Studies On The Mongolian Plateau And North Asian Ethnic Groups From The Mid-6th Century To The 9th Century

From the middle of the 6th century to the 9th century was a linking era in Chinese history.It was the dark ages for the northern national literature in the Wei,Jin,Southern and Northern Dynasties before this time and in the Liao and Jin Dynasties after this time.Comparatively speaking,Tang Dynasty had its advantages in such literature."Tongdian · Beidi" retains the records of the northern ethnic groups prior to Tianbao years of Tang Dynasty.A part of the historical data are more primitive than the records latter.Firstly,the essay intends to sort out their differences of the historical origion and their recorded deviation,through the relavant literature on the formation of a comparative study in "A Comprehensive Guide"(Tong Dian)and the concerned historical records,employing the mothodologies of edition bibliography,textual criticism and related qualitative methods.It also discusses and re-evaluates the study of the northern ethnic group in "Tongdian.Beidi".Meanwhile,it expands the scope of historical data research by finding out the related record from Confucian classics,history,philosophy,literature and the unearthed inscription documents,so as to compensate the deficiencies of the related research.Secondly,the paper,on the basis of literature compilation,examines the cultural tradition,political system and religious belief of the northern ethnic groups from the perspective of Inner Asia in the middle of 6th-9th century,and explores the related problems of different tradition and origin.As there is a correlation and continuity in the historical phenomenon,the former manifests the communication from the material and spiritual aspects among different civilization,and the latter emphasizes the internal system and the persistence of the culture based on the economic foundation.For the interpretation of these two phenomena,the transition of politics,economy and cultural system above different social formation.In order to achieve the comprehensive study,the first task is to analyze the phenomenon of the parallelism between different civilizations."Tongdian.Beidi" reserves the historical data of the middle of the 6th century-9 century pastoral society,Tungus ethnic groups,the South Siberian ethnic groups and so on.By doing the research on these historical materials,other texts and modern history,and the ethnographic comparative-study of different ethnic civilization,the paper exlores the different characteristics of these ethnic groups,and the interaction and influence among them,so as to achieve Joseph F.Fletcher's "Comprehensive history" of the study.