The Carnal Prayer Mat by Yu Li Essay -- The Carnal Prayer Mat

Vesperus male beauty is a interchange theme in Li Yus moral comedy, The Carnal orison Mat. Whats more, his life trajectory parallels non-Mahayana Indic accounts of Siddharthas path to enlighten workforcet, particularly on the emphasis p fastened on descriptions of both mens strong-arm perfection and their subsequent knowledgeable appetite and prowess. Both Vesperus and Siddharthas manlike beauty propels them forward on their life paths, positioning them in the concurrently instructive and destructive feminine sphere of the inner quarter. The wealth of intimate experiences gives both men the necessary insight for their critical realization of the shallowness and emptiness of a life guided by carnal desires and sexual pursuits of women. As a result, masculine beauty becomes a critical particle in and indication of a mans ultimate karmic requirement in The Carnal appeal Mat. Beautiful women consequently are positioned as Vesperus sexually instructive tools and immoral opponents . Their further importance as sites of masculine karmic retribution speaks to the degree to which the novel works within a Buddhist framework of gender dichotomies. Ultimately, The Carnal Prayer Mat places beautiful men in a privileged position destined to enlightenment, as their fleshly perfection affords them access to the critical sexual experiences and lifestyles that they must reject in order attain enlightenment. While The Carnal Prayer Mat is laced with Confucian, Daoist, and Buddhist doctrine, this paper aims to understand Buddhist concepts of destiny, karma, and enlightenment through an analysis of representations of masculine ideal beauty in late Imperial China. Vesperus and Siddharthas parallel life journeys, particularly with respect to experiences i... ...on for all human beings longing is almost as defiling as the act itself, however.Desire, in the line of love (raga, a word meaning color, but also lewdness, concupiscence, lust, attraction), is wherefore one of t he three poisons that pollute and maintain human existence (Faure 17). so his experiences within inner quarters, defined by his desire for beautiful women that move sexual excess that simultaneously affirm his virile masculinity, are extreme components in his journeys to enlightenment.Works CitedFaure, Bernard. The Red Thread Buddhist Approaches to Sexulity. Princeton Princeton University Press, 1998. Li, Yu. The Carnal Prayer Mat. Honolulu University of Hawaii Press, 1990. Powers, John. A Bull of a Man Images of Masculinity, Sex, and the carcass in Indian Buddhism. Cambridge Harvard University Press, 2009.