An Anthology of Poetry by Buddhist Nuns of Late Imperial China

by Beata Grant

The Hsu-Tang Library presents authoritative and eminently readable translations of classical Chinese literature, in bilingual editions, ranging across three millennia and the entire Sinitic world.

This anthology opens up new religious and poetic worlds for readers. It consists of translations of poems written by Buddhist nuns from China's late imperial period (1368-1911). Appreciation of these poems is enhanced by individual biographical accounts for each of the sixty-five nun-poets and an Introduction to the historical, religious, and literary context of these poems, including a concise discussion of Chinese Buddhism and Chinese Buddhist poetry.

The nuns in this anthology come from a range of some were placed in convents when very young; others were former palace ladies or courtesans who found refuge in the religious life; others were women left widowed or destitute in the wake of the various political and social upheavals of the times, especially the violent transition between the Ming and Qing dynasties in the mid-seventeenth century.

This period was also marked by a flourishing of women's culture, as more and more women from the gentry-class began not only to receive the classical education required to write poetry, but also to have their works printed and circulated. Most of the poet-nuns in this volume were from this gentry class, and almost all of them had at least one collection of writings, usually poetry, printed in their names. Although most of these collections are now lost, some of their poems have fortunately been preserved in various anthologies from this period, including anthologies dedicated exclusively to women's poetry, as well as in collections of Buddhist records.

Genres: Buddhism

392 pages, Hardcover

Published October 26, 2023

Reviews

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

Most poems in this anthology, written between 1368-1911, are translated here into English for the first time. Most are by Chan Buddhists (known in the West from its Japanese equivalent, Zen Buddhism). Because published poetry by Chinese women in general has been rarer than that by male poets, little biographical information exists for many of them. Given that Chinese society has been led according to Confucian principles for the past 2,500 years, traditional roles for women have been seen as secondary to roles led by men. Thus, the women who turned to Buddhist temples to devote their lives to religion were the destitute (poor and destitute nuns were the minority), widows from both poor and wealthy families, those who lost their families and/or their means of income, and those unable to start a family or unwilling to marry. Some learned the conventions of Buddhist poetry while in a convent, others—usually women from what today we would call middle class and upper middle-class homes—were already educated in writing and painting, and may have been well-connected and esteemed in their social set, too.

Each poet is introduced with a one-paragraph biography, and the poems are lightly footnoted to clarify the significance of the imagery, much of which alludes to other poems and tenets in the Buddhist canon. The poems stand on their own as well-wrought—and gracefully translated by Beata Grant—, and the footnotes add depth to the readings. Although the poetry by its Buddhist nature is didactic, the lessons are conveyed implicitly rather than explicitly, so that studying the poems opens them outward toward understanding—one’s understanding of them then become as personal revelations arrived at by one’s journey through the Buddhist iconography rather than as moral phrases merely memorized.

The Anthology of Poetry by Buddhist Nuns of Late Imperial China has representations from a wide range of poetic styles, all following strict aesthetic rules. Not all these rules can be translated because Mandarin is a tonal language (there are five tones), meaning any given syllable has multiple possible meanings, depending on the tone used to pronounce it and the other syllables surrounding it that form its context. The poetry is not based on rhythm or rhyme but instead syllable and line counts (plus matching tones in parallel, syllable by syllable, line by line). Many Buddhist poetic forms in the anthology consist of set numbers of syllables across and lines down, such as 7 syllables across and line 8 down, forming a tight rectangle on the page. The terseness of the Mandarin originals is demonstrated visually by the translations, which require two lines to express in English for every one line in Chinese.

Of the dozens of fine poems and their translations, I arbitrarily choose these two, by Deyue and Ziyong Chengru, respectively. Deyue’s On an Autumn Night, Listing to the Crickets:
The sound of crickets chirping away
is the one that most stirs the heart.
An autumn moon that has no bounds
Shines on the patterned screen.
The silver candle burns on high;
the sand clock drips without end.
When I can no longer bear to listen,
I decide to pen a verse.
From Asking Questions of the Masters: Four Gāthās by Ziyong Chengru (a gāthā is a type of song):
Such a long distance along the Yangzi
in a leaf of a boat,
Enduring the wind and the waves,
I find my goals are hard to meet!
Who knows where the rivers end
and the mountains stop.
Where can we meet face-to-face
and discuss growing old?

The poems in this anthology can be enjoyed for their nature imagery as much as for their expression of Buddhist theology.

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