BIANWEN

Until the early twentieth century, with the discovery of a cache of important manuscripts at Dunhuang, Gansu Province, in the far northwest of China, bianwen (transformation texts) were completely unknown to scholars. Once literary historians became aware of them, however, they soon realized that these texts, which date to the Tang (618–907) and Five Dynasties (907–960) periods, filled a crucial gap in scholarly understanding of the development of Chinese popular literature. They are the earliest substantial specimens of vernacular writing in China, and they represent the earliest examples of prosimetric narratives in Chinese. That is to say, they are the first Chinese texts that alternate sung, declaimed, or intoned verse and spoken prose to advance a narrative. As such, they had an enormous impact upon virtually all later performing arts (including full-scale operatic drama) and vernacular fiction in China. They also provide vital evidence for the sources of many popular tales of later times, and they embody firsthand data about storytelling in medieval China. Although the bianwen are not, as was once thought, promptbooks used in performance, they bear the marks of derivation from oral literature.

The wen in bianwen means text; the bian component, however, caused tremendous confusion during the first half-century of research on the genre. After intensive investigation involving comparisons with texts written in Sanskrit, Tibetan, and other languages, it has become clear that bian in bianwen refers to transformational manifestations evoked by spiritually powerful individuals (comparable to the Sanskrit terms nirmpāṇa and ṛddhi.) The oral precedents of bianwen utilized picture scrolls as illustrative devices to enhance the performance, and bianwen are closely connected to the artistic genre known as bianxiang (transformation tableaux). The earliest bianwen describe Buddhist subjects, but wholly secular themes, both historical and contemporary in nature, were soon added.

See also:Chinese, Buddhist Influences on Vernacular Literature in; Entertainment and Performance

Bibliography

Mair, Victor H. T'ang Transformation Texts: A Study of the Buddhist Contribution to the Rise of Vernacular Fiction and Drama in China. Cambridge, MA: Council of East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1989.

Pai, Hua-wen. "What Is 'pien-wen'?" tr. Victor H. Mair. Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 44, no. 2 (1984): 493–514.

Victor H. Mair