A Study On Relation Between The Emperors And Religions In Liu Song Dynasty

Religion is closely related with politics,which also pays attention to the life of the human.The emperor was the highest representative in politics in the highly centralized autocratic monarchy system of ancient China, and also was the one who deepest experienced the fatelessness and capriciousness of the life in the alternately frequent change of dynasties and the imperial power. Then,the emperor of ancient China can be considered as a point of penetration for our study of the relations between religion and politics and relations between religion and the life.As the first dynasty of the Southern Dynasties, Liu Song Dynasty was right the epoch when religions began flourishing and inperial politics re-established with the end of the rule of influential families in the history of ancient China.Therefore, the study on the relations between the emperors and religions in Liu Song Dynasty was a typical exemplification.Since Emperor Wu of Song, most of the emperors in Liu Song Dynasty took the policy of supporting and making use of Buddhism, such as inviting and showing kindness and patronage to famous monks and nuns, building temples and casting Buddhist statues, setting up bodhimandala and holding observances,inviting monks to preach Buddhist Scripture,ordering the royal young generation to associate with prestigious monks and nuns, contacting and communicating with states that venerating Buddhism,and so on.In addition, their making use of Buddhism was aimed to apotheosize the imperial power and to bless their rule.Especially the emperors who established the dynasty and who got to the throne in an unusual way,drew the support of Buddhist prophecy, propitious omens and auguries to prove the sacred and the legitimacy of the regime, proclaiming their virtue and morality and stablizing their political rule.What’s more, Buddhist factors’permeation in the traditional political etiquette was an important feature concerning the combination of Buddhism and Politics of this period. Nevertheless, the support policy of Liu Song emperors didn’t mean blindly connivance. Instead,the empeors timely implemented some corresponding control measures under the principle that Buddhism was not allowed to infringe on political rule,such as imposing restrictions on the building of temples, pagodas and statues, winnowing out misbehaving monks and nuns,holding on the power of allowing to take the tonsure, appointing monk officials, preventing monks and nuns from intervening military and political affairs,and so on. It was just these measures that gave the Buddhism comparatively effctive guidence and management, thus avoiding suffering the persecution fate which was happened in the north due to its excessively unhealthy development.From all above,we can say that the enperors of Liu Song Dynasty basically maintained the continuity and stability of the policy on Buddhism,which promoted the healthy development of Buddhism.With regard to their own religious beliefs, the emperors were inevitably affected by the thoughts of Karma and transmigration which were widely publicized by Buddhism,as a result of which they built temples and statues,provided fast for monks and nuns and did some other kinds of Buddhist activities.What they did were just to pray to Buddha for blessing,so their beliefs were strongly utilitarian.Liu Song royal family was a family worshiping Celestial Master Taoism for generations,thus saturated deeply by the belief, which was an impotant factor affecting the affinal and politically and militarily affined combination of Liu Song royal family. However, the Celestial Master Taoism belief displayed its obedience to politics at the beginning of the establishment of Liu Song, which went through Liu Yu(Emperor Wu of Song)’s military activities suppressing the movement leaded by Sun En, Lu Xun and Huan Xuan,who were also disciples of Celestial Master Taoism.After the heavy blow, Celestial Master Taoism chose to regroup itself, start afresh and actively carry out self-adjustment to change its former image of rebellion and then seek asylum from the new regime. So they pandered to political authority, showed loyalty to the new regime,and did other things like this.With the rectifications and reforms of different sects of Taoism,the ruler of Liu Song Dynasty began to take opportune measures such as giving courteous reception to and befriending with Taoists. When it came to the reign of Emperor Ming, the emperor greeted the Taoists from different places, built temples for them, appointed masters of the temples, and even acknowledged the Taoists as his master or teacher. All of these was a good policy guidance which was mostly followed by his successors. It is noteworthy that some of emperors of Liu Song Dynasty showed solicitude for the collection of scriptures of different sects of Taosim, which was of great significance to the development of each sects and the formation of the