慧遠「佛影銘」と謝靈運の山水詩 --兩者の「佛影銘幷序」、及び謝詩「入華子崗是麻源第三谷」「從斤竹澗越嶺溪行」をめぐって--

Abstract

Huiyuan's 慧遠 “Foying-ming bing xu” 佛影銘幷序 written in his later years, discusses the significance of the Shadow Cave that he constructed on Mount Lu 廬山, and he begins by explaining about the Dharma-body. According to Huiyuan, the Dharma-body has two modes of being --the true Dharma-body characterized by “singularity” and the metamorphosic body characterized by “interdependence”-- which are, moreover, inseparable, and he thus presents a developed view of the Dharma-body. Further, as a basis for guiding people, he mentions the two terms quanji 筌寄 and mingji 冥寄: whereas the former signifies manifestations of the Buddha that are accessible to all people, the latter signifies invisible traces without form that are linked to the Dharma-body. He further maintains that not only does the Buddha's shadow fulfil the role of a quanji, but it also combines a special form, such that it disappears as one draws closer, with the distinctive atmosphere of a cave in the mountains, as a result of which it can also serve as a mingji for leading us to a state of absolute non-discrimination. Xie Lingyun 謝靈運 also wrote an “Foying-ming bing xu”. What Xie Lingyun describes with particular emphasis in this work is the distinctive way in which the Buddha's shadow appears and disappears and the atmosphere of the place where the Shadow Cave is located. It is stated that there exists something to be seen beyond the “form and sound” of the physical body. It is to be surmised, therefore, that when writing this work Xie Lingyun took due account of Huiyuan's idea that the Buddha's shadow leads us to a state unattached to the Buddha's physical body. The poems “Ru Huazigang shi Mayuan disan gu” 入華子崗是麻源第三谷 and “Cong Jinzhujian yue ling xi xing” 從斤竹澗越嶺溪行 are two of Xie Lingyun's representative nature poems, and it is to be surmised that they describe his experiences of having actually attempted to “commune with the invisible” as described in Huiyuan's “Foying-ming” that is, communing with a mingji at a sacred site and thereby gaining liberation. The former poem, like the contemporaneous “You Shimen shi bing xu” 遊石門詩幷序 attributed to practitioners on Mount Lu 廬山諸道人, was composed against the background of a conviction that, by apprehending here and now intimations of a transcendental entity of the past, past and present would commune with each other, but it ends with the poet abandoning this long-held conviction. The second of Xie Lingyun's poems describes his experience of having seen in the mountains a figure without form. Although he tried to commune with this mountain spirit, he was unable to do so, and he was left only with feelings of anguish festering in his mind. These two poems are important as nature poems in that they do not simply describe how an excursion into a natural environment brings about spiritual liberation, and they give expression to the anguish of searching for intimations of a transcendental entity in one's natural surroundings, seeking communion with that entity, and being unable to achieve it.