Imperial Identity and Religious Reformation: The Buddhist Urban Landscape in Northern Wei Luoyang

Based on Yang Xuanzhi’s account of the burned-down Luoyang city during the Northern Wei dynasty and contemporary archeological discoveries, this paper tries to decipher the pre-Luoyang memory and imperial identity of the Northern Wei royal family that are embedded in the urban planning of Luoyang ci...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Ling, Chao (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: MDPI 2024
In: Religions
Year: 2024, Volume: 15, Issue: 5
Further subjects:B Yongning Temple
B Buddhist agency
B Northern Wei Luoyang
B urban design
B Yang Xuanzhi
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Summary:Based on Yang Xuanzhi’s account of the burned-down Luoyang city during the Northern Wei dynasty and contemporary archeological discoveries, this paper tries to decipher the pre-Luoyang memory and imperial identity of the Northern Wei royal family that are embedded in the urban planning of Luoyang city by understanding the reformation of Buddhist politico-religious policy through both a historical approach and literary analysis. Buddhism played a crucial role in the Northern Wei’s campaign of establishing their rulership as a legitimate one from the Chinese perspective. Buddhist temples became structures where commoners interacted on a daily basis, and, in these interactions, the Xianbei rulers managed to bring multiple factors into balance: Northern Wei imperial and Chinese identities and the tension between preserving the ancestral memory and merging the Northern Wei regime into a Chinese political context.
ISSN:2077-1444
Contains:Enthalten in: Religions
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.3390/rel15050551