Popular Beliefs of the Ming Dynasty and Research on Sansui Pingyao Zhuan (ePub)

In the Ming Dynasty, under the influence of the ethos of "e;combination of three religions"e;, popular beliefs had extremely rich content. Moreover, creation of popular novels also showed unprecedented prosperity in this period. As the first god-evil novel recognized in the literary history, Sansui Pingyao Zhuan is undoubtedly of great influence and enlightenment for leading the creation and prosperity of god-evil novels in the middle and late Ming Dynasty. The book mainly combines knowledge of multiple disciplines including philology, folklore, science of religion, history and literature, religion, history and literature, combines religion and history with literature, widely applies research methods including contrast and textual research, check and investigation and mutual verification between literature and history and text interpretation to make detailed summary and investigation of ancient and modern research status of Sansui Pingyao Zhuan and carry out reflection and discussion again. The research on the book tried hard to restore the creation under the overall cultural and traditional environment at that time, namely, pursues the author's creation mentality and tension of literary expression along the cultural trend and the trend of popular beliefs of the society at that time by reading a lot of literature and folk religious classics and scriptures. The book is mainly discussed from four aspects: The first one is the creation time and compilation course of Sansui Pingyao Zhuan; the second one is folk secret religions and the spread of Buddhism belief in Sansui Pingyao Zhuan; the third one is comparison between magic arts of Sansui Pingyao Zhuan and those of The Investiture of the Gods; the fourth one is research on prototype of characters in Sansui Pingyao Zhuan. The above content explains and analyzes the text of the novel from the perspective of popular beliefs of the Ming Dynasty. Through rigorous demonstration, the book not only reveals the influence of the ethos of "e;combination of three religions"e; on novel creation in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, but also analyzes and demonstrates the reflection of folk movements of White Lotus Society in the novels at that time with mutual verification between literature and history. It also has certain reference value for understanding the influence of popular beliefs on folk society in the Ming Dynasty.