Quasi-Phantasmal Flowers: An Aspect of Wang Wei’s Mahayana Poetics

Abstract

Scholarship on Wang Wei’s enigmatic quatrains often seems to overread their contents using Chan doctrines that are actually anachronistic. Yet interpretations based solely on close reading or Wang’s biography fail to account for the quatrains’ profundity. Fortunately another approach is available to us: employing Wang Wei’s epitaphs and essays on Buddhist topics to reconstruct the contours of his own Buddhist inspiration. By exploring a broader spectrum of Wang’s writings we can achieve a more coherent understanding of the hidden significance behind his imagery and tropes. The simplest line of his verse cannot be properly understood in historical context without recognizing his broader conception of the interrelation of nature, enlightenment, and art. This article focuses on the use of flower blossoms in Wang Wei’s doctrinal and non-doctrinal writings, serving as symbols of both worldly beauty and the emptiness of the world.