A Socio-Historical Study of Pilgrimage and Migration during the Tang and Song Dynasties

2016 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 26580132
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: History of Asia and Africa
• Research Institution: Meiji University
• Principal Investigator: KEGASAWA YASUNORI 明治大学, 研究・知財戦略機構, 研究推進員(客員研究員) (10100918)
• Project Period (FY): 2014-04-01 – 2017-03-31
• Keywords: 巡礼 / 房山石経 / 五台山信仰 / 円仁 / 敦煌五台山壁画 / 石刻資料 / 参天台五台山記 / 唐宋変革

Outline of Final Research Achievements

When did“pilgrimages”first appear in Chinese history? This study made following findings.
1)Pilgrimages appeared during the Tang dynasty and reached a peak in the early 9th century.However,they declined after the anti-Buddhist persecution of the Huichang era.So we can interpret that Tang dynasty had a sense of crisis to“equated pilgrimage with transfer”.2)The painting of the murals of Wutaishan at Dunhuang were stimulated by pilgrimage to Wutaishan in the early 9th century.The original image was the result of the Sino-Tibetan Peace Treaty that ceded the territory to the Tibetans in Changqing 4.
3)Pilgrimage experienced a revivalin the latter half of the 9th century. When this fact is linked with the Song,pilgrimage becomes an issue in the upheaval that marked the Tang-Song transition.4)There was additionally publication of New edition of the comprehensive catalogue of the location of Tang-dynasty epitaphs,Collection of source materials on the inscriptions of stone sutras at Fangshan.

Free Research Field

隋唐社会文化史