On Buddhist Temple Prose In Northern Song Dynasty

Buddhism has a wide range of impact in the Northern Song Dynasty, including politic, economic and culture. As a mirror which reflects all aspects of society, literature also records the influence of Buddhism at that time. In ancient literature concept, prose is the first, second poem. ci. qu,novel. What’s more, prose in the Song dynasty achieves prosperity. Prose of Song dynasty has a more thorough and comprehensive display of Buddhism, such as Buddhism in the Song dynasty Buddhist ritual, the monks, temple nunnery and samara management system,etc.There are so many prose about Buddhism, and in these prose, Buddhist temple prose are the most valuable. This paper focuses on temple prose in the Northern Song Dynasty. The northern song dynasty lasted for 167 years, during these years the monks and literati collaborated more than 1200 Buddhist prose. These Buddhist temple prose shows a lot of things:including nature landscape, deep friendship between monks and literati, or good virtue of monks, those prose have great literary aesthetic value. Many of those Buddhist temple prose in Northern song dynasty can be masterpiece in song dynasty’s prose. What’s more, the Northern Song Dynasty’s Buddhist temple-prose reflect lot’s of important phenomenon, such as the relationship between the politics and Buddhism, the Buddhism status of the northern song dynasty, characteristics and functions of the northern song dynasty Buddhist temple, and Buddhism’s effect toward people’s mind and lifestyle. Those things are clearly demonstrated in the Northern Song Dynasty’s Buddhist temple prose.It is a pity that the study of the song dynasty prose compared with brother category-the song poetry and song ci, is quite weak. At present academic study on the latter is deep and comprehensive. But the study of the song dynasty prose still stay on the ancient prose. Even the study of song dynasty’s ancient prose, also rarely involve Buddhist temple prose. Many of Northern Song Dynasty’s Buddhist temple prose belong to rhythmical prose which is rarely mentioned in the study of song dynasty’s prose. So the study of Northern Song Dynasty’s Buddhist temple-prose is valuable for filling the blank of song dynasty’s prose research.This article is divided into six chapters. The first chapter describes the era, ideological background of northern song dynasty’s Buddhist temple-prose. The second chapter discusses the song dynasty’s Buddhist temple. The last four chapters focus on Northern Song Dynasty’s Buddhist temple-prose.This paper has a quite close relationship with Buddhism and politic,so the first chapter is used to explain Buddhism and politics’ effect toward northern song dynasty’s Buddhist temple-prose. The last chapter mainly focus on Buddhist temple and northern song dynasty’s Buddhist temple-prose. Using Buddhist temple-prose to support this paper’s viewpoint, and promoting this research gradually from the surface to the deep is this paper’s overall writing method.The first chapter discusses the cultural environment of northern song dynasty’s Buddhist temple prose. This chapter focuses on three problems:the relationship between Buddhism and politic, the basic situation of northern song dynasty’s Buddhism, and the Secularization of Buddhism in the Northern Song Dynasty. This chapter first clarify the essence of the relationship between Buddhism and politic, they actually need each other badly. In order to reveal the basic situation of northern song dynasty’s Buddhism, this section focus on three questions:song dynasty people ’s understanding of the Buddhism origins; Buddhism rheological in northern song dynasty and northern song people’s understanding on why Buddhism is so prevail. All of the discussions are based on northern song dynasty’s Buddhist temple-prose. In order to reveal the Secularization of Buddhism in the Northern Song Dynasty, the third section of this chapter focus on four aspects. The doctrine level of Buddhism: from the spiritual kernel to religious cuts. Management level:obey regime’s control. Economic level:agriculture tends to decline and industry and commerce tend to be active. Culture level:merge into folk customs. And all examples are from Buddhist temple prose.The second chapter focus on Buddhist temple’s religious function and its weaken t tendency, mainly discusses four questions:the name of song dynasty’s Buddhist temple, the number of Buddhist monasteries and people living there who ·is called monks and nuns, the management mechanism in which regime controls temple, and the constitution of song dynasty’s temple.The first section discusses all kinds of names of northern song dynasty’s Buddhist temples, pays special