Jia Yucun Misses Transcendence

A brief passage full of philosophic meaning

Jia Yucun Misses Transcendence

Today’s passage is pretty short, and is the sort of passage you’d normally skip over if you were reading Dream of the Red Chamber for the first time. However, as usual, there’s a lot of cool stuff going on here if you take the time to really look. So let’s dig into it!

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Chinese Text

雨村閒居無聊，每當風日晴和，飯後便出來閒步。這一日，偶至郊外，意欲賞鑑那村野風光。信步至一山環水漩茂林修竹之處，隱隱有座廟宇，門巷傾頹，牆垣剝落，有額題曰「智通寺」。門旁又有一副舊破的對聯云：

身後有餘忘縮手，眼前無路想回頭。

雨村看了，因想到：「這兩句，文雖甚淺，其意則深。也曾遊過些名山大剎，倒不曾見過這話頭。其中想必有個翻過筋斗來的也未可知，何不進去一訪？」走入看時，只有一個龍鍾老僧在那裡煮粥。雨村見了，卻不在意，及至問他兩句話，那老僧既聾且昏，又齒落舌鈍，所答非所問。

雨村不耐煩，仍退出來，意欲到那村肆中沽飲三杯，以助野趣，於是移步行來。

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Translation Notes

山環水漩 are mountains embraced by winding streams, and 茂林修竹 are lush groves of trees and bamboo. Both are images that traditionally depict beautiful landscapes. 茂林修竹 comes from a Jin Dynasty poem composed by Wang Xizhi (王羲之) of the Jin dynasty, composed around 354 AD: “此地有崇山峻嶺，茂林修竹” (Here there are high mountains and lofty peaks; an exuberant growth of trees and bamboos).

縮手 means to draw back one’s hand. 忘縮手 means to forget to draw back one’s hand, which, in this case, mean to be greedy. In other words, 身後有餘忘縮手 means that we continue to long for more even though we have plenty after life is over. The second line, 眼前無路想回頭, is pretty straightforward.

The full poem (身後有餘忘縮手，眼前無路想回頭) is actually a pretty good description of Jia Yucun’s character. He is characterized by greed (i.e. “forgetting to draw back his hands”), and he tends to go too far without considering the implications of his actions. Of course, this poem can also be a “don’t go any further” warning to Jia Yucun, which, of course, he will ignore.

剎 is a Buddhist term for land, world, or place. It comes from the term 剎多羅, which means a Buddhist monastery, temple, or shrine. This term comes from the Sanskrit word क्षेत्र (kṣetra), which means “land” or “domain.” The pronunciation of the two terms seems very different to us today: kṣetra looks and sounds nothing like chàduōluó. However, it seems that 剎 was the closest approximation Chinese had at that time to the Sanskrit sound kṣ, and 多羅 was originally the best phonetic approximation of tra. You can see a similar historic evolution in the Sanskrit term स्तूप (stūpa), the word for “pagoda,” which is 窣堵波 (sūdǔbō) in Chinese.

Note also that Jia Yucun can’t figure out the significance of the temple and the poem despite having visited many famous places and Buddhist monasteries. This is a symbol of how corrupt he has become: he has pretentions to wisdom, but has actually gone through a significant process of moral decay.

翻筋斗 means to suffer a setback. Jia Yucun thinks that the remoteness of the temple, its worn down nature, and the message of the name of the temple and the accompanying poem indicates that the person inside has suffered many setbacks in life. It’s also possible that Jia Yucun is worried about his own fallibility and mortality.

龍鍾 means senile or decrepit.

既聾且昏 means “both deaf and confused.” 齒落舌鈍 means with teeth falling out and a sluggish tongue. When put together, it paints an image of a confused, crazy old man who has lost the ability to communicate. This is amplified by the next line, 所答非所問, which means that the answer the monk gave had absolutely nothing to do with the question Yucun asked.

Notice that Jia Yucun is actually getting what he was looking for here. Jia Yucun expects to find somebody who has experienced all the ups and downs of life (翻過筋斗) — and yet instead he finds a monk who seems to be unable to speak coherently and completely eccentric (那老僧既聾且昏，又齒落舌鈍，所答非所問). Jia Yucun’s problem here is his Confucian upbringing and intelligence. He expects to find somebody well versed and well spoken, and instead dismisses what he finds as utterly crazy. He pays it no heed and leaves as soon as he is able to, thereby failing the test.

When you think about it, the whole event is a massive criticism of Confucian orthodoxy. Jia Yucun might be a well revered scholar, but he can’t see his way through this simple test. And once again we see how Cao Xueqin subverts the society around him.

村肆 technically means “village shop” if you look at the dictionary. However, words like 酒肆 (wine shop) and 酤肆 (tavern) tie it to alcohol. Similarly, 肆 is almost always used in 紅樓夢 in connection with alcohol; hence we use “tavern” here.

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Translation Critique

Hawkes

Hawkes translates 智通寺 as “The Temple of Perfect Knowledge.” The thing is, though, that 通 means more than just “attained” or “perfected.” Instead, it’s more about the process of becoming refined than the end goal. 通 also implies knowledge that is attained through direct experience, and is closely related to the Sanskrit प्रज्ञा (prajñā), which refers to transcendental wisdom in Buddhism.

You can see that the Hawkes interpretation here isn’t quite correct if you start looking around. 神通, for example, means “divine insight” and implies that you’re acting like a God by piercing through illusion — not that you’ve already attained the end goal. Thus, a better translation would be “The Temple of Wisdom Attained,” emphasizing that 通 implies a process and not just “perfection.”

In fact, the final line of the poem reflects this idea. 眼前無路想回頭, or “only when the road ends do we think to look back,” is an indication that Jia Yucun is about to misinterpret the wisdom of the monk as nonsense. In other words, the “nonsense” the monk spoke (所答非所問) is actually the प्रज्ञा (transcendental wisdom) that Jia Yucun should be looking for. He simply ignores it.

This is how Hawkes translates the poem:

As long as there is a sufficiency behind you, you press greedily forward.

It is only when there is no road in front of you that you think of turning back.

That’s not a particularly poetic translation – and it also misses the point. 身後 must mean “after death” in this context. Jia Yucun’s problem is that that obtained a lot earlier in his life. His problem is that he continues to want more. And, even when he has the प्रज्ञा (transcendental wisdom) staring him in the face, he’d rather ignore it and stick with his desire to obtain more material goods.

Based on this misinterpretation, I strongly suspect that David Hawkes did not understand either the poem nor the significance of the old monk.

Yang

The Yangs translate the name of the temple as “Temple of Perspicacity.” “Perspicacity” means acute discernment or insight. While it’s a bit better than the David Hawkes translation, it still misses the process nature of 通.

They do a better job with the poem:

Though plenty was left after death, he forgot to hold his hand back;

Only at the end of the road does one think of turning on to the right track.

However, “he forgot to hold his hand back” is a pretty poor translation of 忘縮手. It’s a literally correct translation, sure — but the original implies greed, something that is hard to get out of the English version unless you stop and think about it. The problem is that he was greedy for more things despite what awaited him after his death — and, once he gets to the end of the road and realizes his mistake, it’s too late to repent.

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My Translation