A Study Of Quyang Beiyue Temple In Yuan Dynasty

Beiyue Temple is located in the southwest of Quyang county,Baoding City,Hebei Province,70 kilometers away from Hengshan mountain.Beiyue Temple is the state worship of the god of Hengshan mountain,but also the Taoist temple.It has a far-reaching influence.During the Yuan Dynasty,Beiyue sacrificial ceremony was very popular.As a national sacrificial ceremony,it had three forms:permanent sacrificial ceremony,Substituted sacrificial ceremony and special sacrificial ceremony.The Taoist coloring of Beiyue sacrifice is very strong.During the Yuan Dynasty,Taoists participated in sacrifices to the Beiyue and directly managed the Beiyue Temple.The god of Beiyue is enshrined in Beiyue Temple.This paper attempts to use the methods of history and philology,centering on the metal and stone inscriptions,supplemented by relevant records,to discuss the history of Beiyue Temple development,sacrifice and belief system of gods in Beiyue Temple.There are more than 100 inscriptions in Beiyue temple,including 12 inscriptions in Yuan Dynasty.The content involves the reconstruction and sacrifice of Beiyue temple in the past dynasties,which is a precious historical material for the study of Beiyue temple in Quyang.The inscriptions are also recorded in the two Quyang County annals.In the thirtieth year of Guangxu(1904),the rework of Quyang county annals was compiled with the new annals of Quyang county in the eleventh year of Kangxi(1672)as the base,which is complete in style,detailed in textural research and preserved a large number of precious historical materials of Beiyue Temple.The Beiyue Temple in Quyang was founded in the Han Dynasty.The existing Beiyue Temple in Quyang was founded during the Jingming(景明)and Zhengshi(正始)years(500-508)of Emperor Xuanwu(宣武)of the Northern Wei Dynasty.Tang and Song Dynasties have repeatedly repair,and form a scale.The Beiyue Temple was burned by the Qidan in the early Song Dynasty and rebuilt in the second year of Chunhua(淳化,991).In the early Yuan Dynasty,the temple was rebuilt on the basis of the remains of the Song Dynasty Temple.Since then,the Ming and Qing dynasties have been built for many times.But the main frame is basically retained.In the past dynasties,Beiyue temple was used for sacrifice.Beiyue sacrifice root in the mountains and rivers sacrifice,by means of burying gifts.During the period of the Han Dynasty,the sacrificial system was formed.When Emperor Xuandi(宣帝)of the Han Dynasty set up a ritual in the Beiyue Temple of Quyang,with three shrines for one prayer(一祷而三祠).In the Tang and Song dynasties,sacrifices were made on the day of Yingqi(迎气日).Following the Jin Dynasty,the Yuan Dynasty offered sacrifices to the Beiyue on the day of Tuwang(土王日)in October,and the permanent sacrifice were held by local officials.In addition,there were two forms of sacrifice in the Yuan dynasty,that is,the time of sacrifice,the subject and the gift of sacrifice were different because of the different forms of sacrifice.Beiyue belief is not only the god of mountains in the national ritual,but also the god of religion in Taoism.In the process of participating in the national sacrificial rites,Taoism tried to transform the Beiyue sacrificial rites with Taoist theories,which reached its peak in the Yuan Dynasty.In addition,before the Yuan Dynasty,there existed a regional folk belief in Hengshan mountain,--the belief of the Goddess(天仙圣母).After the Yuan Dynasty,the Belief of Pi-hsia Yuan-chun(碧霞元君)spread to North China and merged with the belief of Goddess.Its and Beiyue belief constitute the rich polytheistic belief system of Beiyue.