Kang GuangLing—XuanKu

Kang GuangLing—XuanKu describes an unusual bond between the zither-playing Kang GuangLing and the Shaolin monk XuanKu: their affinity rested on Kang GuangLing’s music and XuanKu’s understanding of its Buddhist meaning. XuanKu’s death leaves Kang GuangLing mourning not only a friend, but the listener who had recognized what his music meant.

A Friendship Founded on Understanding

When Kang GuangLing arrives with his fellow disciples, he greets XuanNan and asks after XuanKu, recalling that he had met him several times and that their conversations had been especially congenial. He assumes XuanKu is still healthy. XuanNan instead tells him that XuanKu has died, betrayed by a treacherous disciple.

The news abruptly breaks the scene’s social composure. Kang GuangLing leaps into the air and cries; after landing, he sits down and drums the ground with his legs as he grieves. His reaction makes plain the force of his attachment, but his explanation soon reveals its particular basis: XuanKu had not merely been an acquaintance, but a rare companion able to receive his music as more than sound.

Music and Buddhist Meaning

Kang GuangLing recalls that many people had heard his composition “Peaceful PuAn in Sanskrit,” yet XuanKu alone had recognized its Buddhist roots and listened to it repeatedly. Kang GuangLing’s lament that playing for XuanNan would be like playing the zither to a cow is comic in its bluntness, but it clarifies the contrast he feels between an audience that hears and a listener who understands.

His grief also takes musical form. Kang GuangLing says he had worked hard to create a new piece, “Humming of A Reed,” for XuanKu, praising the Shaolin founder Master Damo’s legendary crossing of a river on a reed. He asks XuanNan to take him to XuanKu’s tomb so that he can play the composition there, imagining that it might ease the deceased monk’s spirit.

Loss and the Unfulfilled Tribute

XuanNan explains that XuanKu was cremated and reduced to ashes. Kang GuangLing immediately asks for those ashes, proposing to attach them to his zither with cowhide glue so that XuanKu could hear every song he played. The proposal turns bereavement into an eccentric, impossible attempt to keep their musical communion going.

The exchange establishes the limits imposed by death: Kang GuangLing has composed a tribute and wants to bring it to his friend, but arrives too late to perform it at a grave. His insistence that XuanKu remain present in the zither is at once playful and poignant, making the depth of their friendship legible through the very music that had joined them.