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賈島 Jia Dao (779–843)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jia_Dao
Chia Tao (779–843)
Translations by Mike O'Connor
In: The Clouds Should Know Me By Now: Buddhist Poet Monks of China
Wisdom Publications, 1998, pp. 11-42.
INTRODUCTION
CHIA TAO WAS A BUDDHIST POET of the Middle T'ang dynasty. Born into an impoverished family near today's Beijing, he became a Ch'an (Zen) monk early in his youth, with the religious name Wupen. While scant biographical detail of his monastic days exists, his official biography does note that upon arriving at the Eastern Capital, Lo-yang, Chia Tao wrote a poem protesting a curfew forbidding monks to go out after noon.The poem caught the sympathetic eye of the eminent Confucian poet Han Yu (768–824) and led to the latter becoming Chia Tao's poetry mentor.
A more famous account—a literary anecdote—describes the meeting of the poets this way: Chia Tao, while riding a donkey on the way to the marketplace, was deeply absorbed in trying to choose between two words, push (t'ui) and knock (ch'iao) in the line “Under the moon, a monk [knocks at, or pushes] the gate.” Reciting the line over and over, Chia Tao became oblivious of his surroundings and collided with a sedan chair carrying HanYu. Han Yu, waving off apologies from Chia Tao, became interested in his poetic impasse, and immediately opted for the word “knock.”The compound “push-knock (t'ui-ch'iao)” thereafter became the traditional term to describe, not only Chia Tao's assiduousness of craft, but any poet's exacting labor to find the mot juste, or to make careful stylistic distinctions.
What is known factually is that Chia Tao, at about age thirty-one, abandoned monasticism to devote himself to a secular life of poetry, supported by subsistence civil service. He was encouraged in this by a circle of prominent poets, including Han Yu, Meng Chiao (751–814) and Chang Chi (ca. 776–ca. 829).The group was based in the political and literary capital Ch'ang-an, modern Xi'an, the largest city in the world at the time and Chia Tao's principal home until his “banishment” late in life to provincial posts—an apparent victim of slander.
Although he left the Buddhist order, his heart never really left the world of “ mountains and clouds”—the secluded communities of religious adepts who were dedicated to some form of the Way (Tao), and whose practices collectively brought forth one of the great religious ages.Though his poems reveal that he chided himself for not being more deeply realized, it may be that his sense of limitation in this regard only enhanced his admiration of those who were.
As a poet with a monk's background, he was welcome at temples and hermitages alike. He was, in fact, given the literary name Lang-hsien, Wandering Immortal, and his poems record his sojourns among not only the religious elements—clerics, poet monks, and hermits—but among the lay community of literati as well.
If Chia Tao's search for Buddhist enlightenment was an unfulfilled one, so too was his search for a significant civil-service position. In fact, it is not clear that he ever passed the examination and received his chin-shih degree. In his mature years, his deepest quest was for poetic mastery and, related to this, in finding chih-yin, people who understood and appreciated his poetry—a time-honored quest in Chinese literary history.
Chia Tao writes a quietistic poem that features nothing more dramatic than a parting, a viewing of landscape, thoughts of a distant friend, or a stay overnight. Atmosphere, or mood, in many instances, is what the poem is most about. His lyrical work at its purest has the beauty of inhospitable, or remote, mountains; yet when speaking to themes of friendship, Chia Tao's human empathy is the measure of the peaks. The edge of sorrow running through his poems was honed in part by his chronic poverty, but it rarely gives way to bitterness or self-pity.
Though the poet does not overtly preach the Dharma, his life and training as a monk naturally influenced his artistic temperament: the poems are spare, technically hard-won (t'ui-ch'iao), and morally serious. In his early discursive poems, probably influenced by Han Yu, Confucian values surface as well.
As with the poet monks, Chia Tao's poems are filled with the imagery of remote temples and stone chimes, looming peaks and wind-twisted pines. But with Chia Tao, as with Wang Wei (701–761) before him, Buddhism is largely internalized; its expression is aesthetic, not philosophical.
Some of Chia Tao's contemporaries and literary descendants found his poems inclined to pessimism, and the poet Su Tung-p'o (1037–1101) wrote critically that Chia Tao's work was “lean” and Meng Chiao's “cold.” Meng Chiao, upon first encountering the tall, imposing figure of the younger Chia Tao, even called him “a lean monk lying in ice”—and this from an old poet who himself was a poverty-saddled recluse!
