The Relation Of The GAO Family In Yunnan To Buddism

The Gao Family is an important grandee in the history of Yunnan. They were hereditary prime minister in Dali Kingdom. They kept ruling Heqing, Yaoan,Yongsheng during Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties. Besides, the Gao Family adored the buddisim, they made great contributions to the development of Buddhism in Yunnan.After the system study on the related research, I found that the study on the relation of the GAO Family to Buddism is mainly basic research, which has focused on the textual research, combed the historical data. It is very weak about the systemic and dynamic research and combined with the change of the background to discuss the development of buddhist studies. There are a large number of analysing and studying research, which about the Gao family inscriptions, chronicles and historical data, and conducted field survey on Yaoan and Shuimu Mountain. This paper combed the Gao family history during the Kingdom of Shuhan, the Kingdom of Dali, Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties, analyzed the contribution about the Gao family and Buddhism, such as the Buddhist architecture, the Buddhist carvings and statues, the Buddhist literature,the Buddhist monks, the Buddhist mountains and the folk customs. I found the Gao family give full support to Shuimu Mountain in the Dali Kingdom, and formed the special belief and inherit system, analyzed the delicate relationship between the Gao and the Duan. By longitudinal analysis, it is concluded that the four changes of the Gao development the Buddhism from the Dali kingdom to Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties: the area became smaller along with the shrink of sphere in Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties; the developing purpose was to help Duan in the Dali kingdom, to celebrated the brithday for the emperor, to prayed blessing and to developed the Dhyana in Yuan Dynasties, to became the family temple in Ming Dynasty; the sectarian belief was believed Acarya and special belief of Shuimu Mountain in the Dali kingdom, then in Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties, Heqing was always believedAcarya, Yaoan was believed the Chan sect and Yongsheng was accepted the Lamaism;on the religious identity, the Duan regarded it as Dharma and the Gao regarded themself as inheritors in the Shuimu Mountain in the Dali kingdom, then they became the Danapati and they was different from other Jiulong Zu in the ancestor identity.Summarized the significance of the Gao family, it mainly included four aspects, such as keep up with the trend of the social development, good sterngthen self-improvement and family trait inheritance, good local society governance and the festival customs’ influence and communication.