On The Issues Of Social Relief In The Tang Dynasty

The Tang dynasty is the boom in feudalism society of China, which is known for prosperous national strengthen, political stability, rapid economic and cultural development and relatively sound system. In the aspect of social relief, there is also a set of system and guarantee measures. This thesis mainly discusses a few important issues on the social assistance of the Tang Dynasty.The first part mainly discusses social relief agencies and institutions of the Tang dynasty. The Tang dynasty social relief ranges from the official relief policy to charity of religious groups or folk groups, which play a positive role to reduce social unrest and ease social contradictions. Two aspects of the government policy are discussed which are the storage system and the famine. In order to better implement the rescue, the Tang government further improves the setting of agencies, and pays great attention to the mutual cooperation between them, which plays an important role in disaster prevention and mitigation and social assistance. In the folk, there are Buddhist and other religious groups’charities and the spontaneous formation of self-help and mutual help organizations. Religious charitable activities are very active in the Tang dynasty, which is given priority to Buddhism. The greatest invention is the establishment and perfecting of bingfang, which are modified into control by the government. It not only occupies an important position in the history of social relief in the tang dynasty, but also is absorbed by the latter dynasties. The folk spontaneous organizations are mainly communities formed by the junction of voluntary rural residents. They are mature organizations with their own mode and management system. The perfection of civil relief agencies provides the basis for civil relief and make up for the deficiency of the official aid. Therefore the civil relief agencies are very important.The second part analyzes the object of social relief in the Tang dynasty. More than the former generations, the relief objects include not only the poor, senior, disabled people, but also a special identity and status of the crowd included such as bureaucratic, soldiers, students. In view of the different people, there are different remedies. For the senior, sick, disabled people, they do not pay tax and have shiding. For the disabled people, they are graded with three levels and get different assistance. For poor officials and soldiers, in addition to focus on bureaucrats and soldiers, but also to take care of their families. And assistance for students is mainly reflected in free accommodation and the attention on the construction and management of the school.The third part summarizes the characteristics and functions of social relief in Tang dynasty. Compared with the previous dynasties, the social relief in Tang Dynasty has been further improved, showing features of gradually institutionalized and legalized. The government pays more attention to unite the folk strength and complete rescue facilities, and relief ways also show the trend of diversification. The implementation of the social assistance of the Tang Dynasty exerts effective influence to ease class contradictions, the prosperity of social economy and stable social order. In addition, the establishment and perfection of the modern social security system also plays a certain reference role.In a word, the Tang dynasty’s social relief, whether institutions set up and run, or famine relief ways, is worth learning and using for reference. Researching and summarizing the experience of the social relief in the Tang dynasty help us deeper understand the reason of the development of social and economic prosperity in the tang dynasty, but also the current relief activities. What is more important, it provides the beneficial reference for our country’s current social security enterprise.