Study On The Famous Families In Dunhuang And Their Family Tradition During Sixteen States And Northern Dynasties

When the five northern minorities disordered in Central China, Hexi area made a huge contribution to preserve and continue central plains culture. During the period, the academic center transferred from school to the family, so the family played an important role on the preservation and perpetuation of culture. The subjective factor which has important influence on the continuation of family development is family tradition. Generally speaking, the family tradition is clans’ spirit and culture, the keynote and shade of clans’ culture. It is stable, handed down from generation to generation. The Sixteen States and Northern Dynasties is the period when famous families’ transition was developing. After the development from the Western Han dynasty to the Western Jin dynasty, the family tradition which have certain characters has taken shape in this period. This tradition is important to the clans’ development in Sui and Tang Dynasties.This paper selects famous families in Dunhuang and their family tradition in Sixteen States and Northern Dynasties as the research objects, traces the history of their development and generalizes its characters, focuses on development and family tradition of famous families in Dunhuang in Sixteen States and Northern Dynasties, and analysis the factors which affected their family tradition.The families, such as Suo, Zhang, Fan,and Linghu migrated into Dunhuang in the later Western Han Dynasty, became famous families gradually in the Eastern Han in the way of making contributions in West Region and into the career by classical studies, and advanced academically in Wei and Western Jin. In this process, characters which are different with the families in central plain area shew out, namely growing later but quicker and advocating Confucianism and military force. In Sixteen States and Northern Dynasties, Dunhuang was under the jurisdiction of five regimes,Former Liang, Former Qin, Later Liang, Western Liang and Northern Liang.The famous families kept cooperation with each regime, occupied prestigious positions, and had influence on politics. After the demise of the Northern Liang, they participated in the Northern Dynasties, and continued to play a role in the political arena. Meanwhile, they got married between family and family, to make themselves stronger and get more benefits. Family tradition is very important to the families development, the paper discusses their family tradition. In this period, the family tradition of famous families in Dunhuang is advocating Confucianism, Family-oriented, both civil and military and having faith in Buddhism. This paper analysis the factors which affected their family tradition from geography, politics, economy, religion and so on.