Research On Policies About Religions During Kangxi, Yongzheng And Qianlong Periods In The Qing Dynasty

Peace and Prosperity Period of Kangxi and Qianlong Rulings in the Qing Dynasty, which lasted for about 130 years, is the last and longest feudal prosperity. Also China's feudalism at that time reached its peaking. To study their religious policies and their regular patterns and characteristics has important theoretical and practical significance. Starting from a religious approach and the relationship between religion and politics, the present thesis selects the micro and macro perspectives, and uses dialectical materialism and historical materialism, literature review, comparative analysis to study religious policies and its characteristics during the periods of Kangyongqian with an aim to provide historical reference for formulating relevant policies nowadays.The first part of the thesis studies polices on Buddhism during Kangxi period. The three emperors, Kang, Yong, Qian, respected Buddhism on the basis of not endangering the rule of the Qing Dynasty, especially for the Yellow Sect in Tibetan Buddhism, whose religious policies corresponded to Qing rulers'policy of implementing unity of"Manzu and Mongolian ethnic people".The second part deals with the Islam Policies during the periods of Emperors Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong. During the early stages, from the point of safeguarding national stability, they adopted a policy of tolerance. That is,"Improving their regulations without changing their customs", and at the same time, they imposed strict control on it. In terms of policy it characterized with more specific, systematic features. In the middle and late parts of Qianlong period, the focus of managing policies on Islam was changing from the previous tolerance gradually to harsh military and political management.In chapter three polices towards Christianity (Catholics) are explained. According to the situations home and abroad, the three rulers adopted corresponding policies accordingly. The main trend is from tolerance towards stricter control. The issue of Etiquette is the dividing point of their attitudes towards Christianity. From then, the ruler Kangxi changed his acceptance attitude and presented some control principles. Based on this, Yongzheng and Qianlong stipulated stricter policies.In part four polices towards Taoism and some folk religions are elaborated respectively. Here are two parts introducing and displaying their increasingly stringent control on Taoism and their consistent control on folk religions. Generally speaking, they adopted cold attitudes towards Taoism, curbing in their leaders and guarding against them. As for folk religions, they regarded them as unsafe elements that could threaten their rulings so they stipulated many regulations which strictly forbade their activities.Based on the analysis and summaries we give a further study and we also find that the then rulers, from the angle of governing the state and serving themselves, they adopted the method of"each in his proper place accordingly", or even different levels of one certain religion treated differently. They not only inherited and perfected religious policies but also contributed to development and creation of those religious polices of former dynasties. On the whole, they all preferred Lamaism, roped in Buddhism, accepted Islamism, curbed Taoism, and forbad folk religions.