On The Natural Disasters In Song Dynasty From The Perspective Of Disaster Prayer Papers

The disaster prayer message was the text used by the Song authorities in the process of disaster response,in conjunction with the prayer ceremony,and its contents mainly include the prayerful report to the God,the self-examination of the officials,the record of the disaster situation and the view of the disaster.Through the disaster message,we can not only understand the situation of the natural disaster in Song Dynasty,but also understand the cultural response to the natural disaster in Song Dynasty.Natural disasters occurred frequently in Song Dynasty,especially the agricultural disasters such as the fact that rice stem borer had the greatest impact on Song Dynasty,which attracted the attention of local government and people.There are many related records in the official history,and the text of disaster prayer,whose main demand is to eliminate disasters,undoubtedly provides us with other kind of disaster records.Faced with frequent natural disasters,Song Dynasty established a more systematic disaster relief mechanism,involving disaster relief,disaster prevention,environmental governance,etc.In fact,in addition to the traditional realistic response measures,the cultural response focusing on the official-led prayer ceremony has also become an important means to address the disaster crisis.As an important part of the ceremony of praying for news,it is an important evidence for studying the natural disasters in the Song Dynasty.Based on the text of disaster prayer message,this paper investigates the five natural disasters of drought,flood,insect disaster,earthquake and fire in the Song Dynasty,analyzes the content of the text and sorts out the objects of disaster prayer message,the time and space situation of disasters reflected in the disaster prayer message that are summarized.From the text content,disaster prayer message can be called the Song Dynasty faithful records of natural disasters.The records of the causes,consequences,time and scope of disasters and the views of the Song people on disasters are unique and valuable disaster records which are not available in the official history of disasters.From the point of view of author's identity,the author of the disaster prayer message is not only the first-hand experience of the disaster,but also theleader of the disaster relief,as well as the executor of the realistic response and the cultural response.In addition,the characteristics of the natural disaster records in Song Dynasty reflected by the disaster prayer message are worth attention.The traditional disaster records are sifted through layer upon layer and reported to the central government,and the disaster messages reflect not only the disasters known to the central government,but also some local small and medium-sized disasters.Therefore,the disaster prayer message is not only the first-hand records of disasters in the Song Dynasty,but also can effectively supplement the disaster situation on the basis of the traditional historical records of disasters.From the perspective of Cultural Response,the belief in God of Disasters Seen In disaster prayer texts reflects the official attitude towards the belief in God in the process of disaster response,it is also helpful to understand the attitude of society and people towards the disaster from the level of belief.The full text is divided into three parts: Introduction,text and summary.The introduction mainly introduces the reason and academic significance of this study.The study of disaster history has always been regarded as the focus of historical research,this paper selects the disaster prayer message as the research object,and summarizes the previous research paradigm on the basis of combing the related research results at home and abroad,then expounds three main purposes of this paper: First,attention is paid to the function of praying message in the response to natural disasters in the Song Dynasty;Second,attention is paid to the text features and discourse system of praying message for disasters in the Song Dynasty;Third,the paper illustrates the problems of disaster records and natural disaster data reflected in disaster message in Song Dynasty.At the same time,it defines the related concepts of this study,explains the basic ideas and research methods,and determines the structure of the full text.Among them,the key point of this study is clear and follows the research thinking of the sociology of disasters,and focuses on the analysis of the concept of praying for news,which was first used because of the Song People's definition of the style of praying for news,including Qingci,Zhuwen,memorial,Shuwen and so on.The text is divided into four chapters.The first chapter is a summary of the disaster prayer message in the Song Dynasty,which contains three aspects: First,it points out the important role of the disaster prayer message in the disaster response of the Song Dynasty,which is the concentrated reflection of the cultural response achievements of the Song Dynasty;the paper expounds the text features and disaster recording features of the disaster praying message in the Song Dynasty,and points out that the disaster praying message has threecharacteristics: detail,Supplement and complexity.There