| This dissertation does a comprehensive research on Buddhism in Tang and Song Dynasties according to the study on Dunhuang prayer manuscripts. Dunhuang prayer manuscripts is a kind of practical writing once was quiet popular in Dunhuang district to express people' s religious and mundane wishes such as exorcising evils, praying for blessings and eulogies, and it is the most abundant literature materials for Chinese prayers in mediaeval times. Because of its large quantity and diversity, it is a good reflection on the social Buddhism belief of that time, and has a high research value. The dissertation has 5 Chapters excluding preface and epilogue.Chapter one gives a general introduction on Dunhuang prayer manuscripts. It tells the spread of Buddhism in Dunhuang district and this is the background of the popular of Dunhuang prayer manuscripts. For the lacking of literature materials, it is very difficult to define the exact beginning time of those prayer manuscripts, but we could know that the prayer manuscripts came into being with the coming in of Buddhism and it was the direct reflection of Buddhism in common people, therefore it formed during the period of Wei, Jin, Northern and Southern Dynasties and flourished at Tang Dynasty, Five Dynasties, and the early days of Song Dynarty. This chapter then makes a research on the definition, classification, framework, author and prayer of Dunhuang prayer manuscripts.Chapter two makes a research on the detailed contents of Dunhuang Prayer manuscripts. Dunhuang prayer manuscripts recorded things for which prayers were pursuing and longing, that is, their purpose and wanted reward. One part of these miscellaneous contents used Buddhism terms and the other part were mundane wishes with nothing connected with Buddhism. Each prayer manuscript includes both Buddhism and mundane wishes. Most of the prayer manuscripts were stereotyped, and there were not the whole and real ideas of prayers, but part of them tells the true belief, so let us exploring the thoughts and inner world of people of those past times from this special angle.Chapter three tells the main gods in Dunhuang prayer manuscripts in order to obtain some important information about Buddhism belief among common people. In this academia field, there are abundant fruits of study on Bodhisattvas that were popular in Dunhuang district. This chapter makesa statistic and analysis on 400 pieces of prayer manuscripts, the purpose is to find out the Buddha and Bodhisattvas whom people had faith in and worshiped. In details, Sakyamuni, Maitreya, Amitabha, Kwan-yin were very popular worshiped, the Sea Dragon King, Pishamensha, Lu Xin were broadly admired, and then there were also some belief in medical Bodhisattva, Bodhisattva Manjusri, the newly arisen Di Zang etc. This chapter studies on 5 kinds of Bodhisattvas, thus to get a deeper understanding on people' s thoughts, life and cultural life at that time.Chapter four studies on the purposes of prayers. Mainly seeing about for whom they were praying for, what' s they were caring for, and what' s the different? The dissertation assorts the purposes in Dunhuang prayer manuscripts in 3 catalogues: praying for family, for country, for society. Each kind of purpose is detailedly analyzed and compared.Chapter five penetrates into common people' s religious characteristics which Dunhuang prayer manuscripts reflected. From Dunhuang prayer manuscripts we could see 2 main points: one is the harmonization of Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism; the other is the practicality belief. This implies that emphasis on Buddhism belief among common people is not on theoretics but on practical religion, and what they really wanted is peace and happy in real life, the understanding on ideological level of Buddhism is vague and weak, most of them just regarded the Buddhism as a kind of tool and method to get the peace and happy. |
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