The Tendency Of Religious Secularization In The Wei, Jin, Southern And Northern Dynasties

The mystery novels were popular in the Wei Jin Dynasties and the Southern and Northern Dynasties with quite a number of outstanding productions. Not only the tradition that Chinese people believe in witchcraft and ghost contributes this, but also religion is another important factor guiding the mystery novels to develop. There has been many treatise studding on the impacts of the religion on mystery novels. On the basis that the religion is always facing the secular society, as the religion had been becoming more and more widely in Wei Jin Dynasties and the Southern and Northern Dynasties and constantly mingling with the secular society, it was obviously manifested that the mystery novels were prone to secular. That's what to demonstrate in my graduation thesis. This thesis is divided into three parts:The first part testifies the performance of secularization of the religion. The reason why both Taoism and Buddhism became secularly was that they aimed to propagate and promote themselves for people. More specifically, there is a difference between them as they have the different doctrines. Taoism worships immortals, so the stories of cavern-describing, elixir-refining and disaster-eliminating had shown an aim of praising immortals. Buddhism worships Buddha, so the stories about Buddhist power, karma and inferno had shown an aim of praising Buddha. In addition to doctrines, some historic stories, legends and folkways also show religious secularization. The religious consciousness has permeated these novels.The second part analyzes the reason why the religion became secularly in mystery novels. First, dominators supported the religion and the ruled adore it. The Wei Jin Dynasties and the Southern and Northern Dynasties were unstable so the religion was faced with many difficulties as it spread. As a consequence, they need dominators' support. The religion could control the people's consciousness and govern the nation for dominators; both sides coincide with each other, which paved the way for religion spreading. People felt tired for the war and the depressed economy; they had to put religion as spiritual sustenance. With this mass base, the religion would be more secularly. Second, no matter whether Taoist and Buddhist lived in secular society or the nobility and literati made friends with them, all that made the connection between religion and earthliness closer. Moreover, traditional Confucianism is another factor. Confucianism proposes that people should move step towards the society and assist dominators; this idea has a profound impact on Taoism and Buddhism.The third part expounds the artistic expression of religious secularization in mystery novels. Although not as good as Tangchuanqi and novels of the Ming, Qing Dynasties, mystery novels in Wei Jin Dynasties and the Southern and Northern Dynasties are not being noted simply. A plenty of them has shown a mature technique. It seemed too boring if authors introduced the doctrines only. So that the doctrines showed in the mystery novels with making up plots which contain reality and fiction and shaping the secularly and religiously mixed characters could be more easily accepted by the readers. Furthermore, amending historical books was a popular work at Wei Jin Dynasties and the Southern and Northern Dynasties and literati consider it is important. Therefore, the mystery novels which depend on historical books were influenced by this phenomenon. Certainly, the authors also imitated historical books to prove the facticity of religious stories so that religion can gain more believers.