The Study On The Belief Of The City God And The City God's Temple: 1101-1644

The city god was one of the most influential gods to the official and plebs since the Ming Dynasty.At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty,the Emperor Hong Wu(洪武) modified the system of ceremony,the city-gods were apotheosized the king,duke,marquess and comte,then compartmentalized the differente grades of the different city gods.the court ordered to build the temples in the cities all over the country.The belief of the city god was in the bloom of the development. Generally,It was one of measures that the governments controlled the grass roots by intervening the folk religion,the Emperor HongWu's measure just accounted for this intention.This paper reviews the general picture of the city god's belief from the end of North Song ( 1101,A.D ) to the Ming Dynasty,thereout,we can analyze the policies and measures that the governments managed the folk religion,also,we can find out the interaction between the civil society and the government.The paper discussed the question in following four parts.The first part, as summary,took the belief of the General Liu (刘猛将军) as a example to show the interaction between the folk religion and the national power. The second part focused on the question that the government presented the ranks of nobility to the city gods and the titles to the temples during the Song Dynasty to make out the government's attitude to the city gods.Another,focousesd on the phenomena of the city gods' anthropomorphize to discuss the special social background during South Song period.The third part discused three questions: the capital city god became the protective god of the Yuan ;the conditions of the belief in civil society inYuan Dynasty;the relation between Dao( 道教 )and the belief.The last part discused the changes of the belief from the beginning to the mid period of the Ming Dynasty and the condition of the city god's temple fair.