Chia Tao's extant poems number four hundred and four. Of these, the “Farewell Poem” is most widely represented, accounting for nearly one hundred. As scholars have pointed out, this poetic subcategory resonated deeply with Chinese of the T'ang era, owing to the huge distances of China, the rudimentary transportation, and the strong ties of friendship and family. For Chia Tao, a poem on the theme of farewell was, at least ritualistically, a gift to the traveler, as well as a means for the poet to ease his own sadness of separation.
His favored poetic form was the lu-shih, or the regulated form of the eight-line verse. In this form each line contains either five or seven characters, obeys rules for rhyme, and has verbal and tonal parallelisms. Tu Fu's (712–770) achievement in this form was a standard for poets such as Chia Tao, who came on the scene after the High T'ang period. Chia Tao refined the form and took certain liberties with it, thereby gaining many disciples in the Late T'ang and beyond.
The poet died in humble circumstances. His only known possessions were an ailing donkey and a five-string zither. He was survived by his wife, but no children. Still, Chia Tao never anticipated worldly rewards. He attained a high degree of poetic excellence that has earned his poetry grateful readers down to the present. And in the course of his arduous life, he had the consolation of enjoying the friendship of the leading scholars, poets, and sages of his time. As Chia Tao put it, writing on the occasion of a visit from his friend Yung T'ao:
Not having to be alone
is happiness;
we do not talk
of failure or success.
WINTER NIGHT FAREWELL
At first light, you ride
swiftly over the village bridge;Plum blossoms fall
on the stream and unmelted snow.With the days short and the weather cold,
it’s sad to see a guest depart;The Ch’u Mountains are boundless,
and the road, remote.
MEMENTO ON THE DEPARTURE
OF A FRIEND FROM YEH,
LAST DAY OF THE SECOND MOONIn flowering willows,
we rein in our horses;
at parting, we are free
to drink all the wine we desire.But the winds of spring
sweep slowly north;
clouds and wild geese
do not fly south.Tomorrow
dawns the first—
already the third
month of the year!Touch whip to lean horse and go
into the colors of dusk;
mist is rising
on far peaks.
MORNING TRAVEL
Rising early
to begin the journey;
not a sound
from the chickens next door.Beneath the lamp,
I part from the innkeeper;
on the road, my skinny horse
moves through the dark.Slipping on stones
newly frosted,
threading through woods,
we scare up birds roosting.After a bell tolls
far in the mountains,
the colors of daybreak
gradually clear.
PASSING BY A MOUNTAIN VILLAGE AT DUSK
For several li,
I’ve been hearing the cold stream;
mountain villagers
have few near neighbors.Strange birds
cry in the wild;
the setting sun
gives pause to the traveler.A new moon shines,
but won’t last the night;
border signal towers
do not reach past Ch’in.Beyond the scraggly
mulberry grove—
cook smoke
coming closer.
OVERNIGHT AT A BUDDHIST
MOUNTAIN TEMPLEMassed peaks pierce
the cold-colored sky;
a view
the monastery faces.Shooting stars pass
into sparse-branched trees;
the moon travels one way,
clouds the other.Few people come
to this mountaintop;
cranes do not flock
in the tall pines.One Buddhist monk,
eighty years old,
has never heard
of the world’s affairs.
FAREWELL TO MONK CHIH-HSING
You have lived a long time
at Pa-hsing Temple;
retired, you’re preparing
only now to leave.On the verge of parting, we look
out upon the bright water of autumn;
you’re not returning to your hometown
nor to the countryside near it.You will hang your Buddhist staff in a tree
where the sky reaches to a watery horizon;
where the door-leaf of your hut
opens on great mountains.Below, you will see dawn
a thousand li away:
a miniature sun
born of a cold white sea.
WATCHING THE LATE DAY CLEAR
AFTER SNOWFALLLeaning on my staff,
I watch the sky clearing after snow;
clouds are layered high
over the mountain stream.As the woodcutter
returns to his hut,
a cold sun sets
on perilous peaks.A farmer’s fire
burns the grass along a ridge;
wisps of cook smoke rise
in rock-girt pines.Returning to the temple
along the mountain road,
I hear the striking
of the evening bell.
