Han-Shan

This article deals with the Tang poet; for further meanings of Hanshan see Hanshan .

Hanshan

Hanshan , 寒山, Hánshān, (German: Kalter Berg, probably late 7th or 8th century ) was a Chinese poet of the Tang period .
Hanshan is not to be confused with the Zen monk Hanshan Deqing, who lived in the 16th and 17th centuries. Century lived.

biography

The historical person of the Hanshan is hardly tangible. The only source for his biography is the collection of poems Hanshan shi (German: Poems from the Cold Mountain). This consists of around 360 poems, 307 of which are attributed to Han-Shan, and a short but unreliable preface. The name Hanshan is a pseudonym that the poet, like many Chinese Zen masters, was named after the mountain on which he lived, in this case a mountain in the Tiantai Mountains in southeast China, where the poet got "off the dust" of the world "and where he is said to have lived in a cave. He probably lived at the end of the 7th century or in the 8th century, sometimes the 9th century is assumed. In the foreword of Hanshan shi it is mentioned that Hanshan wrote his poems on rock walls, stones, trees or house walls, from where they were later collected and combined into a book.

The poet

Hanshan's poems are characterized by timelessness and general validity. Above all, the poems from the time of his hermit life reflect deep meditative experiences. Committed to the ideals of Daoism and Buddhism , the poet describes the difficulties and obstacles on the path of Dao and Zen Buddhist enlightenment . He also criticizes society and its senseless pursuit of power and money, both with grief and with biting mockery. He urges self-control and discipline, but without giving patent remedies for a "right life". He makes it clear that every path is individual and accordingly everyone has to go their own way.

Hanshan and Zen Buddhism

Later generations drew the picture of Hanshan as a " Dharma ragabond" who wanders ragged and wild through the country, unbound and free from duties to others, laughing at everything and everyone, including himself. Several poems speak of the poet's friendship with the Zen master Fenggan and the practice of meditative contemplation, and since many of the "Cold Mountain Poems" breathe the spirit of Zen Buddhism , they were particularly popular with followers of this school of meditation Buddhism. The great Japanese Zen master Hakuin wrote a commentary on the Hanshan shi . Many Chinese and Japanese Zen artists have also painted pictures of Hanshan.

Hanshan and the Beat Generation

Hanshan was a role model for the writers of the American beat generation . Beat poets like Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac found their approach to life in Hanshan shi and identified with its social criticism after Gary Snyder had translated the poems into English. Since the Hanshan's poems portray their author as a person who lived outside the norms of a bourgeois society, this worldview now corresponded exactly to the ideals of the Beat generation.

An example poem

Poem No. 10

Godfather Chung lived north of the city
In his house there was always plenty of wine and meat
Back when his wife died
His hall was bursting with mourners
Now the old man himself has passed away
Not a person came to weep for him -
Those who emptied his cups and his Roast devoured
What a cold heart you have!

based on the translation by Stephan Schuhmacher

literature

• Tsutomu Itoh (translator): Han Shan poems, a selection; Tsutomu Itoh 1982
• Martin Kagel and Glenn Wallis: "Who was Han Shan? Buddhist thought figures in Rolf Dieter Brinkmann." In: Karl-Eckhard Carius (ed.), Rolf Dieter Brinkmann : cuts in respiratory protection (Rowohlt: München: text + kritik, 2008; ISBN 3-8837-7938-5 ): p 132-141
• Ulrich Nikolaus Oettel (publisher and translator): Han-Shan, poems from the cold mountain; Oettel 1993; ISBN 3-9800886-1-8
• Stephan Schuhmacher (ed. And translator): Hanshan, Gedichte vom Kalten Berg: The praise of life in the spirit of Zen , revised new edition, Arbor Verlag 2001, ISBN 3-924195-71-4
• Klaus Seehafer (ed.): Han-Shan, From the path to the clouds, poems of the sage from the Cold Mountain; To the Half Arch 1983; ISBN 3-922735-55-X
• Gary Snyder: Riprap and the Cold Mountain Poems; Shoemaker & Hoard, Washington 2004; ISBN 1-59376-015-9 (English / Chinese)

Web links

• Literature by and about Han-Shan in the catalog of the German National Library
• Han Shan  : Translation and illustrations by Christoph Plum