The Carnal Prayer Mat by Yu Li

Vesperus’ masculine beauty is a central theme in Li Yu’s moral comedy, The Carnal Prayer Mat. What’s more, his life trajectory parallels non-Mahayana Indic accounts of Siddhartha’s path to enlightenment, particularly on the emphasis placed on descriptions of both men’s physical perfection and their subsequent sexual appetite and prowess. Both Vesperus’ and Siddhartha’s masculine beauty propels them forward on their life paths, positioning them in the simultaneously instructive and destructive feminine sphere of the inner quarter. The wealth of sexual experiences gives both men the necessary insight for their critical realization of the superficiality and emptiness of a life guided by carnal desires and sexual pursuits of women. As a result, masculine beauty becomes a critical component in and indication of a man’s ultimate karmic destiny in The Carnal Prayer 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 physical 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 Siddhartha’s parallel life journeys, particularly with respect to experiences i...

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...on for all human beings: “Desire is almost as defiling as the act itself, however….Desire, in the form of love (raga, a word meaning color, but also lewdness, concupiscence, lust, attraction), is therefore one of the ‘three poisons’ that pollute and maintain human existence” (Faure 17). Thus his experiences within “inner quarters,” defined by his desire for beautiful women that spark sexual excess that simultaneously affirm his virile masculinity, are fundamental components in his journeys to enlightenment.

Works Cited

Faure, 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 Body in Indian Buddhism. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009.