The Research Of Nuns In Wei, Jin, Southern And Northern Dynasties

Buddhist nuns are very important to the Buddhism. Since the introduction of the Buddhism, there were nuns in China; and as the time went on, they had more influence to this religion. But, for many reasons, the study of the nuns drops behind the study of the bonze. And the study of the bonze is the base of the history of the Chinese Buddhism. Ignore of the nuns in the study does not accord with the position of the nuns.Although it's the preliminary stage of the nuns in these dynasties, the nuns had their development after lots of difficulties. First of all, the number of the nuns and the nuns'temple has increased. Second, the ceremony and the discipline about nuns had improved. Third, the lows and policies, through which the country could manage the nuns, had formed. Fourth, the nuns'social class has raised and their social impacts had expanded. Fifth, the wives of the emperor became the nuns in the Northern Dynasties.Based on these developments, the paper tries to clear some subjects about the nuns in the early stage of the Buddhism, and glimpse the influence factors which impacted the Buddhism in its early development process. Because these dynasties are the early development of the Buddhism, the nuns'progresses in these dynasties impacted the progresses in the later dynasties, which the paper will try to study too. Only for the female lacked of attention in the history, which is the same in the Buddhism, it makes some difficult for the paper and is one subject of the paper.According to these research objectives, this paper has four parts. The first part is the history of the nuns of these dynasties, the translation of the religion discipline for the nuns, and the antinomy between the discipline and the doctrine. The second part is the nuns' social activities, including the intercourse with the politicians and the religious figures, to search the effect to the Buddhism. The third part is about the nuns' temple, and the emphases are the wrights and geographical distributing. The last part is about the queens who entered to the religion at last and the temple which was the royal monastery in the Northern Wei Dynasty.