眾所週知,景教於唐太宗貞觀九年 (635) 傳入中國,此乃中古宗教發展史,也是中西文化交流史上的一大盛事。敦煌景教文獻和《大秦景教流行中國碑》原本是研究唐代景教最為重要的材料,自二○○六年中國洛陽出土的景教經幢,以及二○一一年日本杏雨書屋編集的《敦煌秘笈》(影片冊五)刊行以來,更為唐代景教研究提供了良好的契機。
而且,景教在中國的傳播過程中,在經典教義上大量援引了儒、釋、道三教的名詞和形式、乃至個別內容,其中又以佛教為大宗。這並不涉及各自基本教義的改變或轉換,但是在某些細節上,也有局部性的吸收(摹仿)異教的語彙與文體、內涵與儀式的情況,這種吸收既不是接受異教的教義,也不是全盤的取用,而是經過一番轉變過程以供自身所用。至於唐代景教如何運用佛教的儀文,迄今罕見有相關的研究論著。因此,本論文主要以《三威蒙度讚》、《尊經》、《宣元至本經》等相關文獻為基礎,深入考查景教文獻對佛教儀文的吸收與轉化。
As is well known, a group of Christians from the Church of the East arrived in Chang’an, the capital city of Tang China, in 635. This was a turning point not only for medieval Chinese religious history, but also for the study of cultural exchange between China and her neighbors. The Chinese Christian manuscripts from Dunhuang and the Christian stele in Xi’an have long served as crucial sources for contemporary scholars. Later, the discovery of fragments of a stone pillar with inscribed Christian text in Luoyang in 2006 and a number of Chinese Christian texts that were published in 2011 as part of Tonkō hikyū Vol. 5 in the Kyōu Shooku Library collection have both provided fresh impetus to the study of the Church of the East in Tang China.
When the Christian priests in the Tang elaborated upon their own ideas and beliefs in their translation and propagation efforts, they borrowed and paraphrased many terms and practices from the Confucian, Taoist, and particularly Buddhist doctrines. They did this to make the ideas in the original Christian texts fit with the Chinese concepts, and to make their translations easier to understand. This paper focuses on how the Tang Christians made use of Buddhist texts and rituals, with an emphasis on the Sanwei mengdu zan (Gloria in Excelsis Deo), Zun jing, and Xuanyuan zhiben jing, showing how the Christian scriptures assimilated to the Buddhist rituals and liturgical texts.
景教 《三威蒙度讚》 《尊經》 《宣元至本經》 佛教儀文
the Church of the East/Nestorian Christianity, Sanwei mengdu zan (Gloria in Excelsis Deo), Zun jing, Xuanyuan zhiben jing, Buddhist liturgical texts