In this holy book of Buddhism, which is partly in the form of a debate with Mañjuśrī (the Bodhisattva of Wisdom), a lay person, Vimalakīrti, expounds the doctrine of Śūnyatā, or emptiness, to an assembly which includes arhats and bodhisattvas, and then culminates with the wordless teaching of silence. He chose the courtesy name Mojie, signing his works Wang Weimojie because Wei-mo-Jie ( 維摩詰) was a reference to Vimalakirti, the central figure of the Buddhist sutra by that name. His family name is Wang, and his given name is Wei. Wang Wei spent ten years studying with Chán master Daoguang. Eventually, he became a devout Zen Buddhist and a vegetarian. He furthermore had a successful career as a court official. His musical talents were regarded very highly, although nothing survives of his music except reports. Of his paintings, no authenticated specimens survive, although there is evidence of his work through influences on later paintings and descriptive accounts of his paintings. These were first collected and originally edited into a corpus by his next-youngest brother, Wang Jin, by imperial command. Wang Wei is especially known as a poet and painter of nature. Many of his best poems were inspired by the local landscape.

Many of his poems survive and 29 of them are included in the 18th-century anthology Three Hundred Tang Poems. He is regarded as one of the most famous men of arts and letters of his era.

Wang Wei (699–759) was a Chinese musician, painter, poet, and politician of the middle Tang dynasty. Each poem was originally accompanied by one (not translated here) by Wang Wei's friend, Pei Di.Wang's name in Traditional (top) and Simplified (bottom) Chinese characters The following works are from the 'Wang Stream Collection', a series of quatrains describing sites on Wang Wei's estate. Seeing Off Yuan the Second on a Mission to Anxi His works often take a Buddhist perspective, combining an attention to the beauties of nature with an awareness of sensory illusion.Įach poem indexed below appears in characters, pinyin, English gloss and translation alternatively, the English translations are collected on one page here. Wang Wei was a painter, calligrapher and musician as well as being one of the greatest High Tang poets.

Wang wei poems in chinese