As early as the Later Qin period, there was a set of mechanisms for monks to achieve self-management within the monastery, which was also called the monk official system.
The Tang Dynasty took Buddhism as the state religion, so the number of monasteries surged, the number of monks also reached an unprecedented height, and the monk official system was further improved, and gradually formed institutions and regulations dedicated to the management of monks. In the period of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, due to the frequent wars between various countries, many people became monks in order to escape the war and avoid taxes.
Due to the increase in the number of monks, it has developed into a powerful social force, and the composition of the monks and nuns is uneven, so that some monks and nuns are engaged in production and business, participate in the political life of the country, and other phenomena that do not conform to the identity of monks and nuns.
In order to rectify this phenomenon, the ranks of monks and nuns were purged, and the order itself began to seek a solution to the problem, and finally the monks were restrained and managed by establishing a special system of monks and nuns. This is a key step in the history of the development of the monk and nun system, which has rectified the chaos of monks and nuns, and also improved the disadvantages of the previous monk and official system, making it more suitable for the development of society.
And with the development of the times, soon history came to a special dynasty - the Ming Dynasty. Why is the Saying Dynasty special? Because Zhu Yuanzhang, the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty, used to be a monk, so, after becoming the emperor, how did Zhu Yuanzhang treat the class he once came from-monks? What are the characteristics of the monk official system during the Ming Dynasty compared with the previous dynasties? What is the impact on the monk system? We'll unravel each of these mysteries one by one.
As the name suggests, monks are those who are responsible for managing the affairs of monks and nuns in monasteries or religious places in ancient China. Su Shi once said in "Haiyue Debate Gong Zhenzan": "The prosperity of the Buddha in Qiantang is the best in the world, and the people of moral intelligence and mediocrity are mixed ...... the middle."Therefore, the general number is the monk official".It can be seen that the monks are specially appointed personnel to prevent the inconvenience of management due to the complexity of the members of the monk group.
The monk official system is based on the monk official as the core, and the rules and regulations, institutions and laws that are derived from the special binding of monks, the management of monks, and the handling of Buddhist affairs. Although the monks are selected by the secular monarchy, once elected, they automatically enjoy the dual powers given by ** and Buddhism, that is, on the one hand, they are subject to the supervision of the secular government, and on the other hand, they must be responsible for the monks and the Buddhist faith, so the selection of monks and whether the monk official system can run healthily and smoothly is inseparable. At the same time, the monk system also became a link between the monk group and the secular power, so whether a good monk system could be established was related to the development of the entire dynasty.
Because Zhu Yuanzhang was born as a monk, he had the experience of staying in Buddhist temples and had a deeper understanding of Buddhism. As soon as the Ming Dynasty was opened, Zhu Yuanzhang was established in imitation of the Yuan Dynasty"Zensein".As the general body for the unification of Buddhist temples throughout the country, and the establishment of special official positions in the Zensein Temple, each official has different powers, but they are all to better serve the management of Buddhist affairs.
But Zensein was soon revokedAccording to the "Ming Shilu" record, "in December of the fourth year of Hongwu, the second institute of Xuanjiao of the monk and the good world".It can be seen that the Shanshiyuan was probably abolished in the Hongwu period, and was replaced by the Sanglu Division, which was founded in the Ming Dynasty and governed the country's Buddhist affairs.
There are two main monks in the Sangha Division, who are in charge of the seals of the entire monastery, called the good world, two people who are responsible for daily preaching affairs, called lectures, two people who are responsible for inspecting and restraining monks who do not act in accordance with the rules of Buddhism, called Jueyi, and two people who are responsible for supervising whether the monks are concentrating on zazen, which is called expounding the teachings. It can be seen that the Sangha Division is an institution with a complete composition of personnel, both in terms of system and system.
According to the book "The monks of the Ming Dynasty recorded in the record: "Where there are all the mountains, it is necessary for all the monks and officials to sit and sign the seal, and the eyes are the same as the seal, but if there is no one, it is not allowed to be withdrawn".It can be seen that in the Sangha Division, the requirements of monks for monks are relatively strict, and under such strict management, the probability of monks committing crimes in the Ming Dynasty has indeed decreased a lot compared with previous dynasties.
