Literary Responses to Religious Debates at the Northern Zhou Court

Abstract

In the fifth and sixth centuries, the status of the Buddhist and Daoist teachings underwent constant change. The tension between the two religious groups over state sponsorship heightened during the Northern Zhou dynasty, especially under the reign of Emperor Wu 北周武帝 (r. 560–578). While records about these events abound in historical and religious texts, very few literary pieces have survived and thus have received little attention. This article investigates three literary texts against this background, a bell inscription by Emperor Wu, and two poems by Yu Xin 庾信 (513–581 CE). My reading of Yu Xin’s allusions to Buddhism and Daoism reveals a complex attitude of the poet, who voiced veiled criticism of the sovereign through layers of allusions, and provides a rare window onto ways in which early medieval religions expanded the vision of literature of the time and enriched its imaginative realm.