis of primary and secondary sources, they also rely on extensive fieldwork conducted between 1950 and 1954 at various locations in northern China.2 The collected papers focus on three main topics. The first is the early translations of Buddhist sutras into Chinese literature, exploring how they shaped Chinese narrative traditions. The second topic delves into Dunhuang bianwen, a genre of Chinese literature discovered among the manuscripts in the Mogao Caves of Dunhuang, Gansu Province. The final topic examines Chinese storytellers’ techniques, performances, professional training, and organizational structure.

We used the bibliography of V. Hrdličková, compiled by Lucie Olivová, to abstract the list of papers for this collection.3 The papers are referred to here by their original date in the following list, which is ordered chronologically from the oldest to the newest.

1 The first collection gathers texts from Oldřich Švarný (Uher, David and Tereza Slaměníková (Eds.): Oldřich Švarný: Prosodia linguae Sinensis Dálný východ 2019, IX(1). Olomouc 2019.), the second from Zdenka Heřmanová (Slaměníková, Tereza and Michaela Frydrychová (Eds.): Journey to the East: The Lexicon of Chinese language Dálný východ 2022, XII(1). Olomouc 2022.) and the third from Jaromír Vochala and Žu-čen Vochalová (Slaměníková, Tereza and Martina Jemelková (Eds.): Gramata Serica Silesian. Dálný východ 2023, XIII(1). Olomouc 2023.).

2 Hrdličková, Věna: The Chinese Storytellers and Singers of Ballads: Their Performances and Storytelling Techniques. The Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan 1968, 3(10), pp. 98.

3 Olivová, Lucie (Ed.): Věna Hrdličková, Zdeněk Hrdlička: soupis publikovaných prací a přednášek. Bibliografie 1945/46–2002. Prague 2002.

1958 The First Translations of Buddhist Sūtras in Chinese Literature and Their Place in the Development of Storytelling4

1962 Some Questions Connected with Tun-huang Pien-wen5

1964 Some Observations on the Chinese Art of Story-telling6

1965 The Professional Training of Chinese Storytellers and the Storytellers’ Guilds7

1968a The Chinese Storytellers and Singers of Ballads: Their Performances and Storytelling Techniques8

1968b The Motif of the God of the Hearth and the Division of the Joint Family in Chinese Chap-Books9

1981 Tradition and Individual Creativity in the Chinese and Japanese Storytelling10

1991 The Significance of The Dunhuang Jiangjing Wen for Chinese Literary History11

We have chosen a distinctly reverent adaptation, only interfering with the texts in the technical sense, most often unifying the graphic elements. The adjustments were made in favor of facilitating the reading of the papers.

The input methods of Chinese characters, i.e., sinograms, were limited when the earlier papers were published. It was common practice to provide the Chinese versions of names, terms, or examples in handwritten form at the end of the text. In light of current possibilities, we have typed the originally handwritten sinograms in papers 1958, 1962, 1964, 1968a, and 1968b. Moreover, we put them into the text in places where the numerical references originally were.

The articles were written when significant language reforms were in progress in the P.R.C., including graphic simplification of sinograms. The outcome of these reforms is the List of Simplified Chinese Characters published by the

4 Archiv orientální 1958, 26, pp. 114–144.

5 Archiv orientální 1962, 30, pp. 211–230.

6 Acta Universitatis Carolinae – Philologica 3, Orientalia Pragensia III, 1964, pp. 53–78.

7 Archiv orientální 1965, 33, pp. 225–248.

8 The Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan 1968, 3(10), pp. 97–115.

9 In: Oldřich Král and Vlasta Hilská (Eds.), Charles University on Far Eastern Culture. Prague 1968, pp. 81–102.

10 In: Fritz Gruner (Ed.), Literaturen Asiens und Afrikas. Berlin 1981, pp. 323–327.

11 Archiv orientální 1991, 59, pp. 173–180.

Language Reform Committee in 1964. Its practical implementation took time, and there was a transitional period during which both traditional and simplified versions of the sinograms were used. It would be hard to set a strict line between their use, even more so when many references from the time before the simplification were used. For this reason, we refrain from any changes and, in the texts, keep the version provided by the author. However, a different approach was adopted in the complete lists of references we compiled and added behind each article. To maintain a unified version of the repeatedly quoted sources, we provided all sinograms in their simplified version.

