Song City God Cult Research

Cheng Huang faith of Song Dynasty generated many new features,while following that of Tang Dynasty. And also it had great influence onthe Liao, Jin and later Yuan, Ming, Qing. In this paper, a study of theSong Dynasty Cheng Hung faith is carried out, and the article is dividedinto four main parts:The first part of this thesis sorts out the basic situation of ChengHuang faith of the Song Dynasty. It showed some new characteristics,first, with its status rising, worship was incorporated into the nationalsystem; second, the trend of personifying the City God was furtherdeveloped, and the characters were more abundant.The second part focuses on urban development and the City GodFaith. Through inspecting the distribution and construction of the ChengHuang south of the Yangtze, and researching the relationship betweenurban development and Cheng Hung faith, the conclusiondemonstrates that the development of Cheng Hung faith waspromoted by the city's development Song Dynasty, especiallyeconomic development of the county to promote Cheng Hung faith.Sung adopted a more lenient religious policy, so the three religion,that is, Taoism, Buddhism, and folk beliefs, mixed with Cheng Hung faith,which led to the mixed state of more than one gods in the Temple ofGod. Thus, the third part mainly discusses the relation among SungCheng Hung faith and Taoism, Buddhism and other folk beliefs.The fourth part of this paper studies the relation between ChengHung faith and people, including scholar, the local officials and thecommon people. The development of Cheng Hung faith not onlymeets the demands of different faith groups in the spirit, but also reflectsthe role of the different classes in the Cheng Hung faith. Cheng HungGod, as a protector of the city, met the political need that the local officials maintained local stability, civilized the public, and adapted topublic entertainment.Through the above analysis, it can be seen that, compared with theprevious dynasty, Sung Cheng Hung faith generated many newfeatures, such as the broad distribution, rising status, increase of the CityGod Temple in county, rich characters and so on. On the one hand, theurban economic development, the rise of the public sectors as well ascoexistence of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoisms religious policythat played an important role in the development of the Song DynastyCity God faith, on the other hand, its development not only richescontent of its own, but also meets the spiritual demands of differentgroups in society.