《紅樓夢》長期被視為三教交涉的典型文本，但在具體闡釋上，學界往往更傾向於以佛教「色空」與「度脫」來統攝其思想結構。此一路徑固然揭示了作品的重要宗教面向，卻也容易將小說中的「幻」直接等同於佛教「空」，從而遮蔽其更深層的道家思想脈絡。本文結合思想史分析、概念比較與文本細讀指出：道家之「幻」主要指向存在的流變性、主體的不穩定性以及真偽關係的相對性；佛教之「空」則以緣起、無自性與破除執著為中心，並最終通向解脫實踐。回到《紅樓夢》文本內部，開篇石頭神話、甄士隱夢遊、太虛幻境、判詞系統、「假作真時真亦假」以及賈寶玉與通靈寶玉的關係，都表明「幻」首先是一種結構性的敘事原則與認識論裝置，而非單純的宗教結論。佛教語彙與空觀意識固然在小說中廣泛存在，但更接近一種滲透性的終極解釋框架；就文本運行邏輯而言，《紅樓夢》的「幻」更接近莊子式的夢醒難分、物我互化與有無流轉。由此可見，《紅樓夢》並非一個無差別的佛道融合文本，而更適宜被理解為「道家主導、佛教滲透」的複合思想結構。

This article argues that “illusion” in Hongloumeng should not be reduced to Buddhist emptiness. Although Buddhist notions of emptiness, karmic retribution, and salvation are indispensable to the novel, they fail to fully account for the novel’s underlying narrative logic. Combining conceptual comparison, intellectual history, and close reading, this study distinguishes Daoist “illusion” from Buddhist “emptiness” not merely at the level of doctrine but in terms of ontological instability, epistemic orientation, and textual function. In Daoist thought, especially in the Zhuangzi, illusion is bound up with transformation, perspectival instability, and the fluidity of truth and falsity; in Buddhist thought, emptiness centers on dependent origination, non-self-nature, and the removal of attachment, ultimately pointing toward liberation. Read from this perspective, the mythic prologue, Zhen Shiyin’s dream, the Land of Illusion, the system of prophecies, the line “when false is taken for true, true becomes false,” and the relation between Jia Baoyu and the jade all suggest that “illusion” in Hongloumeng functions primarily as a structural narrative principle and an epistemological device rather than as a straightforward doctrinal statement. At the same time, Buddhism remains crucial to the novel’s moral and eschatological horizon, especially in its language of disenchantment, karmic consequence, and ultimate withdrawal. Even so, a predominantly Buddhist model leaves several major textual phenomena insufficiently explained, including the novel’s investment in perspectival shifts, symbolic differentiation, and unstable modes of being. Hongloumeng should therefore be understood not as an undifferentiated synthesis of Buddhism and Daoism, but as a composite text marked by a form of relative Daoist structural dominance and Buddhist permeation.

No new data were created or analyzed in this study. All materials are based on published texts and publicly available sources.