The New Type of Buddhist Chanting and the Poetry Transformation in Yongming Reign’s Period

Abstract

This paper examines the Buddhist chanting in Wei, Jin and Southern and Northern dynasties from several aspects, such as the historical position of it, the reason for its flourish, its speech way, etc. This paper also redetermines the relationship between Buddhist chanting and poetry writing in middle ancient times. The results for this research are as the following: First, The effective factor of Buddhism on Chinese phonology was not Buddhist chanting, but Sutra translation. Second, Buddhist verses were mainly translated or created by monks. However, in Yongming reign’s period of the Southern Qi dynasty, more and more verses were written by the literati. Third, the new type of Buddhist chanting had the same principle with poetry in Yongming reign’s period, and they were two major cultural movements keeping pace with each other in the same time. Fourth, the influence of the new type of Buddhist chanting on Yongming poetry was displayed on verbal expression. It made the way of Buddhist chanting in Wu region official, and pushed forward the establishment of a new way of poetry intoning which also based on the accent of Wu.

Key words： Buddhist chant; poetry transformation; intonation in Wu dialect