Xixia culture was deeply influenced by the Helong culture of the Han people and the Tubo and Uighur cultures. And actively absorbed Han culture and rules and regulations. Develop Confucianism, promote Buddhism, and form a Buddhist kingdom with Confucian rules and regulations. However, it was also an empire that advocated Confucianism and Chinese law, and actively Sinicized it before the founding of the country; although Xia Jingzong promoted Dangxiang, Tubo and Uighur cultures in order to protect his own culture, and established Xixia script, established Fan officials, established Fan customs and other measures; but since Xia Yizong arrived After Xia Renzong, Xixia has transformed from being a non-Han counterpart to being generally Sinicized. Literature is mainly poetry and proverbs. In terms of art, there are rich Buddhist murals in Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes and Anxi Yulin Grottoes, which have the characteristics of "green murals". In addition, it is unique in sculpture, music and dance.
Xixia was originally a nomadic tribe. After Buddhism spread eastward to the Liangzhou Prefecture in the 1st century, Buddhism gradually flourished in the region. After the founding of the Xixia state, it began to create its own unique Buddhist art and culture. The Baiyan Kiln Grotto Temple in Otok Banner, Inner Mongolia is a treasure house of Xixia Buddhist mural art. During the Xixia period, a large number of pagodas and Buddhist temples were built, among which the Chengtian Temple Pagoda was the most famous. The Xixia Buddhist scriptures, the Sakyamuni Pagoda, and the colorful Guanyin statue discovered in the Heishui City of Ejina Banner are major discoveries in the desert. In addition, Xixia also vigorously developed the Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang. After Xixia defeated the Guiyi Army in 1036 AD, they occupied Guazhou and Shazhou, and owned the Mogao Grottoes. From Xia Jingzong to Xia Renzong, the Xixia Emperor ordered many modifications to the Mogao Grottoes, making them even more glorious. At that time, the Mogao Grottoes were painted with green paint, embracing the Central Plains culture and Uighur and Turpan styles. In addition, Xixia culture is also expressed in Xixia script, also known as Fan script. The establishment of Tibetan studies and Sinology in Xixia strengthened the national awareness of Xixia, the people "understood Tibetan Chinese characters", and their culture also increased a lot.
Li Yuanhao once issued a baldness order, ordering men across the country to become bald within three days, and any offenders would be killed. Xixia also established Fanxue and Taixue. Historian Dai Xizhang once said in "Historical Records of Xixia": "The cultural relics declared by Xixia cannot be compared with those of the Song Dynasty. However, it can be seen that they made national documents, established official systems, established new laws, promoted Chinese studies, established virtuous affairs, and appointed doctoral disciples. Respect it. Confucius was Emperor Wenxuan, and he was both gentle and elegant, so he could be compared with the Liao and Jin Dynasties! "The development of Confucianism in Xixia was a bureaucratic system and political culture under the influence of Confucianism, and the system was deeply influenced by Confucian culture. From the beginning of Li Jiqian to the end of Xixia, emperors of all dynasties studied and imitated the Han system. For example, when Li Jiqian "hiddenly set up middle-level officials, they were completely different from the Qiang people, and they were led by Confucian scholars, and gradually adopted the Chinese style.", and during Li Deming's time, "big chariots and chariots, and thin and thin ceremonial guards were just like the Chinese system." The Xixia Dangxiang royal family worshiped Confucius and admired Han culture for generations. In addition to advocating Confucianism and advocating literature, he also wrote some books that integrate and promote Confucianism, such as "Shengliyihai", "Sancai Zazi", "Dexingji", "New Collection of Cixiao Biography", "Xinji Jinheli", "Essential Articles on Moral Affairs" and so on. Its Confucianism was promoted by Xia Jingzong, Xia Yizong, Xia Huizong and Xia Chongzong, and reached its peak at the time of Xia Renzong.
While establishing the official system, Xia Jingzong established Tibetan studies and Sinology as the cradle of cultural cultivation. The erudite and talented Yeli Renrong presided over the Tibetan studies to attach great importance to Tibetan studies, and set up professors in Tibetan studies in various states to teach. There were roughly five types of schools established in Xixia: Fanxue, Chinese studies, primary schools, palace studies, and Taixue. The purpose of establishing schools in Xixia was mainly to cultivate talents, and they respected Confucius as Emperor Wenxuan. Xixia also developed the imperial examination system in the middle and late periods. In the later period of Xia Chongzong, he began to set up the Tongzi Section to implement imperial examinations. In 1147 AD, Xia Renzong promoted the examination of people, established the roll call method, and re-established the Tongzi Section. In the late Western Xia Dynasty, officials were basically selected through the imperial examination. It became an inevitable way for both Han and Chinese nobles to enter official careers through the imperial examination.
