During the Republic of China, China had three talented monks: Li Shutong and Lao Wang have written before, leaving the eight-finger tutu for another time. Today we talk about Su Manshu.
Among these three famous monks, the most handsome and versatile one is undoubtedly Su Manshu.
However,
"Talent is like a river and life is like a thread"
The most ill-fated one is Su Manshu.
Because of this, in the history of modern Chinese literature, almost no one can win the unanimous admiration of all three religions and nine streams like him.
As a monk, he appeared in monasteries, literary circles, political circles and even brothels. He made countless friends throughout his life, including revolutionaries, military and political officials, and literati. Chen Duxiu once said that Su Manshu was "an extremely smart genius."
Yes, Su Manshu is a genius, but he is also a madman, a legendary contradictory body with multiple identities.
01 The talented Su Manshu
In 1884, Su Manshu was born in Yokohama, Japan. His father Su Jaishan was a Guangdong tea merchant with one wife and three concubines, and Su Manshu’s mother , Japanese Kawai Sen is one of them.
In 1889, Su Manshu was brought back to China by his father. Because he was born to an "Oriental woman", he had been frail and sick since he was a child. He suffered discrimination at home, and even his own father paid little attention to him. . When she was 10 years old, Su Manshu was fostered into her aunt's home.
When he was 12 years old, Su Manshu fell seriously ill and was thrown into a woodshed by his family. He was dying and no one cared about him. Unexpectedly, he miraculously survived.
It was this experience that made him see through the worldly world at a young age and decided to become a monk.
However, not long after becoming a monk, Su Manshu was expelled from the temple for violating temple rules.
It can be said that this is a portrayal of his complicated and contradictory life. From then on, his life was no longer trapped by any order.
The lonely early life created a strange and lonely person.
Su Manshu
Su Manshu has been a versatile talent since childhood. He is good at poetry, good at painting, and is fluent in English, Japanese and Sanskrit. His paintings have an extraordinary style and profound artistic conception, and even Liu Yaziye praised them as "a masterpiece of a thousand years".
His poems are full of lingering twists and turns. Some are filled with the helplessness of self-harm and life experience, while others are filled with feelings of family and country. Among them, the one that Lao Wang admires the most is undoubtedly the Qijue given to Chen Duxiu:
Qi Kuo, don’t ask about your life and death, but a lonely monk walking in the clouds and flowing water.
Laughing wildly for no reason, crying for no reason, even if there is joy, the intestines are as cold as ice.
Later, when Su Manshu was engaged in anti-Qing activities in Japan, he often felt sad about the broken rivers and mountains of his motherland, so he wrote:
When the spring rain returns to Zhejiang, when the eight feet of the building are swaying, spring will return. ?
No one recognizes the broken mango shoes, which bridge of plum blossoms should I cross?
The thoughts of the homeland and the feeling of wandering are completely intertwined, which is reminiscent of Li Shangyin's "Jin Se".
Compared with his poetry, novels are Su Manshu's best literary style. It can be said that it was he who pioneered the modern romantic novels in China. His writings always carry a sentimental and tragic feeling, and the protagonists are often contradictory: for example, Saburo in his autobiographical work "The Story of Broken Hong Ling Yan" has an independent and unruly personality, deviating from the traditional intellectuals. Concepts and moral choices. Like Saburo, the protagonists in "The Story of a Broken Dream", "The Story of a Non-Dream", and "The Story of the Burning Sword" are unwilling to betray their own souls.
Su Manshu was also a translator. He was the first person to translate the poems of Byron and Shelley into China, which provided a model for literati at that time to learn to write vernacular poetry. Su Manshu is also a monk with profound Buddhist knowledge and the author of "Sanskrit Classic" and so on.
He is famous throughout the country and has friends with famous people, but he still believes that he is just a lonely wanderer.
If Byron is Su Manshu’s idol, then Li Shutong is his colleague.
The two have very similar life experiences, as well as indistinguishable achievements, and even their experiences are very similar.
However, these two extremely talented geniuses escaped into Buddhism and converted to the Qingdeng Ancient Buddha during the best years of their lives.
