Доклады Международного конгресса ИИСАА. Т. 1

III. Far East, South and South-East Asia / Дальний Восток, Южная и Юго-Восточная Азия Доклады Международного конгресса по источниковедению и историографии стран Азии и Африки. Т. 1. 2020 571 “Dispute of Tea and Wine” is a short and quite witty text consisting of 1035 characters 1 , written in the form of a dispute between the two sides about the role, functions and merits of each drink. The text contains a brief summary of this dispute, by a graceful third participant —Water, which brings the disputants together. In this work, we can distinguish three conventional parts: the introduction, the actual dialogue between the personified characters — Tea and Wine, and the con- clusion in the form of the final speech made by Water. Of course, the liveliest part of this work is the middle content; the dispute between Tea and Wine 2 , where both parties glorify their role in history, recall their achievements while at the same time belittle the opponent’s value in a verbal duel, at times in taunting and caustic terms. Tea andWine controvert among themselves, mainly in five aspects - about the place they occupy in history, about how great their role and influence is in general culture, their social functions, purpose and economic value. In this dispute, the arguments of each drink are vivid and convincing. Although a relative balance is achieved over the course of the five rounds of verbal duel, it is still possible to assume that, before the arrival of Water, based on logic, Tea is the ultimate victor. This seems far from accidental, since among the works of the Tang dynasty when Buddhism was experiencing its heyday, there were many references associated with praising tea as a drink, which was consumed by monks during meditation, as well as dispraising the act of wine drinking. Ancient rituals connected with the cult of ancestors and sacrificial rites dictated the choice of wine as a sacred drink, but with the spread of Buddhism, tea as an important element of Buddhist practices quickly gained recognition in various layers of society, becoming wine’s direct competitor. Therefore this contradiction is reflected within the issues discussed in “Dispute of Tea and Wine”, which is imbued with a rather strong Buddhist worldview. In this case, it is hardly worth talking about the diametrical opposites of the disputants: Taoist doctrines about a bipolar structure of the world are supposed to be embedded within the given conflict. With the third participant of the dispute — Water, which alleviates the hidden and obvious contradictions, a synthesis of two antitheses is achieved and with it, a long-awaited conclusion of harmony. The text, full of literary allusions and references to historical precedents, which testifies to the author’s undoubted erudition, is written with the use of rhyme and elements of the elegant pair style of rhythmic prose 駢文 pianwen , where the phrases of four and six characters play in pairs. 1 The actual text itself contains 988 characters. 2 The text gives no explanations about the exact kind of tea and wine being presented. It simply contains generalized images of two main characters.