The most significant adjustment involved replacing the Wade-Giles transcription with the currently used Hanyu Pinyin in all the texts, except for the last one, where the latter was already applied. In the case of the text 1962, this change was also reflected in the title. The reason for the transfer to Pinyin was practical: younger generations of sinologists are no longer familiar with Wade-Giles.

Except for the already mentioned references, we avoid making any alterations to given word boundaries and to the use of capital letters or a cursive font. However, the interspersed font used in the texts 1962, 1964, and 1965 has been replaced with bold type, as this is the standard way of highlighting today. In addition, we keep the system of how transcribed words are graphically marked and how simple and double quotation marks are used in the original papers. Any interventions in this respect are made solely to ensure a consistent approach throughout the respective paper. Moreover, each text has an internal system of in-text citations that we preserved without any changes. Finally, should we intervene in the text’s content, it was solely to correct occasional typos or other errors.

In a few cases, however, we decided to unify the spelling of certain expressions that appeared in older forms, such as story-telling, tea-house, or market-place. These were replaced with their modern equivalents (storytelling, teahouse, marketplace) to ensure consistency and clarity throughout the volume. This change also applies to the title of the text 1964.

Following the current practice, we have supplemented all articles with English abstracts and keywords. This, in other words, means that these were not included in the original papers, but we summarized the most important facts as editors. The exception is the text 1964, in which the original Czech résumé was translated into English. Furthermore, we compiled a list of full references

for the written sources quoted in the papers. As briefly mentioned above, we preferred uniformity throughout the whole book. This means explicitly that, in the list of references we compiled, we not only used simplified sinograms, but also maintained a consistent approach to word boundary notation and capitalization, which may differ from how these elements appear in individual papers. Similarly, we followed a uniform method for transliterating other scripts into the Latin alphabet. Specifically, we used the Library of Congress system (ALA-CL) for Russian and the Hepburn system for Japanese. The format of the citations adheres to the guidelines initially used in the journal Dálný východ. This, among others, includes adding English translations to each article, journal, or book title in any other original language.

Although we have made every effort to minimize their occurrence, we apologize for any mistakes we have made in the digitalization and subsequent editing of the original texts. Please send your comments to Tereza Slaměníková, KAS FF UP, tř. Svobody 26, 771 80 Olomouc, Czech Republic.

Věnceslava

Hrdličková: A Devoted Pioneer of Chinese and Japanese Oral Storytelling (Field) Research

Zdeněk Hrdlička

The life journey of Věnceslava Hrdličková (1924–2016), who is described by many encyclopaedia entries as a global pioneer of the idea that oral folk storytelling plays an irreplaceable and vital role in the literary tradition of China and Japan, was shaped in her early youth.

She was born to the family of the headmaster of a Civic School1, a convinced social democrat of the First Republic era, in the Prague-Nusle municipality.2 The idea that the low social class is not all that low and the upper class is not all that high was ingrained in her. (Compared to academician J. Průšek, by erudition a historian most focused on literature in its classical form who saw books as objects which he liked to enjoy, this was a rather fundamental difference.) Her sense of language and Vančura-Čapek-like folkloric spirit was awakened in her by her Czech teacher O. Spalová-Srbová, and the Czech translations of the works of Pulitzer Prize winner P. S. Buck also influenced her.

The meeting with her future husband Zdeněk Hrdlička, with whom she used to read B. Mathesius’ paraphrases of ancient Chinese poetry during their first dates and began attending Chinese and Japanese courses led by J. Průšek and V. Hilská, proved fateful.

