A Study On The Snake And Snake Belief In Ancient Sketchbooks Of Song Dynasty

The snake worship in ancient times belonged to the ordinary people's belief in God. It greatly enriches people's spiritual life and has a long history, which is from Snake totem worship in ancient times to today 's Snake Belief in some areas. Before Song Dynasty, the snake and dragon faith belief had a close relationship between each other and the development of the snake worship had been restricted to some extent.Song Dynasty was the peak of the snake faith development. The Ancient Sketchbooks of Song Dynasty recorded many snake stories, which showed the image of the snake in the eyes of the Song and the Song ideas serpent faith from different aspects. First, in the eyes of the Song, snakes had different sizes, colors and shapes,which showed the Song mysterious Cosmic Nature. Second, there are man—snake intermetallic form in the Song faith, showing both the worship and fears of snakes.Third, in the opinion of the Song, there were good and evil serpent, which may brought two different effects to human life: Good who brought clouds and rain may help navigation, filial piety,good and evil; evil may produce natural disasters, disease and murder sacrifice to devils and so on. The Song' attitudes to fortunes of parallel snake reflecedt the characteristics of seeking advantages and avoiding disadvantages.Snake faith in Song Dynasty embodied in that the snake temples spreaded throughout North and South: Northern region like Gyeonggiroad, West Jing Road areas, Jingdong Road, Hebei Road, Yongxing Road and Qinfeng, in the south including Guannan two-way, the southern two-way, Liangzhe Road,Huainan Road, Jinghu Road, Zizhou Road, Kuizhou Road and Fujian Road areas.Song Dynasty's developed snake faith also reflected in the gift of court of the Temple and the Temple of God Conferring. And government's approval made a considerable part of the snake temples become the country Code temple. Especially the South West Wu Shiroyama Dragon Temple, it was repeatedly benefitted by the court and it becomed a representative of the snake temple.Taoist temple shrines of the snake were common in The Ancient Sketchbooks of Song Dynasty, reflecting the feature of coexistence between the Snake Song and other religious beliefs including Buddhism. On one hand, Sketchbooks snake story, the scene snake as his Spirit and God often appeared, while the snake made of the scene will appear Taoism figure.On the other hand, snake shrines and temples are often built next to the Taoist, and are even being built in the temple,not a separate temple.Furthermore, snake shrines and temples are often built next to the Taoist, and are even being built in the temple, not a separate temple.The snake warship was prosperous and its function increased during song dynasty. It had a close relationship with civilians' daily life. However it did not form a unified, nationwide snake belief and temple belief, which is associated with different natural environment, different social attitudes towards the snake and regional characteristics of folk religion in the north and the south in the Song Dynasty.