A Research On The Religious Life Of The Urban Residents Of Tang Dynasty: The Focus On Buddhism

The rulers of the Tang Dynasty made open ethical and religious policy in the case of political stability and economical prosperity. Various ideology and culture swarmed into the Empire. The religious culture spread widely especially in the city of the Empire. So the religious life of the Urban Residents showed colorful.This paper consists of Introduction, Chapter One to Five and Summary. Introduction mainly describes the motivation of the author to start this research work, the status of relevant academic research at home and abroad, the use of the material and the research method, the basic framework, the terminology and the interpretation of the related issue. Summery overviews the whole article and comes to the conclusions.Chapter One introduces the general situation of the managemeng on religion affairs that Tang government took effective measures. In the use of initiate material and related research results,we make a study of three aspects how Tang government changed Religious Affairs Agencies,controlled priestess amount and limited the number of temples, according to the needs of different Times and different political situation.Chapter Two mainly investigates the religious emotion and experience of the Urban Residents in the large and public religious activities. Three parts are included: First,Tang government held large public religious activities,such as three religions debating drastically the Court in the early and discussion in the middle and latter in the celebration activities; Tang Empires held several activities of Fogu of Famen Temple; Xuanzang was welcomed wonnly as coming back from India and was held grand funeral rites when he passed away; Second, the government and religious groups held religious ritual; Third, religious activities in the festivals. The above activites stimulated the strong religious emotion and profound experience to Urban Residents.Chapter Three studies the religious lives of the different social groups in the city. The priestess still continued to be in contact with their secular family. Some literati entered into religion,while some priestess gave up and returned secular family. Buddhist offered to Industrial and Commercial Staff for the road to employment and had an affect on their employment professional ethics and social norms. The engraving Buddhist scriptures in You Zhou Region reflected the collective religious activities of them. The motive of the Generals and Socials in the army was to seek psychological comfort and spiritual and to solve the actual problems. The vast majority of them had general knowledge to Buddhism.Chapter Four investigates in the use of epitaph records that Religion had great influence on individual life including birth,aged,illness and death. In particular Religion affected Chinese traditional funeral custom such as the layman dying in temples,the complex of beliefs and funeral method. The chapter analyzes in details how Religion had impacted on the Tang people in the diffent stage.Chapter Five probes into specific areas and cities that the centre rules of Changan City and Luoyang City, Bashu Area having a long history traditional Taoism and else Folk beliefs, the southeast coast open port city—Yangzhou City. On account of special social groups, the religious life of the capital of Empire showed distinctive and complex. The Chinese people of native mainly believed in Buddhism and Taoism. The foreigners from Western Regions, West Asia and Central Asia believed in the western religions such as Nestorian, Zoroastrianism, Manicheism and Islam. The struggle of Buddhism and Taoism in Bashu Area had greatly intensified in the Tang Dynasty since Southern and Northern Dynasties began. But Buddhism was slightly dominant. During the peried of Emperor Tang Xuanzong he strongly supported Taoism, and Buddhism and Taoism showed the mutual infiltration trend. In Mid—Late Tang, the three religious had formed coexistence. In Yang zhou Area, facilitate the traffic and superior Location religious offered a wide range of a large space for the religious and cultural exchanges. Buddhists maintain close contact with mainland and overseas. Taoists acted in Yangzhou City and the Holy Land of Mao Mountain. In local Islamism came from Hu merchant of Arab and Persian Empire. According to Archaeological information, Islamism had a certain scale. The chapter tried to display a comprehensive picture of the common and distinctive characteristics.To sum up, in open and liberal religious policy under the control of the Tang government, we investigates the religious life of the Tang people from the perspective of the large open religious activities, different social groups, individual life and different areas. We learn that the religious life of the Tang people showed complexity, diversity and modern features, in three kinds of forces: Monarchical Power, religious own development and traditional awareness of the concept three kinds of forces. We hope to show a colorful picture of religious life of the Tang people objectively, truely and stereoscopic perspectively in the Prism perspective methods.