In 1907, Li Shutong was deeply moved after reading "The Story of the Wild Goose" in Shanghai.
When he learned that the author was 4 years younger than himself, he became even more impressed.
After Su Manshu became a monk, Li Shutong also had this idea in his mind.
On the 17th day after Su Manshu's death, Li Shutong also felt that "the world's fate was over" and decided to become a monk in Hangzhou.
02 Love Monk Su Manshu
Su Manshu is best known to the world as his Love Monk. His life was as short as a meteor, but he had relationships with several women. Experiencing emotional entanglements.
When he was 13 years old, Su Manshu learned English from the Spanish Dr. Luo Bi Zhuang Xiang in Shanghai.
Zhuang Xiang’s daughter Xuehong is similar in age to Su. He also thought about betrothing his daughter to him, but the foreign-related marriage finally came to nothing.
In 1899, when Su was studying in Yokohama, Japan, he fell in love at first sight with Kawai-sen's niece Kikuko in the hometown of his adoptive mother Kawai-sen.
The two fell in love and began to exchange letters.
However, this relationship was strongly opposed by the Su family.
Juzi’s parents were furious and beat their daughter in public.
As a result, that night, the woman jumped into the sea and died in love.
From then on, Su Manshu lost all hope. After returning to Guangzhou, he became a monk and went to Pujian Temple.
In order to escape love, he vowed to go to India, the hometown of Buddha, to drink the water of the Ganges River.
While passing through Ceylon, he could not help but fall in love with the Chinese woman Peishan, and felt that his six roots were impure and ashamed of the Buddha. As a result, he gave up halfway and returned home quietly.
In 1909, he met the koto-playing girl Momosuke at a small concert in Tokyo, and the two hit it off.
But at this time, Manshu had already ended the mortal relationship and had no sympathy with each other, so she could only write a love poem with tears:
Return to Qing with a bowl of heartless tears, wishing we could meet again without having shaved off her hair. hour.
The name of the Love Monk has been passed down ever since.
There was a time when Hehexian tried his best to bring Manshu into marriage with his cousin Jingzi.
However, Manshu had escaped into Buddhism at this time. He decided to cut off the love with his sword and left Jingzi a farewell letter.
Soon after, the infatuated Jingzi fell into depression and became ill, and eventually passed away.
A deep sense of guilt and irresolvable sadness weighed on Su Manshu's heart, and he began to engage in entertainment to vent his inner pain.
One time, he said to his lover Hua Xuenan:
"Sexual desire is the ultimate in love" - ??only love without chaos can keep this love forever, no matter how far apart we are. Guan Shan, his love will never change; once a physical relationship occurs, love will eventually fade away. Therefore, "I don't want to seek physical happiness at the expense of spiritual love."
In mid-December 1913, even when Su Manshu was seriously ill, he still wrote to his friend Liu San in China in Tokyo, asking his confidante to take care of him:
"Fragrant grass. At the end of the world, travelers are like dreams, under the cold plum blossoms, the new moon is like smoke. I don’t know Liu San on the sea, but are you willing to protect the flowers for me?”
For Su Manshu, love is never the goal. , but just a spiritual experience throughout the life process.
Color is emptiness, this is a famous saying of Buddhism.
But he took it to the extreme:
Once, Su Manshu met an American woman on the street. This woman was extremely fat and weighed about 400 kilograms. Su Manshu asked her: "Are you looking for a partner? I'm afraid it's difficult to find a man with the same weight as you!" The woman replied: "So I want to find someone thinner." Su Manshu blurted out: "I am thin. , How about being your partner?" The woman couldn't help but turn around and leave.
Among the three famous monks of the Republic of China, the Eight-fingered Toutuo cultivated the great virtues of the Ming Dynasty, and Master Hongyi eventually became a great master. Only Su Manshu was accompanied by wine, meat, and fireworks until his death. It was also destined that he would never be able to achieve great enlightenment and could only He is a wandering traveler.
