Studies of the ancient Chinese classics, medieval Chinese history, Buddhism, Daoism, poetry, and prose have all too often been constrained within traditional disciplinary silos, such as literature, politics, philosophy, art, and religion. As a consequence, historians have infrequently read religious texts, scholars of Tang poetry have rarely engaged with archeological and epigraphic materials, while scholars of Buddhism have not often explored Daoist materials. Authors and readers in medieval China were of course not constrained by such boundaries. On the contrary, government and military officials, historians, poets, Buddhists, Daoists, and authors of tomb epitaphs and of imperial inscriptions shared cultural interests, and medieval authors read and found inspiration in each other’s diverse works. Our contemporary disciplinary labels tend to simplify the identities of medieval Chinese people—as adherents to a particular religion, or writers of a specific literary form—and thereby occlude the reality of their intertwined, multiple cultural practices. Indeed, people were rarely restricted to a single social identity or narrow set of cultural interests. But the blind spots in our understanding of medieval Chinese culture are not merely a result of contemporary disciplinary views: they are also shaped by the contours and gaps in the textual archive as it was transmitted and refashioned by centuries of readers. The surviving textual record from early and medieval China represents only a minute portion of the cultural productions of this era. In order to create a richer understanding of lived medieval culture, including the intersections of religious and literary practices, we need to not only read across the grain of modern disciplinary categories but also to expand our source base to include epigraphic and artistic materials, among others that have survived outside orthodox compilations of literary and scriptural traditions.

針對中國古代經典、中古中國歷史、佛教、道教、詩歌與散文的研究常常被禁錮在諸如文學、政治、哲學、藝術、宗教等傳統學科的倉儲之中。其結果是，史學家很少閱讀宗教文獻，唐詩學者很少接觸考古與碑刻材料，而佛教學者則往往不去探索道教典籍。當然，中古中國的作者和讀者並不受此類界囿的約束。相反，政府與軍事官員、史學家、詩人、佛教徒、道教徒，以及墓誌銘和皇帝碑文的作者們，有著共通的文化旨趣; 中古的作者們閱讀彼此不同的作品，並從中獲得靈感。我們當代的學科標籤傾向於簡化中古中國人的身份——將其簡化為某一特定宗教的信徒，或某種特定文學形式的作者——從而遮蔽了他們相互交織、多元文化實踐的實情。誠然，人們很少被局限於單一的社會身份或狹隘的文化旨趣之中。但是，我們理解中古中國文化時的盲點，並不僅僅是當代學科視野的結果; 它們同樣也為文獻檔案的輪廓與界線所塑造，而這些檔案是歷經數個世紀的讀者傳承和重塑而來的。從上古至中古中國倖存下來的傳世文獻記錄，僅代表了該時代文化產出的極小一部分。為了更豐富地理解活態的中古文化，包括宗教與文學實踐的交匯，我們不僅需要挑戰現代學科的既定分類，還必須拓展我們的史料基礎，將碑刻、藝術材料，以及其他在正統的文學與經典傳統編纂之外倖存下來的資料囊括進來。

The subtitle of this volume, “The Way and the Words,” points to a fundamental critique of our very project. The Dao, the Way, is formless and nameless; it is the “teaching without words.” However, as humans we are forced to use words to communicate, and we are constrained within specific language and script communities. People in medieval China sought to attain the Way, and they realized that their words were mere traces of the ineffable. And yet, as the poems, inscriptions, scriptures, and commentaries explored in this volume demonstrate, medieval people continually sought to use words to trace the ineffable, and their ceaseless efforts to do so require our careful, attentive reading.

本書的副標題“道與言”，指向了對我們這項事業本身的一個根本性批判。道，是無名無形的; 它是“無言之教”。然而，作為人類，我們被迫使用語言來交流，並且受限於特定的語言和文字社群。中古中國人追求得道，他們認識到自己的言語僅僅是那不可言說的存在所存留之跡。然而，正如本書所探討的詩歌、碑文、經典和註釋所展示的那樣，中古中國人不斷地嘗試用言語來描摹那不可言說的存在，而他們不懈的努力，需要我們細緻而專注地閱讀。

Table of Contents  目錄