Zongsi Temple And Zongsi Faith

This thesis is a complex study of Zongsi Belief, which is an important part of Mountain Tai Nether World Belief, from the point of view of Folkloristic.Zongsi Deity is a local deity sacrificed in a village temple that is located at the east foot of Mountain Tai. Zongsi Belief started from Ming dynasty, flourished between late Qing dynasty and the period of the Republic of China, and is recovering in the world of today. In the research area of Chinese folk religion, Zongsi Deity Belief has not been given much attention. This thesis has a wide discussion about Zongsi Deity Belief in history and nowadays, using the theory and methods of Folkloristic, drawing lessons from different study methods of History and Documentation Science, which supplies a fresh instance for the study of area folk religion and Mountain Tai Faith, and finally contributes to Chinese folk religion study.There are seven parts of this thesis, including an introduction part, main body of five chapters and a conclusion part.The introduction part mainly discussed the meaning of this thesis and the advantages and disadvantages of the articles on Chinese nether deity belief and Mountain Tai Faith Culture in academic history, and introduces the data and theory methods used by the author.The first chapter tells about the social and cultural background and area environment of Zongsi Temple and Zongsi Belief, mainly describes the space arrangement of Zongsi Temple today and its change in history.The following two chapters discusses the origin and the development of Zongsi Temple and Zongsi Belief. When discussing the reason of the starting of Zongsi Deity Belief, the thesis points out that Zongsi Deity Belief is a representative of the popularize and locality of national sacrifice and is a contribution to Mountain Tai Nether world Belief.The Forth chapter tells about the influencing scope of Zongsi Deity and discusses the activities of folk sacrificing groups both in history and nowadays, by the analysis of records of 50 tablets saved in Zongsi Temple from Qing dynasty to the period of the Republic China and the data collected through field work today.The fifth chapter discusses the ceremony activities in Zongsi Temple Fair and describes the economy and management of the temple fair. The last part is a simple conclusion of this thesis, reviewing the research progress, pointing out the problems and assuming the plan of research carrying on.