Study On Religious Tourism Of Datong Region In Liao-Jing Period

Since Shi Jingtang ceded 16 states to Liao, the Yun state was taken into Liao Dynasty. In 1044 B.C, Yun state was promoted as Xijing, named Datong, and then it had been alternate capital of Liao and Jin Dynasties for 190 years. During this period, the religious tourism has a very special characteristic.Firstly,the religious tourism resources of Liao and Jin's alternate capital, Xijing Datong, is very rich and various. According to the types of religion, tourism resources can be divided as Taoism and Buddhism tourist resources in main. The Buddhism tourist resources include such famous Buddhist Mountains as WuZhou Mountain and Heng shan Mountain, YunGang Grottoes, numbers of Buddhist temples and pagodas, etc. Taoism tourist resources include Hengshan Mountain and lots of daoist temples. According to the structure of religious culture, it can be divided into physical tourism resources, religious behavior of tourism resources and religious idea tourism resources. The physical tourism resources of Datong include all kinds of religious ruins, remains, temples, architecture, etc. The religious behavior of tourism resources includes hands-on religious ceremonies and festivals, just as Buddha's Birthday and the Hungry Ghost Festival, etc. And religious idea tourism resources are mainly embodied in the Buddhism sects; HuaYanZong, Zen and Pure Land Buddhism were very popular at that time in Liao and Jin Dynasties.Secondly, the abundant religious tourism resource of Xijing Datong, resulting in the period of this area is also very active religious tourism activities. In Liao and Jin Dynasties, the religious tourism activities mainly in three types: royal, scholars and followers. Royalty to the religious tourism activities is mainly for the emperor's inspection of local religious tourism landscape and ministers' delighted activities at stated Times. The scholars' religious tourism activities were sight-seeing and thrill-seek. Followers in the religious tourism activities of Datong is comparatively complex, they can be divided into religious believers and non-believers. Religious believers were basically religious activities, such as built statues in temples, built column, organized corporations and monks' travel, etc. Non-believers' religious tourism activities are mainly for local temples or predictions for visits and pray.There were two main reasons for the religious tourism features of Datong in Liao and Jin Dynasties: First, the Datong region has very impressive original religious tradition roots. That's a traditional source for the two dynasties, it laid a firm foundation for the development of religions in Liao and Jin Dynasties. Second, the religious policies towards Liao and Jin played a decisive role in the development of the religions. The support of government policies on religion or not, to a certain extent, affected the religious tourism of Xijing Datong.