Studies On The Paranormal Animals In The Tang And Song Dynasties

The Tang and Song dynasties were the great transformation stage in ancient Chinese society,in which the politics,economy,culture and so on had experienced a series of profound changes.Based on the supernatural phenomena of animals in the Tang and Song dynasties,this paper puts paranormal animals in the field of ideology and culture and combines the concept of supernatural animal with the social environment in which civilians lived,and the Chinese ancient comments on the paranormal animals to the forming process of society,politics and ideas to have a deep understanding on the extent and depth of the Tang and Song Dynasties Reforms in the grass-root society.At the same time,with the supernatural records written by ordinary people,this paper analyzes the different lifestyle and pursuit of people living in different social environment in the Tang and Song Dynasties.The supernatural animals in the Tang Dynasty was roughly divided into six categories such as auspicious,catastrophic,divined,retributive,mixed and general common ones.Compared with the before Wei and Jin dynasties,the views of supernatural animals in the Tang Dynasty had evolved,especially the fox,tigers,snakes,lions and so on,both for the influence of traditional ideology and culture and the development of unique zeitgeist in the Tang Dynasty.The Song Dynasty were almost four supernatural animals in the Song Dynasty including the divined,retributive,signal,and human virtual ones.The specific examples of supernatural animals of the Song Dynasty was a little similar to the Tang Dynasty,but the records of the two dynasty diverged a lot.Since the Song Dynasty,the idea of Fox,dragon,tiger,and turtle changed a lot because of the Buddhism secularization and the rational spirits after the development of Neo-Confucianism.The third part analyzed the reason that why people thought of supernatural animals differently in different period,respectively from the ideological lives of intellectual stratum,the control power of upper rulers toward the below civilians,the influence of Confucianism,Buddhism and Taoism,the influence of the Neo-Confucianism,and the influence of the idea that all foreigners are enemies and country standard.On one hand,it discusses the function of paranormal animals and regards the civilian view of paranormal animals in the Tang and Song Dynasties as a part of its cultural system,analyzing the relationship with other system at the same time.On the other hand,it concludes the social reformative problem represented by the inherence and evolution of paranormal animals in the Tang and Song Dynasties.However,when we study the history,we can not only focus on the form changes of the subject,but also the consistent influence behind the historical morphology in a deep way.So this paper also stresses the changes and steadiness of the supernatural world and the other aspects of the Tang and Song Dynasties.