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Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v2.c10.s1.t2: The Legend of the Tang Dynasty

Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v2.c10.s1.t2

Language
English

The Legend of the Tang Dynasty

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*The Legend of the Tang Dynasty* is the classical Chinese novel consciously created by literati in Tang Dynasty in China. In Lu Xun’s opinion, Chinese novels before Tang Dynasty were basically not created consciously, and only from Tang Dynasty onwards, literati began to consciously create novels. Novels in this period not only inherited the tradition of anecdote novels and mystery novels in Wei, Jin, Northern and Southern dynasties but also were innovative and were strengthened in depiction and fiction, making the plots more complicated, characters more vivid, theme broader and the aspect more involved in social life, especially the works of those describing the love story between men and women were strong in romance.

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*The Legend of the Tang Dynasty* are also deeply influenced by Indian Buddhist literature. Ji Xianlin believed that the form of *The Legend of the Tang Dynasty* are affected by Indian stories, for example, the structure of *The Record of Ancient Mirror* is similar to that of *Panchatantra* and *Six Paramitas Sutra*. In terms of content, the *Record within a Pillow* (Pipe Dream) and *The Governor of Nanke* describing the dream-like world, the *Record of the Detached Soul* describing the separation of soul from body, and *Liu Yi’s Biography* describing the love and marriage between a common man and a dragon lady, are all related to Buddhist literature. At the same time, *The Legend of the Tang Dynasty* have also evolved from the Buddhist scriptures stories, for example, *Yuan Guai* (also known as *Yang Sou*) in the *Records of Xuanshi Palace* is clearly developed from the story of the crocodile wanting to eat the heart of the monkey, which is from *Jataka Tales*, and appears in many Chinese Buddhist scriptures.

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Painting of Nanke’s dream

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(*Xue Keqiao*)

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