After the War, thanks to her command of English, Věna (as V. Hrdličková was known to all) decided to respond to the advertisement by the US Embassy in Prague offering scholarships at American universities. At that time, other Czech sinologists tended to stay in Europe thanks to J. Průšek’s authority. During her studies at Harvard University, based on the wartime military drill of teaching oriental languages, she not only mastered both Japanese and Chinese at a very good level in a relatively short time, but also forged significant and strong contacts (A. Lévy, R. van Gulik, S. Elisséeff, F. W. Cleaves). J. K. Fairbank’s non-elitist orientation and his focus on practical issues, in addition to the number of personal

1 In German Stadtschule or Bürgerschule lasting between four to six years.

2 The biographical data are based on the entry Hrdličková Věna, published by the author of the text in the Biographical Dictionary of the Czech Lands. Full citation: Hrdlička, Zdeněk: Hrdličková Věna. In: Biografický slovník českých zemí, sv. 27 Hr–Hüb. Prague 2024.

friends in China, were sins for which he was investigated and condemned in America for a relatively long time. Despite this, or perhaps precisely because of this, Věna adopted those values as her own. Her encounter with E. Reischauer, a leading world expert on Japanese culture and later a diplomat, was also significant. An equally interesting formative moment was the proclamation of the “New China” in October 1949. The majority of those who then used to promote classical literature and its research in China either left the mainland with Chiang Kai-shek or abandoned the discourse in the first years of communist rule. Since the days of the Cultural Delegation, Věna’s strong personal friendships with influential icons of the time, such as the novelist Mao Dun, historian Guo Moruo, Slavist Ge Baoquan, and the author of the History of Chinese Folk Literature, published in 1938, Zheng Zhenduo, lasted. Her enthusiasm for everything “folkish”, including artists around Beijing’s Tianqiao and street folk storytellers, prevailed. She and her husband used to invite various artists to their house in a Beijing hutong called By the Iron Trough and made the world’s first unique recordings of their performances on wire-phones. Until then, few people had thought of systematically documenting these fleeting performances. Regrettably, the collected material did not receive much academic acclaim in Prague after Z. Hrdlička revealed its existence in his essay Old Chinese Ballads to the Accompaniment of the Big Drum. Nevertheless, Věna began to study it in detail at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University in Prague after her return to Czechoslovakia in 1955. The dissertation, which she started compiling in 1958, was entitled Chinese Storytelling . For its lack of topicality in the Prague environment, where the main task was to translate key works of Chinese classical literature, she was forced to base her thesis, alongside extensive field research, on a deep theoretical base and foreign publications, predominantly in the West. Perhaps that was why she was directed by J. Průšek, who did not approve her work until 1968 and who sought continuation of the ancient classical works and old stories – most likely rooted in the Song period – within the oral Chinese tradition, to the question of even older Dunhuang bianwen, a text which proved essential in her bibliography. 3 As V. Børdahl wrote in 2016:

3 A full list of publications by the Hrdlička couple can be found in: Olivová, Lucie (Ed.): Věna Hrdličková, Zdeněk Hrdlička: soupis publikovaných prací a přednášek Bibliografie 1945/46–2002 Prague 2002.

“… in the 1950s it was mainly Chinese scholars who undertook fieldwork on contemporary orally performed arts in China. This kind of study was exceedingly rare in Europe and the U.S.A. When Věna delivered her thesis on Chinese storytelling in 1959, this must have been the first on this subject in the Western world. … Věna’s articles during the decade 1958-1968 were all substantial contributions to a field of studies that was only in its infancy among Western sinologists.” 4

The end of the 1950s and the entire 1960s found Věna in the sinologically prolific environment of Tokyo, where resided, alongside others, her former pedagogue E. Reischauer, member of the Asiatic Society of Japan – a platform where she and her husband met and became friends with the greats of their time, namely R. van Gulik and N. Fedorenko. Contacts with Russian sinologists bore many palpable fruits, such as her cooperation with B. Riftin on Tunkan fairy tales and her acquaintance with N. Spěšněv. As H. Honcoopová wrote for a special edition of the Kokoro magazine compiled on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the resumption of diplomatic relations with Japan in 2017: “The Hrdlička couple first published their studies on declamatory art forms in Japan in foreign periodicals.” 5 Věna collected material for her work on Tokyo storytellers in the Ueno quarters and in the streets of the old town near the Asakusa Shinto temple, as she recollected about half a century later in her book Laughter Is My Craft [Smích je mým řemeslem]. Her Japanese was not tuned to the earthy dialect of storytellers, so she used her son Zdeněk, subject to compulsory education and well acquainted with the properly pithy speech thanks to his boyhood wandering around Tokyo, as an interpreter. Often, his interpreting during performances proved disruptive, and storytellers sometimes used to make fun of it, actively using those “mishaps” to insert anti-foreigner insinuations. The presence of many of the world’s leading sinologists in Tokyo enabled the Hrdlička couple to build ties with, for example, German sinologists and thus also promote the work of their colleagues from the homeland outside Czechoslovakia. This proved especially important after the bans on their activities, which many were subjected to after 1968. In this regard, it is important not to forget the revival of sinological and Japanological activities in the United States in the 1970s. At that time, an academic battle broke out on the pages of leading journals over the nature of storytelling, with advocates of

