Khitan Dynasty Through The View Of Chinese Culture Zone

The concept of Chinese Culture Zone,(also named the Chinese Character Zone and the Confucianism literary circle)is normally founded on the books which study the countries greatly influenced by Chinese culture such as DPRK,Vietnam,South Korea and Singapore.But when we trace back to the history,the concept is also appropriate for the study of Khitan,Jurchen,Mongol and Manchuria which have already joined the Chinese nation today.Thus,the passage will take the Liao Dynasty that was established by the minority race as an example,to analysis Chinese influence from four aspects on language,Confucianism,world order and funeral customs.Chapter one is about the Chinese language and character's influence on the Khitan dynasty.The first part will introduce the source of the Khitan and Xi.Through the information of archaeology,literature and anthropology,we can trust that Khitan people are the descendant of Xianbei.Then the passage will analysis the relationship among the Khitan language,the Turkic language,the language of Xianbei,the Chinese,the Jurchen language and the language of Shiwei.And discuss the create of Khitan characters and its influence to the Jurchen characters.The second part will introduce the use of Khitan language and character on palaces,sacrifices,military,diplomacy,funeral and other situations.Although the Chinese language and character are the main language and character of the Khitans,their own language and character were always used in such situations like military and sacrifice.The third part will introduce the bilinguals(i.e those who can both use Chinese and Khitan)during the era of Khitan,the number of the Khitan dynasty's bilinguals were more than their counterparts worked for the ruling dynasties in the Central Plains during the existence of the Khitan Dynasty from 10th-12 th century.Chapter two is about the Confucianism's influence on the Khitan dynasty.The first part will briefly introduce the Confucianism's influence on the Khitan before they established the dynasty based on analyze the spread of the Confucianism's Classics,we can assure that although Confucianism had spread to the Khitan territory on that time,only a few noble and domesticated Khitan people knew Confucianism.When the Liao dynasty was established,the Confucianism's thirteen Classics had widely spread to Khitan,more and more Khitans received education of Confucianism,but different Classics had different position due to variants of reasons.The second part will introduce the Confucianism's political and economic thoughts' influence to the Khitans.Such political thoughts like honoring men of virtue and talent,carrying out benevolent governance,observing the astronomical phenomena had been accepted and extended by the rural family,while economical thoughts like agricultural development had also been emphasized by the Khitan,they even carried out popularization of agricultural-techniques on those places not suitable for farming only to clarify their attitude of agricultural development.The third part will introduce the Confucianism's social and religion thoughts' influence to the Khitans.Such social thoughts like loyalty and final piety which were benefit to maintain the social order and keep the state stability had been supported by the royal family,while due to the Buddhism first policy,the Confucianism's religion thoughts were not very popular among the Khitan nobles besides those concerned about the forbidden of the heretical thoughts.Chapter three is about Chinese world order thoughts' influence on the Khitan dynasty.The first part is about the change of the Khitan people's perspective on China and orthodox,different from the general awareness,the passage think that the two thoughts have changed dramatically during the history.Meanwhile,this change experienced an unsynchronized course.The second part introduce about the diplomatic tumult between Song dynasty and Khitan,the two countries' relationship had gone through from war to peace,and on the aspect of soft power,no one was totally in a weak position.The third part introduce the tribute system of the Khitan,the Khitan had accomplished from the tribute payer to the tribute receiver from the era of Wei,jin,the North and South dynasties to the Liao dynasty.Among all the tribute countries,Korean kingdom and Western Xia(Tangut)Dynasty were the most important countries.Different from the virtue title policy carried out by ruling dynasties in the Central Plains,the Khitans considered more about practical,they use variant methods to treat different tribute states in order to realize their world order.Chapter four is about Chinese funeral customs' influence on the Khitan Dynasty.The first part introduce the change of the Khitan people's funeral customs,at first,they do not own any kinds of Chinese funeral customs,they started to use coffin or to bury the dead on the stone room on the era of Tang dynasty.Then after the Liao dynasty was established,the Khitans began to learn the Chinese funeral customs.The second part introduce the Chinese funeral customs' influence on the royal family and the noble.To the royal family,they had formed some regulations after Emperor Shenzong's reign(983-1031),it is important to note that most regulations can also be founded on the funeral of the Tang dynasty's emperors,the Khitans just simplified all the procedures.To the noble,the contemporaneous Chinese people's concept of divining the location of the coffin burial and extended the time of burying can also be founded on their epitaphs.The third part will introduce the standard of the Chinese epitaphs' influence on the Khitans.The thirteen basic elements(i.e.Name,courtesy name,surname,hometown,national origin,achievements,curriculum vitae,date of death,age,wife,children,buried date and buried location)of epitaphs,which formed during the Tang dynasty,can also be seen on Khitan people's epitaphs.They even changed some elements such as hometown flexibly in order to suit their attribution of nomadic tribes.At the same time,the Khitans also carry forward the tradition which was created during the era of Tang to describe the owner of the epitaphs in vivid details.Chapter five will give a conclusion of the passage.