The Stone Carvings Of Lingyan Temple And The History It Reflects

Lingyan temple is located in the Lingyan Mountain,which is in the east of Wande Town,Changqing County,Jinan City of Shandong province.Founded in the Eastern Jin Dynasty,Lingyan temple has a history of more than one thousand years.During thousands of years,monks,local officials and scholars left a lot of stone inscriptions in the temple.Most of the stone inscriptions record the course of constructing the buildings of Lingyan temple,eulogize the beautiful scenery of Lingyan temple and write down the life stories of the monks in the temple.They involve the managerial system,economy and culture of Lingyan temple.Regarding the stone inscriptions as the main historical data,this paper explores the grass-roots monkofficial system,abbot system,economy and other related problems of Lingyan temple.The paper is mainly divided into the following four parts.First,mainly explores the time and space distribution of the inscriptions and classifies the inscriptions according to their shape and content.We can make the following conclusions.According to the quantity of inscriptions,the bigger are the Song Dynasty and the Ming Dynasty.According to the shape and structure,these inscriptions are divided into three types:stone tablets,epigraph,cliffs,stone statues and so on.In accordance with the contents,these inscriptions can be divided into tribute inscriptions,mourn monument,poetry essay monument,stone and other subcategories.Secondly,discusses the system of monastic officials of the central and local government from the Jin Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty.The paper uses the inscriptions to analyze the system of monastic officials at the grass-roots level and the presidential succession system in Lingyan Temple.Then we can make the following understanding.In the early Tang Dynasty,Lingyan temple implemented the three-class system.The positional titles are sizhu,seat of honor,weina.After the middle of Tang Dynasty,the management system changes gradually into two series of jungle.This two series of jungle system has been implemented in the Song and Yuan Dynasties;The presidential succession system can be divided into two parts: Jiayi Buddistist Temple System in Tang Dynasty and Shifang Buddistist Temple System in the Northern Song Dynasty to the late Qing Dynasty.Lingyan Temple has begun to change into a general Shifang Temple in the Northern Song Dynasty Xining Two years ago or earlier.Lingyan Temple carried out Shifang Buddistist Temple System granted by the imperial in Xining Three years.Again,using the inscription materials focuses on revenue and expenditure of the Lingyan Temple.Basically we can come to the following views.The source of its economic income is extensive,such as the operation of land,handicrafts,commerce,hotels,and almgiving.Itsexpenditure is huge,such as daily living consumption,production,religious activities and consumption on maintenance of temple buildings,reception consumption and social charity.In particular,the expenses on constructing and repairing buildings is the most.At last,The paper mainly sorts out the eminent monk who made a greater contribution to the development of Lingyan Temple.According to the inscription materials,we can have the following understanding.Fa Ding master,the patriarch of Lingyan temple,set up Lingyan temple at first,which did spade work for the brilliant achievement of Lingyan temple.In the Northern Song Dynasty,Ren Qin master carried forward the religious doctrine of Yunmen faction in the Lingyan temple.Miao Kong master constructed the cemetery for Lingyan monks by collecting donations.In Yuan Dynasty,Su Gong master is an important descendant of Cao Dong faction.He is also the first monastery who spread Cao Dong faction in Lingyan temple.Under the guidance of the Zang Chan Master,Zen people drink tea to refresh.People around the race follow suit,then tea has gradually become a northern customs.