unified Taoism. The Taoists convened by the emperors were mostly of noble and unsullied character, having a wide range of knowledge of Confucianism, Metaphysics, Buddhism and Taoism, so the emperors’veneration policy on them were not only helpful to form simple social atmosphere and refine the custom, but also conducive to promote internal communication of Taosim, the preaching of its teachings, debation between Taosim and Buddism, and then academic contending and prosperity. From the above, we can see that Liu Song emperors’policy on Taoism was closely related to the development of Taoism. It should be noted that if there were people concocting plots and intervening in politics by means of Taoist magic arts,Liu Song emperors would resolutely strike hard and show no mercy.What’s more,they even used the behavior of concocting plots by means of Taoist magic arts as an excuse to clear political dissidents. Concerning the personal beliefs, the fact was that the emperors often took advantage of Taoist magic arts and rituals to seek benefits for their own lives and their daily life. Both the Taoist arts such as bedroom arts on coition, alchemy and thoughts of ascending to heaven and becoming immortal had made significant impacts on the beliefs of the emperors.Liu Song emperors’attitude toward supernatural witchcrafts, miscellaneous temple sacrifices and other kinds of folk beliefs like this differed at different times. The founding emperor Liu Yu seized the throne depending on his military power, so he believed in his own strength and strategy rather than witches,ghosts and deities,which led to the fact that he issued a decree of prohibiting miscellaneous illegal temple sacrifices as soon as he ascended the throne.However, Liu Yu didn’t exclude taking advantage of them politically and militarily,and he even used them as an important means to guide the customs and assit the indoctrination.All of this reflected his utilitarian attitude toward folk beliefs. Liu Yu’s successor, Emperor Wen,an emperor arousing all his efforts to make the country prosperous,was supposed to inherit Liu Yu’s related policy,and cherished a deep-seated hatred in particular for witchcrafts such as cursing by means of witch doll.Unluckily,he finally died to some exent due to his ineffective prohibition on witchcrafts.Since Emperor XiaoWu publically abolished Emperor Wu’s prohibition on miscellaneous illegal temple sacrifices and recognize their legitimacy,the successors all showed their extreme worship toward witchcrafts and things like that. So we can see the fact that they respected and believed in witches,feared the ghosts haunting and causing troubles, abused some kind of cursing witchcraft called yasheng, worshiped and showed cult to various deities, had deep faith in astrology,and so on. Of particular note is the emperors’worship and belief in Jiang God and Suhou God. The emperors not only rebuilt temples for them,but also raised their official ranks,all of which were to some extent closely related to the domestic and international situation,and also were the emperors’making use of the witchcrafts to prevent the alien and eliminate the political dissidents.Although Emperor XiaoWu and emperors after him in Liu Song Dynasty were obsessed with witchcrafts, astrology,and things of this kind,they strictly prevented the imperial clansman and courtiers from taking advantage of them,and resolutely punished and forbided the behavior of colluding with witches and ploting rebellion by means of astrology, witchcrafts, prophecy and things of this kind.Things such as witchcrafts and divination not only can be used for political purposes for the emperors,but also can be used to satisfy the emperors’private desire and their court life,which were the reason why they were popular with Emperor XiaoWu and emperors after him.Above all, Liu Song emperors’policy on religions was taking advantage of religions for military and political purposes,providing support and promotion, giving guidance in regard to ideology and organization, and implementing management and control over the system and scale.Religions became an significant factor to mke the culture prosperous in Liu Song Dynasty,and Liu Song emperors’policy on religions became an important part of their cultural policy.Saturated in the religious atmosphere and driven by their private desires, Liu Song emperors unavoidably had no immunity for religons and religious beliefs, showing strongly diversification and utilitarian features in their personal faith.Liu Song emperors’policies and relative measures on religions inherited those of East Jin Dynasty to some extent, on the basis of which gained new development and innovation in the new situation. All of these set a good example for the later dynasties such as Qi Dynasty, Liang Dynasty and Chen Dynasty, and became an important reference for later dynasties to deal with religious issues, serving as a link between the past and the future with important historical significance.