The Secularization Of Buddhist Miraculous Stories In Song Dynasty

When it comes to Buddhist miraculous story,it includes miraculous stories that for explaining scriptures or promoting Buddhist thoughts in the Buddhist scriptures,and stories with Buddhist color wrote by earthly literati.This kind of stories contain the concept of karma or the hell,and so on.The Buddhist miraculous story shows different characteristics in the course of the changes of The Times from Northern and Southern Dynasties,Tang Dynasty to Song Dynasty,according to reading and comparison of the texts.Buddhist miraculous story in Song Dynasty has a feature of secular nature,because of the development of Buddhism itself,and a secular trend about society and culture.Stories that shows the sarira and holy temple efficacy have rarely been emphasized,with the faith of sarira and temple fading away.In addition,the divinity of Buddhist scriptures and the image of Buddha and Bodhisattvas is weakening.In the stories of traveling in the hell,the nether world is not only a hell for punishment,but also the scene of a secular moral judgment.The hell is often associated with imperial competitive examination and officials selecting,demonstrating the integration with the secular society.Moreover,as two kinds of ideology,Buddhism and Taoism exert an influence with each other in their fighting,such as an immortal judging in the hell.It causes a trend of secularization and plebification to Buddhism and Taoism with the addition of Confucianism,also,a sort of thing named morality books turn up.In the Perception of Loftiness noted by Li Chang-ling,it has been more obvious that admonishing people by means of Confucian ethics,and emphasizing on leading to goodness and indoctrination.Furthermore,there are a wide variety of popular morality books,which have already become the tool of secular moral enlightenment,including those that claim to be instructed by Taoist deity,and teach the way of human behavior.In a word,like other types of classical Chinese novels of Song Dynasty,Buddhist miraculous story also shows the characteristic of secularization in the tide of the fighting and fusion between Buddhism and Taoism,and the syncretism of Confucianism,Buddhism and Taoism.