Draft on Buddhist Policies in the Song Dynasty (Series of Folk Culture Studies)

Author: Liu Changdong
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-07-01
Features: As for the overall research status of Buddhist history at present, the Song Dynasty Buddhism remains an area urgently needing strengthened research. Huang Xiannian, in administrative management several years ago, proposed the current research status of Buddhist history, suggesting that "the focus of Buddhist history research should be placed on the countermeasures after the Song Dynasty, and in recent years, he also said, 'The research of Buddhist history before the Sui and Tang dynasties has always been the main event of the 20th century, while the weakness lies in the Buddhist history after the Song Dynasty.'" This can be seen as the common sentiment of Buddhist history researchers. During the Song Dynasty, except for Emperor Huizong's temporary promotion of Taoism and suppression of Buddhism, the Song government generally supported the development of Buddhism, and the relationship between politics and religion was generally in a positive state. Under the new political and religious relationship, the implementation of the government's religious policies and the functional departments responsible for religious affairs management were not fixed in the Song Dynasty; and their changes reflected the changes in the government's Buddhist policies and administrative intentions. The religious policies and monastic management of the Song Dynasty were mainly implemented and carried out through monastic officials. In the Buddhist management policies of the Song government, temples have always been the focus of national administrative attention. The management of temples varied in the degree of intervention due to different temple head systems. Additionally, in the Song Dynasty, some temples had imperial halls to enshrine the imperial portraits of emperors and empresses, while others enshrined the birth-month incense of emperors and empresses; therefore, the appendices at the end of the book, "A Study of the Imperial Halls in the Song Dynasty" and "A Study of the Birth-Month Belief," are included to help understand the relationship between imperial halls, birth-month incense, and imperial-appointed temple heads. Based on the research achievements of predecessors and contemporaries, this book provides some explorations on certain issues in the Buddhist management policies of the Song Dynasty. The book consists of seven chapters, including the Buddhist prophecies of the enthronement of Emperor Taizu of Song and the reconstruction of the political and religious relationship in the early Song Dynasty, the changes in the institutions to which monks and nuns belonged and their significance, the monastic official system of the Song Dynasty, the procedures for obtaining the legality of Song Dynasty temples, the Jia Yi system and the Ten Directions system of Song Dynasty temples, the imperial-appointed temple head system of Song Dynasty temples, and the Five Mountains and Ten Pagodas system of the Song Dynasty.