On Stock and Circulation of Biographies of Monks in the Han Areas in the Jin and Tang Dynasties——Centering around Comparison of Historical Chronicles and Buddhist Scriptures
Biographies of monks in the Han areas created in the Jin and Han Dynasties (265-907) be-long to the category of"biographies of northern figures,"an analogy to"biographies of the western re-gions,"in terms of classification standards. They serve as important evidence for organizing historical lit-erature regarding middle-ancient Buddhist history and culture of China. These biographies included in both historical chronicles and Buddhist scriptures, though duplicate, confusing or unverifiable to varying degrees, can provide us with comparatively reliable lists of related literature according to their different academic and theoretic perspectives. By comparing these lists, and then comparing them against cata-logues of Tripittaka, Dunhuang Treasures Directories and other supplemented lists, it is possible to obtain the system status, aggregate number and information on both lost and existing volumes of these biogra-phies. In addition, biographies appearing in both kinds of lists, thanks to painstaking efforts of Buddhist scholars in the Tang Dynasty, can be deemed as true and complete. Studying their distribution from the perspective of classical bibliography can help gain a comprehensive view of the Buddhist literature and history to further promote cultural and historical studies.
directory of historical chroniclesBuddhist scripturebiography of monk in the Han area in the Jin and Tang Dynastiescomparison
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