Research On Temples And Temples In Han Dynasty

As a kind of sacrificial places,temples have a long history in China,archaeological findings have proved that temples had existed in prehistorical period.After Xia Dynasty and Shang Dynasty,temples developed well in West Zhou Dynasty,the sacrificial system,which was written in The Book of Rites,showed West Zhou Dynasty had a complete sacrificial system.After Tang Dynasty,Song Dynasty,Ming Dynasty and Qing Dynasty,temples are still existed in China.Temples' steady existing in Chinese civilization reveal their importance in changed history.Han Dynasty is a very important period in Chinese history,it inherited a united nation from Qin Dynasty and continued to consolidated this new country.Han Dynasty influenced China and her people deeply through political,economical and cultural designing measures.Meanwhile,Han Dynasty is an important period for temples'development,Not only Han Dynasty's temples inherited the new characteristic and tendency of Pre-Qin period,but also their own characteristic appeared gradually,for example,there were no temples that were built for alive person in Han Dynasty.A lot of temples were recorded in Shi Ji,Han Shu,Hou Han Shu,Shui Jing Zhu,then,Han Shu and Shui Jing Zhu had the largest number of temples in this four historical books.These temples'building time is from Shang Dynasty to Wei,Jin,the Southern and Northern Dynasties,while more than half of temples were built in Han Dynasty.From the respect of temples' location,it is obviously that many temples were located in the capital area because of this area's advantageous political,economical and cultural resources.Probably,the statistics were restricted by the limited recording of historical books,it goes without saying that what happened near the capital were more easily written by historians than other area.Temples of Han Dynasty had different sacrificial purpose,some were built for ancestor,some were built for Buddhism or Taoism,etc.Different temples have different functions,their primary function is to meet people's needs of sacrificing,at the same time,temples' educational function will be displayed very well.people build temples in order to express their respectful emotion,then,many kinds of temples in Han Dynasty could reflect the diversity of people's belief.From emperors to common people,they built temples in order to abide by filial piety and sacrifice to the mountains,rivers,wind,thunder,this complex historical phenomenon is based the different religious belief.