A Study Of Dongyue Belief In Northwest China

Dong yue faith is referring to the belief of Dong-yue Taishan. Dong-yue faith was first derived from the ancient belief mountain worship, which has been two thousand years of history. Northwest area is thousands of miles away from Tarzan, but Dongyue faith had been accepted by the people who lived in Northwest area during the Qin and Han dynasty. Dong yue belief has deep local characteristics when inheritance and development in the Northwest Territories. The subject of my paper is also about the "features" of Dong yue faith in northwest region. The object of my article is Dong yue dadi which is represented in Dongyue faith. Bi-xia yuejun faith as the study subject isn’t concluded in my paper. My study was based on the official history, local history, and scholars’ notes which were about Dongyue faith in Northwest area, and then use historical geography, religion, sociology and other methods and theories to explore the Dong yue faith in Northwest Territories.This paper is divided into three parts:introduction, body and conclusion. My Introduction discussed the topic reason, significance of the topic, the scope of relevant research and academic history review article, research methods, and so on.The main text is divided into three chapters. The first chapter investigated the flow source of Dongyue faith in Northwest Territories. There was a turning point in the Song Dynasty and divided into two periods. Imperial and nobility Fengchan faith was the main faith and then supplemented by folk beliefs in early days. But later period converted into pure folk beliefs. The second chapter is illustrating the distribution of Dongyue faith in the northwest region and its transmission characteristics, and then analyzes related causes. From the local history records, the earliest Dongyue temple in Northwest region possibly built in the Tang Dynasty, and rose in Song dynasty, and achieved universal in Ming and Qin period especially in middle Qing dynasty. There are three distributions:one is spread from the mainland to the frontier; one is "Hold together" development, spread from Guanzhong areas; and the last one is distributed by the suburbs to the countryside. The social value of Dong yue faith have many aspects, such as values of "Spiritual", value of "Pray for rain", the cultural and educational value of "Guide people to perform good deeds" and value of "Carnival". Dongyue faith and heritage has been able to be based in the northwest region, not just one country is honored with the title, but on its inherent "usefulness" was able to survive. In the last part, analysis the innovation and shortcoming, and then summarizes the research significance.