Scholar-bureaucrats With Taoist School And Taoism In North-Song Dynasty

Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism were paid equal attention to in the North Song Dynasty. The scholar-bureaucrats respected Confucianism and Buddhism. And at the same time, they pursued and adored Taoist school and Taoism. The scholar-bureaucrats affiliated with the Taoist priests continually. They asked them about medicine, the ways of preserving their health and fortunes. They engaged in the Taoist sacrificial rites and regimen practices. They recommended the Taoist priests to the court, impetrated the status for them and write the inscriptions for them. They drank and indited, played musical instrument and drew pictures and strolled together. Especially when the scholar-bureaucrats were dismissed from their offices or detracted from their degrees, their many relatives and friends left them, but the Taoist priests ran true to form to getting along well with them and gave them warm and thought. So this kind of fellowship boosted the development and spread of Taoism's ideas.When the scholar-bureaucrats accepted the Taoist priests' secret recipes and theugies, they were also affected by their philosophy, world view, political thoughts and ghosts and gods ideas. So they came into being the characters of content, broad-minded, eremitic, dim, utility, selfishness, conservative and superstition. And the Taoism's ideas were also affected the politics, economy, military and diplomatism of the North Song Dynasty.Taoist school and Taoism's ideas were an encyclopedical system and have self-contradictory content. So every one of the scholar-bureaucrats had their own thoughts or different thoughts on the Taoist school and Taoism's ideas. Some of them thought much of inaction, some appreciated the regimen and some were infatuated with the sacrificial rites and superstition about ghosts and gods. That is to say, they did get the different influences from the Taoist school and Taoism's ideas. And the influences both are positive and negative. So the research about the relationship between the scholar-bureaucrats and Taoist school and Taoism can offer a new angle of view for us to understand the history of the North Song Dynasty.