Language strategy of explaining the Buddhist notion “The Other Shore” in Yu Jian’s poem-play

Abstract

Сertain Buddhist schools (Chan, Linji) took a sceptical attitude towards verbal transmission of awakening experience. But nevertheless language here wasn't marginalized — its potentional, its limits of expression were explored and skilfully used. In this article attention is drawn to gong-an — formally-derived-of-common-sense texts structured as questions/answers of a teacher and disciples — along with the strategy of this specific communication, its functioning in traditional and modern literature. The research aims at pointing out a visible connection between gong-an texts and Yu Jian's poem-play «Grammar discussion on “The Other Shore”» (1998) in terms of speaking about the other shore — the state of non-duality/awakening. Despite the fact that Yu Jian is a vivid figure of China's avant-garde poetic world, none of the Chinese, European or American researchers has yet touched upon the analysis of this poem-play, which seems important in terms of comprehending dynamic permeation of the tradition of gong-an texts into the composition of the poetic and dramatic work of Yu, where he touches on the question of describing the transcendental. Further analysis and comparison of gong-ans and Yu Jian's text makes it clear that the latter stylistically originates from a detailed description of different solutions to the gong-an about the other shore. As a result, Yu Jian's search for an articulation of the concept “the other shore” becomes rooted in Buddhist philosophy. This in its turn shows vitality of this tradition in the modern literary text.