Xi Xia admired Han culture, but few literary works in Chinese were handed down, and most of them were poems and proverbs. Poems include court poems, religious poems to encourage good deeds, enlightenment poems, chronicle poems and epic poems. Xixia poetry has rhythm and generally has a symmetrical structure. It is usually five-character or seven-character style, and there are also multi-word style, with each poem having a different number of syllables. The more famous one is "Da Ode", which praises Nori Renrong, the creator of Xixia literature. The epic work "Hymn to Xia Shenggen" contains mostly folk legends, and its words and sentences have a strong folk flavor. The first three sentences of it: "Heitou Shicheng is by the desert water, the red-faced father's tomb is on the White River, and Gaomi Medicine Country is over there." They are used by Xixia scholars to study the historical origin of the party. There is also "Song of the New Imperial Academy" which praises the reconstruction of the Imperial Academy, and has the style of a court poem. Xia Chongzong attached great importance to literature. He once composed "Lingzhi Song" and sang it with his minister Wang Renzhong, which became a favorite.
The Xixia proverbs have neat parallelism, rigorous structure and varying number of words. Their contents widely reflect various aspects of Xixia society and involve people's production, customs and religions. The famous collection of Xixia proverbs "Xin Ji Jin He Ci" was compiled by Liang Deyang of Xixia in early 1176 and supplemented by Wang Renchi in 1187. There are 364 items in total. Its content includes the record "Don't speak if you are not familiar with the proverbs." "Thousands of people" and "tens of millions of common people" are inseparable from proverbs, which highlights the importance of proverbs to the Xixia people.
The Emperor of Xixia attached great importance to the compilation of the history of Xixia. Ao Daochong was in charge of compiling the history of Xixia during Li Deming's period, and his descendants did the same. During the reign of Emperor Xia Renzong, he established the Hanlin Academy of Academic Affairs and ordered Wang Qian and Jiao Jingyan to compile the history of the country based on the Song Dynasty's method of compiling true records, and to be responsible for the revision of "Li Shi's True Records". In 1225, after Luo Shichang, the envoy of Xuanhui in Nanyuan, was dismissed from office, he wrote "Xia Guo Shi Ci", but unfortunately it has been lost.
On the eve of the founding of the Xixia Kingdom, Xia Jingzong sent Yeli Renrong to create the Xixia script based on the structure of Chinese characters in order to propose a language for his country. It was promulgated in 1036 AD, also known as the "State Book" or "Tibo Book". All communications and documents with surrounding dynasties were in Xixia script. The text composition mostly adopts a structure similar to the six scripts of Chinese characters, but there are more strokes than Chinese characters. Xixia litterateur Gu Le Maocai believed that the relationship between Xixia literature and Chinese literature is that "the two are different when discussing the end, but they are the same when examining the root." After the creation of Xixia script, it was widely used in history, law, literature, and medical works. It was also used in engraving inscriptions, casting coins, and talismans. Xia Ting also established a Tibetan school, chaired by Nori Renrong, and selected noble and bureaucratic children to translate Chinese classics and Buddhist classics. In order to translate Han and Xia texts, there is also "The Pearl in the Palm of Fan Han" written by Gu Le Maocai in 1190 AD. The preface is in Xixia and Chinese, and the content is the same. It is said that "If you don't learn Fanyan, you won't be able to get along with the Fan people; if you don't know Chinese, you won't be able to join the number of Han people." It shows that the purpose of this book is to facilitate Xixia and Han people to learn each other's language, and it is an important key to the current study of Xixia history. .
Album data source The founding of the Xixia Kingdom required the consolidation and development of the slavery system and the launch of large-scale plunder and suppression. Of course, conservative Confucianism was completely unsuitable for the needs of the emerging Xixia Kingdom. Yuan Hao and Nori Renrong tried their best to eliminate the influence of Confucianism, adapted to the development needs of their own nation, and also carried out a series of reforms in the cultural field.
Dingyi Clothing - Yuan Hao founded the country and proclaimed himself emperor. He no longer adopted the clothes of the Song Dynasty, but instead wore a white narrow shirt, a felt hat with a red lining, and a red ribbon hanging on the back of his head. This is the uniform adopted by Tubo Zampu and Uighur Khan. There are also regulations on the uniforms of civil and military officials. Civil servants wear futou (the musical note of fu is f*), wear boots and hold a wat, and wear purple or scarlet clothes, which are basically the style of the Song Dynasty. Military attachés wear engraved gold, engraved silver and black lacquer crowns according to their ranks, wear purple clothes, and wear gold-coated silver belts. Commoners wear green clothes to distinguish between noble and humble.
Making rituals and music——Yuan Hao also participated in the Song Dynasty system and revised the court rituals. Every six days, officials met with the emperor and were called "Chang Shen". The meeting on the ninth day is called "lili" (greeting the emperor on his daily life). For good and bad luck, distinguished guests, ancestor worship, Yan Xiang, etc., the nine-blessed prayer in the Song Dynasty was changed to three-blessed.
