Research On The Thought Of Karma In Lifetime In Ming Dynasty

There are a tradition of long standing and abundant significance in the conception of Karma, thus retribution for virtues and sins. In Song Dynasty, it had been a universal accepted thought penetrated in all societies during the permeation and harmonization of the Three Religions. Books established on the thought such as Persuasion to Good had been becoming the important sources of moral education, and moreover the idea of Karma of three generation had gradually transformed to the idea of Karma in lifetime. In Ming Dynasty, the Karma thought turned out to be more Confucian, deprived of its original religious meaning because of the changes of the times, and to concentrate on the goods of lifetime.The dissertation has the Ming Dynasty as its time axis and has the thought of Karma in lifetime as its object to preliminarily and tentatively analyze the origin, the development, the spread and the effect on society of the thought. In the introduction, the selection of the subject and the retrospection of the research history have been given a brief explanation.The main body of the dissertation has four chapters. The first one analyzes the origin of the Karma thought, and reaches to the conclusion that the transition from three-generation Karma thought to the Karma in lifetime occurs only under the influence of the combination of three religions and by Confucians’integration of former similar thoughts.The second chapter discusses the trend of the transition in Karma thought. We acquire the features of Karma thought by explaining the Yuan Huang’s doctrine. The concentration in Karma thought changed from religious, after-death aspect that man must enjoy the fruit of his virtues in the world to come, to worldly, lifetime aspect that man can cherish his virtues and seize the opportunity and hold his own fate. Since the foundation of Karma thought in Yuan Huang’s doctrine met with the ways of Confucian introspection moral training, the Karma thought in lifetime got its support from the School of Taizhou, and was turned down and met with opposition from the conservatives, such as School of DongLin, because of its feature in benefits-gaining and the confusion of Confucian and Buddhism.The third chapter gives a detailed account of the background in politics, economic circumstance and the universal trend of thought. Some noteworthy changes in Ming Dynasty were thus, in political domain, the Emperor propagated Confucian thoughts to the people of a lower social grade by establish of moral education; in economic field, people all catered for the material gain and utility since commodity economy developed; in the world of thought, the School of Taizhou, who was the successor of the great thinker Wang Yangming, considered peoples’ everyday activity as a form of Tao, so effectively approving the pursues of material goods.The forth chapter focuses on the influence of the thought on the society in Ming Dynasty. The penetration of the thought in all grades of society resulted in the style of utility in people’s virtue activity and everyday life.The final section of the dissertation is the conclusion, summing up all these above-mentioned discussions. The thought of Karma in lifetime was the consequence of combination of former Karma thoughts in three religions and the leading factor in Confucian’s creating a prosperous and peaceful world, thus also the outcome of pursuing the happiness in lifetime.