attention to the name of "Yuan", explains when and how "Yuan" is used on calling Buddhist temples. The second section discusses the number of temples and monks, and explains the reason that leads to the high growth in numbers. The third section discusses regime’s control toward Buddhist temples. Regime’s control is mainly showed in three aspects: Buddhist temple’s name should be given by government; the election of the abbot is decided by the government; and the accordance of purple clothes is also decided by the government. The forth section discusses the constitution of northern song dynasty’s Buddhist temples. At this time, Buddhist temples are constructed by merit Buddhist temple、Buddhist shrine. Buddhist nunnery.Chapter three discusses the formation and style of the northern song dynasty’s Buddhist temple prose, this chapter is mainly composed of the Buddhist temple gravity, the gravitational pull of Buddhist temples, the Buddhist temple-prose of Ji style, the Buddhist temple-prose of Bei style, the Buddhist temple-prose of Ming. Zhen、Zan、Song style, the Buddhist temple-prose of Fu、Xu、inscription style. The intimate interaction between monks and scholars which is based on Buddhist temples’ powerful gravitational, led to the high growth of Buddhist temple prose. The formation of the Buddhist temples’gravity mainly depends on the monks who do their best to abstract literati in such aspects as talent, the truth, character. The northern song dynasty’s Buddhist temple prose is very numerous, its style is also quite complicated. Each kind of style are discussed in this chapter,of all these style, the Buddhist temple-prose of Ji style and the Buddhist temple-prose of Bei style are the most the most prominent.The fourth chapter discusses the world of Buddhist temple in the northern song dynasty prose. This chapter focuses on revealing the life in Buddhist temples. Temple buildings, landscapes, banquet amusement, the miraculous deeds, sect of disadvantages, Shifang mechanism, big things of the state, friendship between monks and literati,all those things above are displayed in northern song dynasty’s Buddhist temple prose. The first section focus on the overall architectural style of Buddhist temples and their representative architecture, such as Buddha hall, clock, the Tibetan dharma, and sangha, tower, etc. The second section focus on beautiful scenery in northern song dynasty’s Buddhist temple prose which highly adds to its literary value.The third section focus on induction avatar of Buddhist temples which makes the Buddhist temple prose different from other prose. The forth section focus on drawbacks inside Buddhism, all sorts of chaos is presented, and the reasons for this phenomenon are also mentioned. The fifth section focus on Buddhist temple’s management mechanism——Shifang mechanism, its advantage and disadvantage are also discussed. The sixth section shows the internal connection of monasteries and regime change.The fifth chapter discusses the scholars’Buddhist temple prose creation. According to the literati’s attitude toward the Buddha, they are divided into three camps:the anti-Buddhism literati, the pro-Buddhism literati and literati who are also Buddhist devotees. Buddhist temple-prose created by literati of the three camp are quite different. This chapter select different author’s reprehensive works to explain their differences. The fist section discusses anti-Buddhism literati’s Buddhist temple prose. The second section discusses the pro-Buddhism literati’s Buddhist temple prose. The third section discusses Yu Jing and Su Shi’s Buddhist temple prose. The fourth section discusses Zhang Shangying and Huang Tingjian’s Buddhist temple-prose. The fifth section discusses other people’s Buddhist temple-prose. All these authors above created the glory of song dynasty’s Buddhist temple prose.Chapter six discusses the monk’s Buddhist temple-prose, because it is at the end of the chapter, this chapter also includes some summary contents of the Buddhist temple prose of the northern song dynasty. The first section focus on Qi Song’s Buddhist temple-prose. The second section focus on Yuan Zhao’s Buddhist temple-prose. The third section focus on Hui Hong’s Buddhist temple-prose. The three monks’Buddhist temple prose is very reprehensive, with one tends to Confucian, one tends to Buddhism, one tends to literature. The fourth section discusses the comparison between the monks and literati’s Buddhist temple-prose. The fifth section discusses the value of the northern song dynasty Buddhist temple prose. The northern song dynasty Buddhist temple prose not only has important status in song dynasty’s prose, but also occupy the top place in ancient Chinese Buddhist temple prose.