摘 要

当今社会是物质文化极大发展的时代，精神文明建设依旧处于弱势地位。宗教文化是世界文化的重要组成部分，影响着一代又一代人。其中作为世界三大宗教之一的佛教在西方的发展虽然日趋成熟但对其深入的研究依旧匮乏。埃德温·阿诺德爵士所著的《亚洲之光》（1879）以诗歌的形式介绍了释迦牟尼佛的一生，对佛教在西方的传播和发展起到的重大作用，并启示了人的思想。本文旨在由对本书中佛陀一生及对佛教思想的解读，分析从中获得的启示，进而深入探讨此书对佛教在西方发展过程中做出的贡献。本文分为五个部分：第一部分介绍作者作品，佛教文化在西方研究的现状，以及对佛教一些基础常识的介绍，第二部分描述佛陀这一生的故事的启示，第三部分为本书中提及到的佛教精华教义的启示，第四部分描写本书对佛教在西方发展起到的作用，最后一部分总结全文。通过对这一主题的分析，来弥补国内对此书研究的空白现状。

关键词：亚洲之光；佛陀；佛教；启示

Abstract

Compared with the great development of the material culture in today’s society , the construction of spiritual civilization and culture is still in a vulnerable position. Religious culture, affecting generation after generation, plays the irreplaceable role in world culture. And the Buddhism culture, one of the three major religions in the whole world, is increasingly mature in the west but the thorough research is still scarce. The Light of Asia(1879), written by Sir Edwin Arnold, introduced Buddha Sakyamuni's life in the form of poetry, and was significant for the dissemination and development of Buddhism in the west. It also brought the enlightenment to individuals’ thoughts. This paper, through introduction of the Buddha life in this book and explanation of Buddhism doctrines, aims at analyzing the enlightenment of this book and deep exploring the book's contribution in the process of development of Buddhism in the west. This paper is divided into five parts: the first part introduces the author and his remarkable work, the research condition about Buddhism culture in the west society and some basic knowledge of Buddhism. The following part focus on the enlightenment of the Buddha Sakyamuni’s whole life. The third part analyzes the enlightenment of Buddhist essence doctrine. Next, in the forth part, I pay more attention on the function of The Light of Asia to the west including its function to the development of Buddhism in western countries and its impact to the Christianity. Finally, in the last part, a simple conclusion reviewing the whole paper is reached. The blank condition concerning The Light of Asia can be changed through the analysis and exploration of this topic.

Key Words: The Light of Asia; Buddha; Buddhism; enlightenment

Contents

1 Introduction 1

1.1 The Author and His Works 1

1.2 Literature Review 2

1.3 Buddhism 2

2 The Enlightenment of Buddha's Life 4

2.1 Benevolence: from The Prince to The Saint 4

2.2 Insistence: from Buddha's Extreme Asceticism and Meditation 5

2.3 Selflessness: From Buddha's Teaching of Dharma 7

3 The Enlightenment of Buddhist's Doctrine 8

3.1 Putting Down Worries 8

3.2 Being Good 9

3.3 Liberating Oneself 10

4 The Enlightenment of This Book to The West 11

4.1 Promoting the Buddhism Development to the West 11

4.2 The Impact on The Christianity 12

5 Conclusion 14

References 15

Acknowledgements 16

The Enlightenment in

The Light of Asia

1 Introduction

1.1 The Author and His Works

Sir Edwin Arnold, as an authentic interpreter and great poet who devoted himself to a series of deep research about Buddhism, made significant contribution to the people in Europe and America, helping them comprehend the Buddhism culture in the period of Queen Victoria. He won the Newdigate prize for poetry in 1852. In 1856, he went to India as Principal of the Government Sanskrit College at Poona. After that, he worked for the Daily Telegraph from a journalist to an editor-in-chief for more than 40 years. The time he spent in India brought him deep impression and opened his mind to the research and development of Buddhism in India which he thought was powerful and mysterious to west. Thus, he created some famous religious literary works.

He was very influential and famous among the contemporary writers. However, he was not a productive poet. The amount of his work was very limited. Arnold's major volumes of poetry were Indian Song of Songs (1875), The Light of Asia (1879), Pearls of the Faith (1883), The Song Celestial (1885), With Sadi in the Garden (1888), Potiphar's Wife (1892), and "Indian Poetry" (1904).

The Light of Asia, a poem of eight books in blank verse, which was published in 1879, was his most important and famous work. It made an immediate success after publishing. Besides, it has been translated into various languages such as Hindi, Chinese, French, and so on. In this poem, Arnold told a story about how Prince Siddhartha Gautama finally became the Buddha through countless torture and challenges. In the first three chapters, the author focused on the description of Prince Siddhartha Gautama’s inborn outstanding wisdom, benevolence and the extreme affluence of his life. Then, from the forth to the fifth chapter, the process of becoming the Buddha was depicted in great detail. Finally, in the last two chapters, Gautama came back to his country to visit his father and wife and teach the doctrine of Dharma. It should be admitted that it is the first attempt to show and analyze the paramount gold in East--Prince Gautama. What’ more, it moved the development of Buddhism in west.

1.2 Literature Review

The Light of Asia was publish long time ago in 1879, and it has aroused interest in religious circles. However, it never moved into the mainstream status in England and America as a literary work. In fact no research essays can be found in the related databases. This long poem was translated by Zhang Kun and published in China in 2014. However, searching on CNKI, no research essay can be found on this author and collection of poetry.

Some researches have been conducted on the promotion and expansion of Buddhism in the west. Scholars focused their study on the development progress of the Buddhism culture in the western world. For example, The Monk And The Philosopher(A Father and Son Discuss the Meaning of Life), written by Jean-Francois Revel and Matthieu Ricard, was one of the most successful and popular books which revealed and demonstrated how Buddhism impacted people’s behavior and cleaned individuals’ hearts in a relatively humorous and relax way: conversation. Another famous book Lord of Light, written by Roger Zelazny who got the reputation of Hugo Award with this great work, is famous for its science fiction method, enormous setting, and creative plot to describe the life of Eastern Golds. The two books are the high-quality delegates of the research about Buddhism from western researchers. However, nowadays the amount of Buddhism research in foreign countries shows a gradual downward tendency. At the meanwhile, the domestic research situation about The Light of Asia and Edwin Arnold is still blank. As a result, we should pay more attention on the Buddhism culture research.