4 Børdahl, Vibeke: In Memory of Věna Hrdličková, 1925–2016. CHINOPERL 2016, 35(1), pp. 83–88.

5 Regrettably, the printed version of the issue was not published for various reasons. H. Honcoopová shared its electronic version privately among friends and colleagues.

W. Eberhard using the argument of V. Hrdličková as a global pioneer of field research of Chinese and Japanese storytelling(!). Today’s generations of Czech and foreign sinologists and Japanologists might find it inspirational that despite many fundamental academic differences, in both good and the most daring times, there was always extraordinary human concord, friendship, harmony, and mutual practical support between the followers of both schools of thought. In our country, besides his monumental academic work, this was probably the most significant legacy of J. Průšek.

Other close friends of V. Hrdličková from the ranks of sinologists were Z. Heřmanová, L. Hájek, L. Kesner senior, O. Král, O. Švarný, Z. Černá, later also I. Bakešová, and many more, not forgetting the community of Japanologists, Indologists and Orientalists. For Věna, the 1970s were a period of uncertainty and political persecution. So, together with her husband, following in the footsteps of their beloved Chinese poet Su Dongpo, they took refuge in the countryside and until the 1980s, in addition to growing garlic and wine, beekeeping and the art of bonsai, they were fully devoted to their writing, primarily the kind which could at least partially provide them with a living, i.e., children’s books (The Magic Pumpkin [Kouzelná tykev]), film and television translations (Goro-Ógon no inu-Golden Dog [Goro, bílý pes]), and TV scripts (Judgements of Ōoka the Judge [Rozsudky soudce Ooky]). In 1981, they initiated the establishment of the Bonsai Club Prague and thanks to their son Stanislav, who mastered the techniques of the architectural craft, they were able to embark on designing Chinese and Japanese gardens in Czechoslovakia, for example, in the Boskovice arboretum. In 1983, their Japanese garden created for the Flora Olomouc festival won a gold medal.

At that time, V. Hrdličková taught Chinese literature, Sinological propaedeutics, and other related subjects at the Institute of the Far East, the Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague. There, many close ties started not only with J. Vochala, with whom she wrote university textbooks and other academic texts, but also with many students, including from other fields of studies, of which the most media-gracious include O. Hejma, T. Smetánka, and P. Kolář, in addition to very close friendships with H. Třísková, J. Šrajerová, L. Olivová, O. Lomová, Ľ. Obuchová, V. Liščák and others.

As paradoxically as it may sound, after her politically forced retirement and despite the adversity of fate, she found the much-desired peace of mind around 1988, i.e., just before the Velvet Revolution, thanks to all her extra academic work and support from her peers. Then, she began to fully revive and deepen

