Research On The Influence Of Buddhist Ideas On Hangzhou’s Scenic Areas

Buddhism has formed a deep bound with Chinese traditional culture since its introduction. The ideas from Buddhism matched the culture of ancient feudal ruling class, displayed thoughts of the scholar-officials and showed living conditions of the population. For these reason, Buddhism has close relationship with the development of Chinese society and its relics.This article analyzed the historical development of Buddhism by studying attitudes of the ruling class, branches development of different religions and thoughts of the scholar-officials. Distribution of Buddhism-related scenic relics in Hangzhou was summarized and the influence of different Buddhism stages on these relics was studied in general. It is also studied the scenic characteristics of the relics in Hangzhou as influenced by Buddhism. At mesoscopic level, it has affected location choice of temples, space series orientation and the names and couplets related to the sceneries. Meanwhile such influence also generated different forms of scenic resources such as cliff inscriptions and religious towers. It was concluded that courtyard layout, freestyle layout and symmetric layout were the three major architectural styles during the development of Buddhism.This study is characterized in sorting the connections between local scenic relics in Hangzhou and Buddhism concepts. In addition, this study increases the integrity and systematicness of related research due to its analysis of layout and location characteristics in Hangzhou as affected by Buddhism.