以詩弘法：大乘佛教與早期新加坡華文舊體詩 = Salvation through Rhyme: Mahayana Buddhism and Classical Chinese Poetry in Early Singapore

Abstract

This paper focuses on the relationship between poetry and Mahayana Buddhism, which had the largest number of devotees in colonial Singapore. Khoo Seok Wan, “the Master Poet of the South” and the well-known community leader Lee Choon Seng were both Buddhist laymen. Together with their friend, the poet-monk Rui Yu, they represented a local poetic circle which had a strong religious color. The flourishing of Mahayana Buddhism in Singapore was deeply influenced by the Buddhist development in China. Many late Qing and early Republican intellectuals were Buddhist scholars, and both of their religious thinking and poetry left a significant impact on Singapore’s Buddhist society in many respects. Also widely accepted was Tai Xu’s “Humanistic Buddhism.” This paper will blend these social and religious phenomenon into the examination of the Buddhist poetry of Khoo and his literary friends, showing how they express their religious beliefs in the traditional poetic form, what do they think about the relation between poetry and Buddhism, and in what way their works can enlighten us in our understanding of the religious, social and cultural milieu of early Singapore Chinese community.