her international contacts, for example with the famous folklorist D. Ben-Amos. The success of the publications of Japanische Gartenkunst [Japanese Garden Art] and L’art des jardins japonais [The Art of Japanese Gardens] allowed the Hrdlička couple to start travelling again and visit their friends in China after a long time in 1988 and 1989. The relaxed nature of their lives at that time is reflected in the epic, yet practical, publication Emperor Shenzong’s China [Čína císaře Šen-cunga], published in 1992. Věna’s devotion to Chinese literature is also evident in the collection of translations of modern Chinese short stories by various authors on the theme of the Cultural Revolution called The Voices of Spring [Jarní hlasy] from 1989. It was the first publication of Chinese literature translations after decades of China being taboo. With the detective Stories of Judge Ōoka [Příběhy soudce Ooky], she encouraged her student O. Lomová, who later became the leading Czech expert in Chinese literature, in her work on Judge Bao Stories [Příběhy soudce Paoa]. In 1990, she advocated for the establishment of both the Czechoslovak-Japanese Society and the Czechoslovak-Chinese Society, of which she was the Chairwoman until 2001. After the Velvet Revolution, her husband declined the post of Czech ambassador to Japan, offered by J. Dienstbier, out of great love for his wife and a desire to make many of her unfulfilled dreams come true. These comprised publishing of previously unpublished texts, closer contacts with both Japan and China, and taking care of their beloved Elbe estate At the Press [Na Lisu]; to ensure that during the autumn of their lives they could do everything they had not been allowed to do until then. And it was not a dry autumn, but a fruitful Indian summer – a decade when they once again declared their love for each other through a collection of poems Ocarina with a Bouquet of Chinese Flowers –Verses for the Married [Okarina s kyticí čínských květů – verše pro vdané a ženaté] and when they were, thanks to constant diligence and devotedness, able to remain close not only to each other and their family, but also to the general public and the leading authorities in their field of expertise. One of the undisputable peaks of V. Hrdličková’s career was the Oral Literature in Modern China conference held in Copenhagen in 1996. It was also around that time when L. Olivová, who had returned from Berkeley, began to follow in her footsteps of interest in Chinese storytelling, albeit with a slightly greater focus on Yangzhou, and further developed this line of Czech contribution to world sinology on an international scale. Although she resigned from numerous honorary positions and reduced her involvement in various organisations after her husband’s death in 1999, she immersed herself even more in everyday contemplation and writing. Even under

rather complicated personal circumstances she repeatedly visited China after 2000 when she was in her eighties, to attend the Kunming International Flower Expo, the Yangzhou conference on storytelling, and to take a “backpacker” trip via now-unknown night hard seat trains and sleeper coaches across China from Shanghai through Jingdezhen, Wuyishan, Xiamen, and Guangzhou to the distant hills around the J. Straka’s residential city of Guiping.

Thus, even in her mature years, she still managed to please her friends and the general public with books such as The Wisdom of Ancient China [Moudrost stare Číny] and The Most Beautiful Chinese Stories [Nejkrásnější čínské příběhy], beside numerous essays and articles. She often Skyped with J. Vochala for long hours about Qu Yuan or the issue of F. Stočes’s translations of Li Bai raised by some younger, not yet mellowed out, sinologists, some of whom called them sinoromantics, believing it was derogative.

The legacy which should be most cherished and emphasised, in addition to compassion, kindness, and grace, is her unprecedented diligence, adamance, and adherence to principles. After all, when she passed away in the winter of 2016, she left a book draft on her laptop about her beloved poet Su Dongpo, with whom she felt a close connection and who accompanied her on her final path.

Acknowledgements:

The author would like to express his gratitude to Alice Lamb for kindly refining the English language of this article.

The First Translations of Buddhist Sūtras in Chinese Literature and Their Place in the Development of Storytelling

Abstract: This study explores the early translations of Buddhist sutras into Chinese literature and their significant role in the evolution of Chinese storytelling. It emphasizes the introduction of the prosimetric form, i.e., an alternation of prose and verse, into Chinese literature. The text is divided into two parts. Part one traces back the translations of Buddhist sutras into Chinese in two time periods: a) from the Han dynasty to the end of the Western Jin and b) from the Eastern Jin to the end of the Sui dynasty. It provides an overview of the early translators of Buddhist sutras and examines the challenges they faced and the methods they used. Among others, this part of the paper demonstrates how the prosimetric form was introduced and adapted and how the blending of Indian and Chinese literary traditions eventually led to a creation of a new narrative style. Part two investigates the manner in which sutras were recited. It points out how the originally simple and strict format of Buddhist sermons was enriched by national elements and unique storytelling techniques.

Keywords: Buddhist sutra, Chinese translation, Chinese storytelling, narrative style, prosimetric form.

Introductory Note

Shuochang wenxue 說唱文学1 – “stories combined with songs” play an important role in contemporary Chinese literature. They include a great many kinds, varying as regards form, melodies and place of origin. Besides enjoying great popularity among Chinese people to this day, they have also attracted the attention of scholars, such as Zheng Zhenduo 鄭振鐸, Sun Kaidi 孫楷第, Zhao Jingshen 趙景深, Li Xiaocang 李嘯倉 and others. In the field of Czechoslovak Oriental studies, J. Průšek who is the well-known pioneer of research in this interesting branch of Chinese literature, has devoted to it several valuable studies.2

1 The figures in brackets refer to the List of Chinese names and terms at the end of the article. Editors’ note: For clarity, we placed the Chinese characters directly in the text.

