Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No.4, 2013

The Modern Transition of Chinese Buddhist Literature after the May Fourth Movement

(Abstract)

Tan Guilin

After the May 4 New Culture Movement in 1919 and in response to the new cultural and intellectual settings, Chinese Buddhist literature and its criticism also underwent its own modern transition. This transition was largely seen in three aspects: it provided ample theoretical evidence for the intellectual enlightenment and literary achievements of modern Buddhists through a vehement criticism of “non-literature”; it proposed the ideas of “literature of force” and “secular literature,” and displays the modernity of Buddhist literature in both intellectual quality and its expression; and it paid close attention to the relationship between Buddhist literature and the society and actively took on the responsibility of literary criticisms. This is an important mark of the modern transition of Chinese Buddhist literature after the May Fourth Movement. The various literary criticisms of modern Buddhism not only reflect modern Buddhists’ adaptability to the modern ethos and mode of production of culture during the transition period, but also display their preliminary self-consciousness of modernity.