03 Revolutionary Monk Su Manshu
Perhaps many people would not have thought that Su Manshu, the seemingly romantic lover monk, also had a strong sense of patriotism.
When Su Manshu was at Datong School, the Qing government was extremely corrupt, which eventually led to the Eight-Power Allied Forces acting wantonly in China.
Later, when he traveled to Japan, he still paid attention to the domestic situation, and his patriotism and concern for the people became even stronger.
After graduation, he went to Waseda University in Tokyo, where he was introduced to join the Youth Association, a patriotic organization established by Chen Duxiu, Jiang Baili and others.
In the spring of 1903, Su Manshu transferred to Chengcheng Military Academy. In order to meet the needs of the revolution, he studied the army and became his alumni with Cai E. At the Chengcheng Military Academy, he danced with swords and guns every day just to keep fit. However, the patriots lost their way back home, and the warriors had no way to return their favor. Su Manshu's passion was not cold. He used his pen as a gun under Sun Yat-sen and Huang Xing, and became the famous "Revolutionary Monk" and "Binghuo Tutuo".
On New Year's Day of the lunar calendar in 1907, Su Manshu went to Japan again. This time, he and Zhang Taiyan lived together in the "Min Bao" office in Tokyo, and published many paintings in the art page of "Min Bao" supplement "Tian Tao", satirizing the corrupt Qing government at that time. He also co-founded the magazine "New Life" with Lu Xun and others, but failed.
In August of that year, Su Manshu suddenly left Japan and returned to China. He was full of desire for the early success of the revolution. However, seeing that the armed uprisings were suppressed and failed, and batches of revolutionary heroes died heroically, he changed again. He became increasingly depressed and eventually returned to Buddhism.
04 Sugar Monk Su Manshu
Su Manshu has been a legend throughout his life and also has eccentricities. He likes to visit brothels, drink wine, and taste all kinds of delicious food.
After Su Manshu arrived in Shanghai, he often went to famous restaurants such as "Jiang Nanchun", "Haiguochun" and "Jiajia Chun" to enjoy flower wine.
He often invites guests, but sometimes he doesn’t know many people, so he invites people and then invites friends. A banquet will be held when guests arrive, and they will disperse as soon as the banquet is over. They will not exchange names with the guests or say polite words, which is surprising.
One time, a friend told Su Manshu during a chat that a new batch of foreign spiced beef had arrived in Shanghai. Put it together with Luzon cigarettes in the art editing room upstairs for him to taste when he has time.
When Su Manshu heard this, he immediately dropped the calligraphy and painting in his hand, jumped in three steps at a time and then took two steps to get it and enjoy it.
Another time, Liu Yazi gave him 20 taro cakes for him to enjoy. Unexpectedly, he ate them all that night. As a result, he had a stomachache the next day and couldn't get up.
Su Manshu knew that eating too much was harmful to the body, but he still accepted all kinds of delicacies according to the order, claiming:
Wine and meat passed through the intestines, and the Buddha sat in his heart. If he does not eat, he will not eat in vain.
When he was studying in Japan, Su Manshu especially liked to drink ice water. He drank five or six kilograms of ice water a day, which made him lie in bed unable to move. Others thought he was dead. A classmate boldly touched his nose and realized that this guy was not dead yet.
Compared to other delicacies, Su Manshu’s greed for sweets is unprecedented.
He developed the habit of eating candies and sweets very early. When he was in Suzhou, a wine seller saw him eating 30 packs of halva at once and thought he was crazy.
When traveling in Southeast Asia, he ate fifty or sixty sweet fruits every day. As a result, he suffered from gastroenteritis and almost died in a foreign country.
The thing that fascinates him the most is a foreign candy called Malden, which is said to be the style of the heroine of "La Traviata". He admires La Traviata and even loves the house and black to the extent that he buys three of them whenever he gets royalties. Four bottles of Maldon to enjoy.
One time, he wanted to eat Maldon very much, but he had no money, so he had to wander around outside the candy store.
Suddenly, he remembered that he still had a treasure with him, so he took out the dentures from his mouth without hesitation, and took the bloody body to the pawn shop to exchange money for candy?