2 See “The Narrators of Buddhist Scriptures and Religious Tales in the Sung Period.” Archiv Orientální 10,

Thanks to this research, and above all to the work of Professor Zheng Zhenduo, it has been possible to reconstruct the whole line of development of the stories combined with songs, in which the turning point was the discovery and proper evaluation of Dunhuang bianwen 敦煌變文.

It was Hu Shi 胡適 who showed the important place of the translations of the sūtras in Chinese literature. Zheng Zhenduo then drew the attention to the connection between Dunhuang bianwen and the translations of Buddhist sūtras. Between Dunhuang bianwen and the translations of sūtras there are two striking points of resemblance: the Buddhist content of some of the bianwens and the prosimetric form common to both, that is the alternation of songs with narrative prose. This form is also characteristic of some of the storytelling forms which have been preserved up till the present time, as for example the South China tanci 彈詞, with purely secular content, and the moralist baojuan 寶卷 Storytelling in prosimetric form also influenced the Chinese theatre, especially the Yuan zaju 元雜劇 , as well as mediaeval popular stories and novels. If we want to gain a proper understanding of development of shuochang wenxue we have to go back to the translations of Buddhist sūtras into Chinese, in which prosimetric form appears for the first time in Chinese literature. The recitals of sūtras were supplemented with oral commentaries and singing as we find it in some of the Dunhuang texts. The content of these texts are excerpts from the sūtras, with explanatory commentaries. And it is just in these commentaries that we find various secular elements. Moreover, among Dunhuang bianwen we find several secular and typically Chinese themes.

Our aim will be to show the gradual development of the storytelling forms from the sermon in the temple to the storytelling in marketplaces. For this reason we take as our starting-point the earliest translations of the Buddhist sūtras dating from the Later Han dynasty to the beginning of the Tang period. I would like to emphasize that a great deal of translation work was done and the problems connected with it would require a special investigation. In any case this would take me too far from my original aim which is to explain the origins of shuochang wenxue. I shall therefore limit myself to considering the translations solely from the point of view of literature and of their connection with the introduction of the prosimetric form into Chinese literature.

1938, p. 375 et seq. –“Researches into the Beginnings of the Chinese Popular Novel,” Archiv Orientální 11, 1939, p. 104 et seq.

The period of translation of Buddhist sūtras into Chinese is of special interest as providing an instructive example of the influence of a foreign literature – in this case that of India – on Chinese literature. To avoid the danger of overestimating such foreign influence we must bear in mind that every literature reflects the life of the nation that creates it and that correspondences between literatures arise as a result of the similarity of conditions under which they have developed. At the same time we must reject the opposite tendency to minimize such an influence for fear of detracting from the originality of Chinese literature.

In seeking an answer to the question of the introduction of prosimetric form into Chinese literature, we cannot satisfy ourselves with the simple answer that the form came from India. The problem must be studied more broadly and taken into consideration the merging with Chinese elements –especially in the field of poetry and music – and the development of the form to the stage when it became thoroughly national along with the new content, making it possible for the prosimetric form to survive up till the present time. We shall show that this form was not taken over mechanically but that it passed through the modifying medium of creative artistic experience.

Thus we can trace its development from the first translations of the Buddhist sūtras to the rise of the secularized bianwen. Here we must point out that the translated sūtras could become a weapon of religious propaganda only if they were made understandable for the common people. This the translations succeeded in doing at least in part and so were able to fulfil their main purpose. Their originally religious content gradually became in the course of the sermons enriched with descriptions and illustrations from daily life, till the religious elements finally receded into the background to make way for the new realistic stories which have left their indelible stamp on the Chinese literary tradition.

Sources:

My main source for the translations themselves was the “Buddhist Canon” – Da Zangjing 大藏經 and for the identification of individual translations and for information about their authors I used Bunyiu Nanjio’s, “ A Catalogue of the Chinese Tripitaka” (Oxford, At the Clarendon Press, 1883).

The Canon contains two works which are valuable for the light they throw on the work of translation: the first of them is the Gaoseng zhuan 高僧傳 – “The