On The Folk Faiths Of The Ming Dynasty

The folk faiths of the Ming Dynasty is prosper. The gods in the folk faiths of the Ming Dynasty mainly include the gods from nature worship, the gods of local and family the gods of industry , the gods of wealth and the gods from the Buddhism and the Taoism. and the folk faiths also takes on a number of different New features .First of all, as the increasing emphasis of "social property" of gods, the gods of human spirits ,rich in content and important in charge of personnel functions, and the natural gods ,human deified in deeper level and possess more personnel functions , such as Dong Yve, Zhen Wu , Cheng Huang, Ma, Liu Meng Jiang, God of Wealth are gradually worshiped by more and more people. The gods from the Buddhism and the Taoism. such as Guan Yin, Guan Di, also become tremendously popular. Secondly, according to the various gods, The folk often hold large ritual activities, such as temple events, festivals, pilgrim, etc. the folk faiths tend to assembly and festival. Finally, ritual activities are injected into a large number of leisure activities and entertainment content.Obviously, Prosperous situation of the folk faiths in the Ming Dynasty can be said the result of many factors, the rapid development of industry and commerce, the ruling class of "non-suppression" policy, the prevalence of the morality books and acuteness of social conflicts inject life into the folk faiths. but, As is known to us, the right of monarchy has precedence over the right of religion in China. so the country's"non-suppression"policy is the most important reason for prosperity of the folk faiths.In the Ming Dynasty, the folk faiths , as an important part of social life, have a huge impact on the Ming Dynasty's politics, economy and social climate . In politics, folk faiths although form a certain challenge to the traditional hierarchies of feudal society, it is conducive to stable social order and the feudal monarchy, playing a significant role in promoting the operation and consolidation of feudal political system. that's why the ruling class of the Ming Dynasty take"suppression"Policy as well as "non-suppression" policy, while give priority to"non-suppression"policy for the folk faiths. In the economy, the large waste of the ritual activities of the Ming Dynasty is self-evident, but the ritual activities also form a broad "consumer market", promote the development of many related industries by strengthening the supervision and contact between industries . More importantly, the ritual activities provide a lot of homeless in the Ming Dynasty "employment" opportunities and solve the livelihood problem of the homeless, By which ,the folk faiths not only stabilizes the social order ,but it also promotes economic development. In the social climate, on the one hand ,the folk faiths contributes to the rise of superstition , but on the other hand, due to the open space and extensive public participation of the ritual activities , the folk faiths also plays a certain role in enhancing the social interaction and emancipating the mind.