The Interactive Activities Of The Monks In The Literary Sketches Of Tang Dynasty

The social activities and social interactions of monks reflected the blending and collision of Buddhism with the secular society along its’ development during the Tang Dynasty.The interaction between monks and the secular society promoted the development of Buddhism.The ruling class support and populace worship reflected the prosperity of Buddhism in the Tang Dynasty.Based on the literary sketches of the Tang Dynasty,this thesis made comparations and references from historical materials and the existing research achievements mainly using philology method.By comprehensively teasing out the contents of monks’ social activities and social interactions among these literary sketches,this thesis refined and enriched the details of specific activities among monks and various social stratums.Also,we made analysis and interpretation of summarized monks’ activities by the theory of religion.Teasing the interactions between monks and the ruling class,the scholar-bureaucrat,the populace and the Taoist priests,we found out as follows:Firstly,according to the records of literary sketches,the reason why the monks can be trusted and courteous by the ruling class is that the monks has a transcendental ability beyond the mortal.By showing their own singularity like praying for rain and interpreting dreams,in a way that benefits emperors’ interest as much as possible,monks deepen the trust and support from the emperor.Secondly,interactions between the monk and the scholar-bureaucrat in literary sketches were mainly about monks who demonstrated their mysterious ability such as prophecy and face-reading in order to predict the weal and woe of the scholar-bureaucrat.Thus,the monk could gain the esteem of the scholar-bureaucrat thereby improve their own status and prestige.Thirdly,in literary sketches,monks were more likely to show their own mysterious power to exorcise demons and ghosts,to cure diseases,to save the poor and to rescue the populace.By helping people in solving the difficulties they encountered in their daily life,the monks established a divine image in people’s heart,and then to attract people’s faith and support for Buddhism.Fourthly,the records of the disputes between monks and Daoist in literary sketches of the Tang Dynasty can mainly divided into two kinds: belittle each other and match magical powers with each other.The Taoist defeated the monks in most magical powered matches,and the monks were always described as villains in these novels.It can be seen that in the field of literary sketches,the influence of Taoism is greater than that of Buddhism.In conclusion,there were a large number of documents of monks in the literary sketches of the Tang Dynasty.These vivid depictions and reflections in literary sketches may enrich our understanding of monks as such a special group beyond history books.