''Saomei dunlun Dongdu ji'' (), also known as ''Dongyouji'' (), is a novel written in the Ming dynasty by Chinese author Fang Ruhao (). ''Dongdu ji'' tells of two respected Buddhist monks— Burumiduo () and

Bodhidharma Bodhidharma was a semi-legendary Buddhist monk who lived during the 5th or 6th century CE. He is traditionally credited as the transmitter of Chan Buddhism to China, and regarded as its first Chinese patriarch. According to a 17th century apo ...

, who leads his three disciples from India to China to promote their religion. Described as a ''shanshu'' () or "morality book", the novel was first published in 1635.

Written in vernacular Chinese, the first eighteen chapters of ''Dongdu ji'' follow Venerable Burumiduo () as he rescues "the masses of lost people in Southern and Eastern India", while the rest of the novel's one hundred chapters revolve around

and his three disciples, as they journey from India to China to preach about Buddhism. The novel's structure is modelled after that of '' Journey to the West''.

Publication history

The novel was first published in

Suzhou Suzhou (; ; Suzhounese: ''sou¹ tseu¹'' , Mandarin: ), alternately romanized as Soochow, is a major city in southern Jiangsu province, East China. Suzhou is the largest city in Jiangsu, and a major economic center and focal point of trade ...

in 1635, during the twilight of the Ming dynasty. Although Ming dynasty writer Fang Ruhao () is conventionally credited as the author of ''Dongdu ji'', French researcher Vincent Durand-Dastès alleges that the novel—which he describes as both a ''shanshu'' () or "morality book" and an adventure novel—might instead have been written by the author of the 17th-century novel ''Sanjiao kaimi guizheng yanyi'' () or ''The Romance of the Three Teachings''. Early editions of the text are housed in both the Peking University Library and the Jigendo Library in Japan. The novel was translated into Korean under the title ''Dongyugi'' sometime in the nineteenth century, with a few surviving volumes now kept by the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts of the Russian Academy of Sciences. A partial French translation of ''Dongdu ji'' by Durand-Dastès was published in 2008 under the title ''La Conversion de l’Orient''.

Critical reception

Translator Vincent Durand-Dastès criticised the novel's "frequently ponderous style" and "simplistic plot structure", but acknowledged that it provided great insight into the cultural climate of the late Ming dynasty.

Notes

References

Citations

Bibliography