A Research On Temple Of Hongtong Country During The Ming And Qing Dynasties

Hongtong County in Linfen Province has a long history andprofound culture connotation, and there are numerous preservedcultural relics in the whole county, and among these relics there are alarge part of the cultural relics are closely related to Buddhism,which is a foreign religion. From the historical data, we can see thatHongtong County has an ancient origin with Buddhism. In the earlyEastern Han Dynasty, Buddhism had been begun to spread in thisregion, so it created and retained a large number of Buddhismmonasteries, and most of them were preserved in Ming and QingDynasties.Temple, since the ancient times, was regarded the mostimportant physical carrier of the development and the spread ofBuddhism and the main place for Buddhist activities. And the templeis not only carrying out all kinds of Buddhist activities, but also theplace for all the monks to live every day. Based on the research of thetemples, we not just understand the movements and living conditions of the monks in the temples, but also see the development situationof Buddhism in Chinese local regions, and at the same time, we canexcavate that Buddhism in Ming and Qing Dynasties was graduallygoing from peak to bottom. And we also see that, under the bigreligious background of being impacted by the Catholic and otherreligions, the present Buddhism situation of Ming and Qing Dynastiesin Hongtong County, including the believers’ mental state and themain reasons of believing Buddhism, so the later generations canbetter understand the religious feelings and living conditions of thepeople in Hongtong County.This paper, taking the Buddhist monasteries in Ming and QingDynasties as the main research perspective, analyzes the distributionsituation and the reasons of the temples in Hongtong County, thespecific development situation in Ming and Qing Dynasties and thereasons why the ordinary people believe in Buddhism, which providesthe new perspective and thinking for studying the spiritual world ofthe people in Hongtong County, and it is to explore the spiritual realmof the ordinary people through the Buddhism belief. This paper mainlyincludes four parts:Part1discusses the historical evolution, general situation ofBuddhism being introduced in Hongtong County and the localhistorical development situation. Part2is the main part of the article. It analyzes the specificsituation of the Buddhist monasteries of Hongtong County in Mingand Qing Dynasties, including the basic situation of the Buddhistmonasteries, such as, the analysis of distribution situation andreason, the configuration situation of Buddha statues in the temples,the temples’ financial situation, the relationship between the localorganizations and Buddhist monasteries and other aspects, so wecan understand the specific situation of the local monasteries fromdifferent angles and find the timely combination of Buddhism and thelocal traditional culture and social background, and therefore, it has aprofound mass base in Hongtong County.Part3describes the representative monasteries in HongtongCounty---Guangsheng Monastery, and mainly studies one of the mainfeatures of this monastery: the close combination of Arethusa andBuddhism. Due to the special historical and natural reasons, theproblem of “water” became an outstanding problem in local areas, sothe Buddhist monasteries inevitably involved in it.Part4, through the study of Buddhist monasteries and combiningwith local actual situation, analyzes and discusses the mains reasonfor the people of Hongtong County in Ming and Qing Dynasties tobelieve in Buddhism, and this part discusses mainly from the historyorigin, natural conditions, rulers’ policies, people’s own needs and several other aspects, understands that the existence anddevelopment of Buddhism in the local areas is a necessity of socialdevelopment. And the Buddhism is not only a religion but also a kindof spiritual sustenance for the local people in some times.Finally, it summarizes the full text, and once again stresses theimportance of studying monasteries, and through the monasteriesthemselves, we can see more real living conditions and state of mindof the people of Hongtong County in Ming andQing Dynasties.