AT I-CHOU, CLIMBING THE TOWER
OF LUNG-HSING TEMPLE
TO VIEW THE HIGH NORTHERN MOUNTAINSThe tallest peaks
north of the district—
cliffs so high
they block cloud paths.At dawn,
I climb the tower for a look,
gradually feeling
their serene effect.In smoke-blue
haze,
massed peaks
appear as if joined.When will I climb
and set foot there,
to gaze on all
creation below?
SEEKING BUT NOT FINDING THE RECLUSE
Under pines
I ask the boy;he says: “My Master’s gone
to gather herbs.I only know
he’s on this mountain,but the clouds are too deep
to know where.”
WRITTEN AT THE DWELLING OF A RECLUSE
Even though you have a brushwood door,
it hasn’t been shut for a long time;A few clouds, a few trees
have been your only companions.Still, I suspect if you stay longer,
people will learn of this spot;We’ll see you moving
higher on the mountain.
ABODE OF THE UNPLANNED EFFECT
The grass-covered path
is secluded and still;
a closed door faces
the Chungnan Mountains.In the evening, the air’s chilly,
but the light rain stops;
at dawn, far off,
a few cicadas start.Leaves fall
where no green earth remains;
a person at his ease,
wears a plain, white robe.With simplicity and plainness
his original nature still,
what need to practice
“calming of the heart?”
A FAREWELL TO T’IEN CHO
ON RETREAT ON HUA MOUNTAINDeep and hidden, cicadas
fill the dusk;
startled, you awaken
from a stone-bed sleep.Near your hut,
a waterfall
falls
thousands of feet.Pines near the altar
drip dew;
the mountain moon
shines in vast, clear space.When a crane passes over,
you must see—
riderless, it should bear
an immortal.
MENG JUNG, GAINFULLY UNEMPLOYED
Your residence, Meng,
overlooks the river;
but you do not eat
the fish in it.Your robe is common,
sewn of coarse cloth;
silk books alone
fill your bamboo shelves.The solitary bird
loves the wood;
your heart also
not of the world.You plan to row away
in a lone boat, and
build another hut—
in which mountains?
WHILE TRAVELING
With so much on my mind,
it’s hard to express myself in letters.How long has it been since I left home?
Old friends are no longer young.Frosted leaves fall into empty bird nests;
river fireflies weave through open windows.I stop at a forest monk’s,
and spend the night in “quiet sitting.”
SEEING OFF THE MOUNTAIN MONK CH’U,
RETURNING TO JAPANSail spread, you’re ready
to depart on autumn waters,
to enter a deep, far realm
between realms.Away from the Eastern Sea
so many years—
today your return
begins in China.While absent from home,
your hair’s turned white;
but at wave’s end
blue hills will arise.Separated by water,
we’ll be in each other’s thoughts;
but no letters
to distract your quiet life.
FAREWELL TO MASTER TAN RETURNING TO MIN
From Lo-yang’s autumn willows
and cicadas,
your route is a lonely one
of whitecap and wave.Your belongings will pass
through thunder and lightning;
at a spring on an island
you will wash before “sitting.”After long absence, you’re
returning to your temple in the trees,
not putting ashore,
as you sail the coast of Yueh.You say today is set
for your departure,
that you expect to grow old
by the sea.
AT NI-YANG INN
A traveler’s sadness,
how is it deepened?
By seeing off
an old friend at dusk.At the tumbledown inn,
autumn fireflies are out;
in the empty town,
a cold rain comes.The sun sets
in seasonal white dew;
tree shadows sweep
the green moss.As I sit alone,
my mood after parting darkens;
the light of my single lamp
is weak.
THINKING OF RETIRED SCHOLAR WU ON THE RIVER
Since you set sail for the state of Min,
the moon has passed from full to full again.Autumn wind arises on Wei River;
falling leaves fill Ch’ang-an.I recall that evening together—
suddenly thunder, then cold rain.Odd your orchidwood oar hasn’t yet returned;
news of you ends at ocean clouds.
