Saturday, September 20, 2008

Wang Fanzhi

Wang Fanzhi, was a Chinese Buddhist poet born in during the Tang Dynasty. He is the putative author of two collections of early Tang vernacular poetry. The language can be dated to the 8th century. Very few of the poems were known until the Dunhuang manuscripts were discovered in the early 20th century.

The first collection of moralistic verse, "the 92 poems collection", exists in 5 complete manuscripts.

The second collection, "the three-juan collection", has not been found in a complete copy, but has been reconstructed from seven manuscripts. These manuscripts contains poems of a higher artistic value. The content can be compared with the poems in the collection.

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