Kumārajīva and his doubles. Academic perspectives and the Chan literary transposition by the Taiwanese novelist Liang Hanyi

The novelist Liang Hanyi 梁寒衣 (1959-) was born in Taiwan in a family of Hakka descent; an engaged Buddhist, she makes use of a wide repertoire of Buddhist images in her writing – her late production in novels, short stories and tales is influenced by the literature and culture of the Chan tradition. This study examines Liang Hanyi’s short story Zai Fotuo de jianbei shang 在佛陀的肩背上 “On the shoulders of the Buddha”, inspired by the Buddhist legend of the monk Kumārayāṇa – father of the renown monk-translator Kumārajīva –, whom allegedly brought the first statue of the Buddha to China. The figures of Kumārayāṇa and Kumārajīva become the starting point to explore the concept of duplicity, a subject very close to Liang Hanyi, as a literary topic and in a religious perspective, as the conflict between ordained and secular life.