LATE IN THE DAY, GAZING OUT
FROM A RIVER PAVILIONWater to the horizon
veils the base of clouds;
mountain mist
blurs the far village.Returning to nest, birds
make tracks in the sand;
passing on the river, a boat
leaves no trace on the waves.I gaze at the water
and know its gentle nature;
watch the mountains
until my spirit tires.Though not yet ready
to leave off musing,
dusk falls,
and I return by horse.
AUSPICIOUS ARRIVAL OF YUNG T’AO
This morning
laughing together;
just a few such days
in a hundred.After birds pass
over Sword Gate, it’s calm;
invaders from the south
have withdrawn to the Lu River wilds.We walk on frosted ground
praising chrysanthemums bordering fields
sit on the east edge of the woods,
waiting for the moon to rise.Not having to be alone
is happiness;
we do not talk
of failure or success.
SEEING OFF THE MONK TS’UNG-CH’IH
RETURNING TO THE CAPITAL“When you left home
to be a monk,
to which temple
did you first go?”“Ch’ang-an’s
Western Light,
east of the waters
of the Palace Canal.Going back, I’ll see again
the ancient buildings
and, below the steps,
the trees,which, since I left,
have known
twenty-one winds
of spring.”
SPRING TRAVEL
Keeping on and on,
a traveler gets farther, farther away;
dust without cease
follows a horse through the world.A traveler’s feelings
after the sun’s rays slant—
colors of spring
in the morning mist.The river’s flow heard
at the empty inn—
flowers just blooming
at the old palace.I think of home
a thousand li away;
green-willow wind
stirs on the pond.
Notes
Winter Night Farewell
* Ch'u was a large and powerful state that existed from 740–223 B.C.E. It occupied the middle Yangtze area in the south and stretched as far north as the upper reaches of the Huai River.
Memento on the Departure of a Friend
* Yeh was the ancient name for a part of what is today Honan Province.
* Willows are a symbol of parting.
Morning Travel
* The bell is a temple's dawn summons.
* Red Pine interprets this poem as being about Chia Tao's departure from monastic life: the “journey” is into the secular world; the “chickens” are the other monks; the innkeeper is the Ch'an master; the “slipping,” the unsure footing of the poet; and the “daybreak,” the daybreak.
Passing by a Mountain Village at Dusk
* A li is about one-third of a mile.
* Border signal towers employed lighted beacons to communicate between detachments guarding China's borders. Apparently, the poet is traveling outside Ch'in , the T'ang dynasty name for China.
Farewell to Monk Chih-hsing
* Although Pa-hsing, the temple, is not identified, a county of that name existed during the T'ang dynasty in Szechuan Province. Sea, or hai, can be any substantial expanse of water.
At I-chou, Climbing the Tower
* In T'ang times, the prefecture I-chou was located along the Szechuan-Hupei Road. Today, I-chou County lies within Hupei Province.
* Lung-hsing Temple is not identified.
Abode of the Unplanned Effect
* The abode was near or on the grounds of Sheng-tao Temple on a high plateau in a ward of the same name in southeast Ch'ang-an.
* The Chungnan Mountains, south of Ch'ang-an, are the divide of North and South China.The range stretches to the Chilien Mountains in the west, which in turn become the Kunlun Mountains extending to the border of northern India. In ancient times, this cordillera harbored China's shamans-turned-hermits, who earlier had lost temporal power to newly civilizing elements and had taken refuge in the mountains.
In the T'ang dynasty, the mountains were the home of sages who might be of any one or more of the seven or eight Buddhist schools, and of any number of Taoist sects as well. Even Confucianists had by then established a tradition of mountain retreat there.
* The person in the poem wears a plain, white robe; hence he is not a monk. Pai-yi, “white robe,” often signals a sage.
* Calming of the heart is my translation for wang chi, or “forgetting schemes or designs in one's mind.” Wang-chi, “forgetting self,” is a Buddhist meditation practice.
A Farewell to T'ien Cho on Retreat
* Hua Mountain, located in Shensi Province, is one of the five sacred mountains of China.
* The crane is one of many symbols of longevity. Immortals were often depicted as flying on a crane's head or back.
Farewell to Master Tan Returning to Min
* Min, a Ten Kingdoms state, was roughly in the same area as present-day Fukien Province.
* Lo-yang was the summer, or eastern, capital for nearly three hundred years during the T'ang dynasty.