As mentioned earlier, the monk system was appointed by secular powers, so the Ming Dynasty Sanghlu Division was not an independent operating body, but only belonged to one of the six ministries - the Ministry of Rites. As one of the most advanced institutions, the Ministry of Rites has corresponding regulations on the responsibilities and quotas of monks in the Sangha Division, and has made clear requirements for the daily work process of the Sangha Division.
What I mentioned above is the first monk official system in the Ming Dynasty, so correspondingly, there is also a monk official system in the local area that is responsible for the management of local monk affairs. According to the different local jurisdictions, there were different institutions in different jurisdictions, and the Ming Dynasty followed the system of the previous dynasty and also opened a precedent for provinces.
There is a monk department in the house, a monk department in the state, and a monk association department in the county, all of which are under the jurisdiction of the ** monk record department, thus forming a complete and strict monk official system. It is recorded in the "Zhengde Songjiang Prefecture Chronicle".: "The Sangha Division is in Jishan Temple".It can be seen that the Ming Dynasty has implemented the monk official system into every administrative division, and the religious activities carried out by the monks of the whole country have been included in the control of the country, so that not only can the effective management of the monk group be realized, but also the imperial power can be strengthened.
Since the birth of the monk system, it has taken on different characteristics depending on the background of the times.
The monk system in different periods reflects the characteristics of different dynasties, and the most prominent feature of the Ming Dynasty compared with previous dynasties is that the power of the monarch has been greatly strengthened, therefore, no matter which field of society, it is placed under the unified management of the first place. The biggest feature of the monk official system in the Ming Dynasty was that it was constantly moving towards secularization, in other words, the political color of the monk official system became more and more intense.
Whether in terms of personnel composition or operating mechanism, the monk official system during the Ming Dynasty was similar to the official system at that time, and the monk official system was centralized in the first place, and the subordinate Ministry of Rites and the Monk Record Division were responsible for the deployment of monk officials and the handling of Buddhist affairs throughout the country. In addition, monks and officials also have their own ranks, and it is their duty to report to their superiors according to their ranks, and they can also receive the state's salary according to their ranks.
At the same time, ** also made detailed regulations on the different grades of monks and officials in the car, the dependence, and the color usedFor example, "Ming Taizu Record" records that "Zen monks often take brown ......."Speaking of monks, the jade color is often ......Teach monks soap-colored regular clothes", etcIt can be seen that the monks and officials gradually moved closer to the political bureaucratic class. But there are some exceptionsFor example, according to the "History of the Ming Dynasty, the Records of Career Officials" records that "monks and monks are of the third class......The official is not paid, and he is subordinate to the Ministry of Rites".It can be seen that there are also some monks and officials who are not within the scope of the state's system of stipends. However, on the whole, the monk and official system of the Ming Dynasty showed the characteristics of officialization.
The second characteristic of the monk official system in the Ming Dynasty was that it generally followed the previous dynasty, but it achieved its own changes under the premise of adapting to social development, that is, stability and change. The Ming Dynasty established a general system of monks and officials during the Hongwu period, and generally followed the ancestral system in the future, but there were many subtle changes. One of the more obvious is the expansion of the scope of the functions of the monks, after the establishment of the Sangha Division, according to the regulations, should be the good world, the righteousness, the preaching, the teachings and other four kinds of monks. However, Zhu Yuanzhang added new monks such as Zuo Xianjiao and Right Jueyi in the month after the establishment of the Sanglu Division, and made new arrangements and plans for the invigilators of the economic examination during the Xuande period.
In addition to the functions of monks, the Ming Dynasty also put forward new requirements for the frequency of degrees. According to the "Taizu Record": "Once every three years, it will be given to the degree".When it came to the time of the Tianshun period,It was changed to a decennial event, in the Jingtai years and there were new regulations,It is ordered that no one who is over the age of 30 and who has a criminal record shall not be granted the degree. It can be seen that although the Ming Dynasty generally followed the ancestral system and the old rules, it made small changes to the monk official system, which was not immutable.
