What kind of cultural background do I need to have under my belt to fully understand 天龙八部？

[黄有光]

One of my longer-term goals is to read 天龙八部. From reading the wikipedia article, it seems that this book is very deeply steeped in Chinese culture (duh), history (duh), and Buddhism. But beyond the very vague and the very obvious, what do I need to be familiar with to fully understand the cultural baggage associated with this great work of literature?

 

Any suggestions for recommended reading (e.g. nonfiction, or fiction if any works of fiction are referenced in 天龙八部) would be very welcome. Or just specific topics I should read up on (specific events in Chinese history, specific mythological figures, specific people from history, geography of specific areas, etc).

[imron]

Read 金庸 in the order they were written, and by the time you get to 天龙八部 you’ll have a good understanding of things. 
 

Wikipedia also states

 

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 The novel is primarily set in the Northern Song dynasty (960–1127) of China, but its setting also covers the non-Han empires of Liao, Dali, Western Xia and Tibet.

So brushing up on that part of history might help. Personally I found that reading 金庸 was a good way to get a surface level understanding of various parts of Chinese history. 

 

[laowai-guide]

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it seems that this book is very deeply steeped in Chinese culture (duh), history (duh), and Buddhism.

 

I can't recommend what you should read before those novels, but I can recommend a resource that should be helpful while you're reading them: the Dictionary of Chinese Buddhist Terms. It's available as an add-on for Pleco. As a disclaimer, I've never used it myself, but I've heard good things about it.

 

Have you read very many 武侠 novels before? I've read the first book of 金庸's 射雕英雄传, and the martial arts terms really threw me for a loop. What really helped was getting an English copy of the same book and referring to it whenever I got confused about the name of a move or something like that. There are also tv show adaptations of the series, and it can be extremely helpful to watch along as I'm reading. I think there's a show for 天龙八部 also, so you could do the same.