were 553 natural disasters in Song Dynasty,including 360 droughts,171 floods,8 insect disasters,4 earthquakes and10 fires.From the perspective of time,the records of disaster prayer messages are concentrated in the middle and late Northern Song Dynasty,the early and Middle Southern Song Dynasty,and are classified by the central and local governments from the perspective of spatial level,the record of disaster prayer among which more in the central government,less in the local government.The second chapter is the statistics and analysis of drought prayer messages.There are three aspects: First,the collection and arrangement of drought prayer messages,in this paper,we collect 135,90,76,51 and 8 articles of praying for rain and snow,which are 360 in total,based on the author's life,this paper analyzes the writing time and place of the praying message,and compares it with the traditional historical data.In addition to the large-scale drought known to the central government,it can be found that the praying message of drought disaster has a good supplementary effect on the local medium and small-scale drought disaster,and the summary of the record features of the drought prayer papers and the analysis of the disaster discourse system focus on four aspects: the description of the God of the disaster belief,the self-reflection of officials,the views of the people affected by the disaster,and the description of the disaster.The discourse system of drought prayer mainly focuses on the description of agricultural harvest,and there are positive and negative descriptions of disaster belief God.The self-reflection of officials is centered on their own moral conduct,their achievements in public office and their belief in the worship of gods.They have a clearer understanding and prediction of the views of the affected people,and the drought disaster in Song Dynasty can be classified by the description of the disaster.The third chapter is the statistics and analysis of flood prayer messages.There are three aspects: First,the collection and collation of flood prayer messages.The flood prayer messages collected in this paper mainly include 113 articles of pray for clear,58 articles of Xie Qing,totaling 171 articles;Second,by analyzing the time and place of writing and comparing with the traditional historical data,we can also find that the flood prayer message has a good supplementary effect on the local medium and small-sized floods,and the characteristics of the flood prayer message are summarized and the discourse system of the disaster is analyzed.The description of the disaster revolves around the agricultural harvest and the silk production by silkworms.The description of the disaster belief is basically the same as that of the drought prayermessage,the angle of the officials' introspection is basically the same,and the flood in Song Dynasty can be classified by the disaster description.The Fourth Chapter is the statistics and analysis of other disaster prayers,which includes three aspects: First,the collection and collation of other disaster prayers,8insect disaster prayers,4 earthquake prayers and 10 fire prayers collected in this paper;In the light of the author's life,this paper analyzes the time and place of writing,and makes a comparison with the traditional historical data.The number of these three types of disaster prayer messages is far less than the traditional historical data,but they still have some supplementary functions,the characteristics of other disaster prayers and the analysis of the disaster discourse system show that the prayers for insect disasters are mainly organized on the basis of averting,eliminating locusts and offering sacrifices to gods.The prayers for earthquakes pay more attention to the high frequency and long period of earthquake disasters,fires are often described in combination with prolonged drought.And finally,it comes to the conclusion.The first one is the function of the message of prayer for disaster in response to natural disasters in the Song Dynasty,which embodies the achievements of the cultural response to disasters in the Song Dynasty.The second is the text features and discourse system of disaster prayer messages in the Song Dynasty,which is more detailed than the traditional disaster records.The third is the problems of disaster record and natural disaster data reflected in the praying message of the Song Dynasty.The natural disasters of Song Dynasty as seen in the praying message of the disaster have the characteristics of various disasters,large time span and wide distribution,it can not only be compared with the traditional historical records of disasters,but also can be used as an independent material for the specific presentation of natural disasters in Song Dynasty.To sum up,the study of natural disasters in Song Dynasty from the perspective of disaster prayer papers can not only broaden the scope of the study of traditional disaster history from historical sources,but also provide a more comprehensive understanding of natural disasters in Song Dynasty from the perspective of disaster records and discourse system,above all,it can enrich the natural disaster records and disaster data of Song Dynasty through its disaster records,which opens a new window to studying the natural disasters of Song Dynasty.