The third feature of the monk-official system in the Ming Dynasty was that it set a precedent for the favored monks of later generations. Because the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty used to be a monk in the monastery, after Zhu Yuanzhang ascended the throne, he treated the monks very kindly. The most prominent performance is that Zhu Yuanzhang has violated the precedent many times when setting up ** monks"Extra" is set, put the monks who were more close to him into it, so that the emperors of later generations also began to follow suit, as long as it was a monk who had a good relationship with him, he would find a different reason to install it into the ranks of monks.
Although this measure is conducive to the integration of church and state, it will lead to a decline in the quality of monks and officials to a certain extent, and the collusion between the emperor and the monks is not conducive to the improvement of work efficiency, and over time, it is easy to breed political corruption.
Based on the above three characteristics, the monk system of the Ming Dynasty was more perfect than that of the previous dynasties, and it also enabled the government to rule the whole country with strong intervention.
The impact is mainly divided into two aspects: the time and the future generations. First of all, in terms of the influence on the time, the standardized monk official system played a very good positive role in the management of the monks, which rectified the economy of the monastery to a large extent, and also avoided the chaos of the monks, which played a very good role in maintaining the stability of the society and the peace of the entire dynasty. At the same time, because the monk official system has set up a special assessment for monks, anyone who wants to become a monk must have a certain theoretical foundation in Buddhism, so as to avoid the phenomenon that some people with bad intentions choose to become a monk just to avoid taxes, and then become confused after becoming a monk, which raises the entry threshold for monks and also improves the quality of the entire monk team.
The monk official system also set up a system of evaluating monks every few years, so that monks no longer dare to slack off, actively study theoretical knowledge, and engage in various social production and labor. The age of the monks can ensure that there is always a steady flow of fresh blood for the development of the religion while ensuring that the social labor force is sufficient. The monastery is thriving, thanks to the monastic system.
The monk system also combined monasteries and politics, which played a better role in maintaining the rule and avoided the uprising caused by large-scale monks inciting the emotions of the people, on the contrary, the monk system during the Ming Dynasty also achieved the purpose of making the people support the rule of the Ming Dynasty by controlling the monks. It can be seen that in terms of influence on the time, the monk system of the Ming Dynasty played a positive role in most of them.
Judging from the influence of the monk official system in the Ming Dynasty on later generations, it directly affected the establishment of the monk official system in the Qing Dynasty. Most of the Qing Dynasty's attitudes and policies towards Buddhism were based on the Ming Dynasty. However, there are still differences with the social situation of the Ming Dynasty, the most typical of which is the prevalence of Tibetan Buddhism, and with the increasing number of believers in Tibetan Buddhism across the country, how to establish an effective management mechanism has become an urgent problem for the Qing Dynasty at that time. At this time, the monk official system of the Ming Dynasty provided a model for the Qing court to learn from, and on the basis of the Ming monk official system, the Qing court adopted the method of using the feudal power to manage religious affairs to restrain Tibetan Buddhism at that time.
It is precisely because of the reference of the Ming Dynasty that the Qing Dynasty quickly combined the Ming monk official system with the specific situation of the development of the dynasty, and developed a new monk official model, that is, in the case of unified jurisdiction by ***, appropriately give the local government some power, so that they have full autonomy to manage and carry out religious affairs in the region, which shows that the monk official system of the Ming Dynasty has a far-reaching impact on later generations.
Although we are not in a feudal society, we can still find from the feudal society that no matter what era they are in, people have their own beliefs, and if these beliefs are not correctly guided and restricted, it is very likely that they will become the source of turmoil. Therefore, no matter what era we are in, it is necessary to establish a sound and sound mechanism to effectively manage these social phenomena. On the basis of inheriting the monk-official system of the dynasty, combined with the characteristics of the development of the dynasty, the Ming Dynasty formed a complete set of mechanisms suitable for its own development and operation, which not only played a role in consolidating the political power, but also laid a solid foundation for the monk-official system in later generations.