Festival Customs Of Four Seasons In The Temples Of Dunhuang From Tang To The Early Song Dynasty

From the angle of four seasons, this paper reveals celebrating forms about festivals in the temples of Dunhuang, through discussing representative festivals and festival activities .Thus we can acknowledge the life of the Buddhist monks and nuns, Buddhist culture and the unique distinctive festival culture in the temples of Dunhuang. In the same time, it describes the festival's function, character and certain effects for social stability. This paper is composed of three parts:Part I: Introduction, here mainly introduce the reasons of selecting this topic, significance of research, and status of academic research in this thesis, etc.Part II: Discuss festival activities of four seasons in the temples of Dunhuang. Talk beginning with the origin of each festival, this paper describes festival contents and celebrating forms, such as diet, burning lamp, performing music, setting the Dojo, etc. And talk about the official and public participation in the festival activities.Part III: Describe festival features in the temples of Dunhuang. Firstly elaborate that festivals are characteristic of secularity and repeatability. In addition, some festival contents and forms in the Dunhuang temples are the same with those of the Central Plains region. At last, draw a conclusion that festival customs of four seasons in the Dunhuang temples are seasonal, etc. These festivals all have some certain social functions, and can enrich the social life.