* Yueh, an ancient state of the Eastern Chou period (770–256 B.C.E.), included part of today's Chekiang Province.
* Hsing-li, translated here as belongings, is also the name of the Vinaya-vehicle, the teaching that emphasizes the rules of monastic conduct.
At Ni-yang Inn
* Ni-yang was a county seat north of Ch'ang-an.
Thinking of Retired Scholar Wu on the River
* Chia Tao indicates the moon by ch'an ch'u, or “the toad that lives in the moon.”
* The couplet “ Autumn wind arises onWei River / Falling leaves fill Ch'ang-an” is famous in part for this anecdote: Chia Tao (as in the tale describing how he met HanYu) was riding a donkey through the streets of Ch'ang-an, deeply absorbed in finding a parallel line to “Falling leaves fill Ch'ang-an.” He found the line, but collided with a city official, who had him briefly jailed.
* Wei River flows east past Ch'ang-an in Shensi Province.
* Orchidwood oar signifies a boat.
Auspicious Arrival of Yung T'ao
* Yung T'ao, a native of Chengtu, the capital city of Szechuan, was a successful candidate of the Civil Service Examination who received the title of po shih, conferred upon scholars of profound learning.
* Sword Gate, or Chien-men Pass, is located in the Ta-chien mountains, in northern Szechuan.
* The Lu River is part of the upper reaches of the Yangtze River.
Seeing off the Monk Ts'ung-ch'ih
* Western Light, or Hsi-ming, was a temple near Ch'ang-an's South (Red Bird) Gate in the ward of Yen-k'ang.
Bibliography
EDITIONS OF CHIA TAO'S POETRY
Ch'ang-chiang chi. Ssu-pu pei-yao. Shanghai, 1927–1937; Rpt. Taipei, 1966.
Chia Ch'ang-chiang chi. Rpt.Taipei: China Books Co.
Ch'en,Yen-chieh, annotator and Yun-wu Wang, ed. Chia Tao shih-chu. Shanghai, 1937.
Ch'uan-T'ang-shih. Volume 2 (hsia). Rpt.Taipei: Hungyeh Book Company.
Hsu, Sung-po, ed. Lu sheng-chih chi, Ch'ang-chiang chi ho-t'ing-pen. Rpt. Taipei: Hsinan Book Co., 1973.
Liu, Ssu-han, ed. Meng Chao Chia Tao shih-hsuan. Rpt. Taipei, 1988.
TRANSLATIONS IN ENGLISHLiu,Wu-chi and Irving Yu-cheng Lo, eds. Sunflower Splendor: Three Thousand Years of Chinese Poetry. Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Press/ Doubleday, 1975.
O'Connor, Mike. Colors of Daybreak and Dust: A Selection of Poems by Chia Tao. Berkeley: Tangram Press, 1995
O'Connor, Mike. When I Find You Again, It Will Be in Mountains: Selected Poems of Chia Tao. Berkeley: Tangram Press, 1996.
Owen, Stephen. “Some Mid-T'ang Quatrains.” In A Brotherhood in Song: Chinese Poetry and Poetics, edited by Stephen C. Soong. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1985.
Seaton, J.P. and Dennis Maloney, eds. A Drifting Boat: An Anthology of Chinese Zen Poetry. Fredonia, N.Y.:White Pine Press, 1994. (Several poems of Chia Tao under his religious name,Wu-pen (Wu Pen), translated by J.P. Seaton.)
Watson, Burton. “Buddhist Poet-Priests of the T'ang.” In The Eastern Buddhist 25, no. 2 (1992): 30–58.
STUDIESChang,Yu-ming. “Ch'ang-chiang chi chiao-chu.” Master's thesis, Kuo-li Shih-fan Ta-hsueh, 1969.
Li, Chia-yen. Chia Tao nien-p'u. Rpt. Taipei, 1974.
Witzling, Catherine. “The Poetry of Chia Tao: A Re-Examination of Critical Stereotypes.” Ph. D. diss., Stanford University, 1980.
Note: Owing in part to its inclusion in the T'ang-shih san-pai shou (Complete Poems of the T'ang), Chia Tao's poem “Seeking but Not Finding the Recluse” has numerous translators.