During the Deming Dynasty, all rituals and music were made according to the Song Dynasty. Yuan Hao said to Yeli Renrong: "The customs of our tribe are to put loyalty first and fight first. I don't like the complicated pronunciation of the Tang and Song Dynasty's 缛 (yin 褥))." Yuan Hao ordered the abolition of the five tones of the Song Dynasty. Change to one tone.
Establishing Fanxue—After Yuan Hao created the Xixia script, he ordered Yeli Renrong to preside over the establishment of "Fanxue" (Dangxiangxue). The "Book of Filial Piety", "Erya", "Four-character Miscellaneous Characters" and other books were translated into Xixia characters, and the children of Party and Han bureaucrats were selected to enroll in the school. After learning, ask questions. Those who study well and write well will be given official positions as appropriate. The Xixia people generally have Buddhism as their main belief, and before the founding of the country, they mainly worshiped nature. When the Dangxiang people lived in the Songpan area of ??Sichuan during the Tang Dynasty, they worshiped "Heaven". When the Dangxiang people migrated to northern Shaanxi, their worship of nature developed into belief in ghosts and gods. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, polytheistic beliefs were still advocated, including mountain gods, water gods, dragon gods, tree gods, land gods and other natural gods. For example, Xia Jingzong once "became a ancestral god of Xiliang Mansion". Xia Renzong once erected a monument of Heishui Bridge by the Heishui River in Ganzhou to offer sacrifices to the gods and pray for the protection of the bridge and the quelling of floods. In addition to worshiping ghosts and gods, the Dangxiang people also advocate witchcraft, which is highly valued. The Dangxiang people call witches "Si", and wizards are called "Siji". They are the bridge between people and ghosts and gods, and are mainly responsible for exorcising ghosts and divination. Divinations were practiced before wars to inquire about good or bad luck, and witchcraft of "killing ghosts and summoning spirits" was often practiced during wars.
In addition to Buddhism, Xixia also tolerates other religions. Taoism was spread in Xixia. For example, Xia Jingzong's son Ning Ming died after learning the Taoist method of fasting grain. "Wenhai" explains the word "immortal" as "one who seeks Taoism in the mountains" and "one who seeks longevity in the mountains". In the late Western Xia Dynasty, Nestorianism and Islam were also spread in Shazhou and Ganzhou. For example, "Marco Polo's Travels" records that there are some Nestorian and Islamic believers in Dunhuang (Tangguta Province) and Ganzhou. The art culture of Xixia is very diverse and rich, with achievements in painting, calligraphy, sculpture, dance and music. Painting In terms of painting, Buddhist paintings have been handed down to this day, mainly in grottoes and temple murals. Today, Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes and Anxi Yulin Grottoes are the most abundant. He studied the style of the Northern Song Dynasty in his early days, and later was influenced by the mural art of Uighur Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhism, and finally formed a unique artistic style. The lines are mainly drawn with iron wires and orchid leaves, supplemented by folded reeds and water shield strips; a large amount of stone green is used as a base for coloring, making the picture look like a unique and cold-toned "green mural". The contents of the paintings include Buddhist stories and sermons, offerings to Bodhisattvas and human figures, and cave decoration patterns. The paintings include "The Transformation of Manjushri", "The Transformation of Samantabhadra", "Shuiyue Avalokitesvara" and "The Transformation of Avalokitesvara Sutra with Thousand Arms and Thousand Eyes". The most famous. In addition, the content of Xixia social production and life can also be observed in the "Farming Picture", "Treading on the Turret", "Wine Brewing Picture" and "Forging Iron Picture" in the "Avalokitesvara with Thousand Hands and Thousand Eyes". In terms of woodblock prints, most of them come from Western Xia and Chinese Buddhist scriptures. Among the large number of Buddhist paintings unearthed in Heishui City, there are "Manjushri Picture", "Samantabhadra Picture", "Shengshi Mingwang Mandala Picture" and so on. The content is rich and colorful, with deep tones. The prints "Meat Selling Picture" and "Devil Appearing in the World" are vividly depicted and reflect the depth of Xixia painting. Calligraphy Calligraphy is mostly seen in regular script when writing sutras and inscriptions, while seal script is often seen on the foreheads of stele and official seals.
Liu Zhizhi, a Hanlin scholar during Xia Renzong's time, specialized in calligraphy. His brushes made of yellow sheep's tail hairs were imitated by people of his time. Sculpture is very developed, including bronze casting, stone carving, brick carving, wood carving, bamboo carving, clay sculpture and ceramics. Its characteristics are balanced proportions, delicate knife skills, and very realistic. Clay sculptures, represented by Buddhist temple statues, often use realistic and artistic exaggeration techniques to depict real-life characters. For example, the Nirvana statue of Sakyamuni in the Ganzhou Great Buddha Temple built during the reign of Emperor Chongzong of Xia Dynasty, the painted sculpture of the Western Xia Goddess in Cave 491 of the Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang, etc. Other ceramic works of art are also exquisitely carved and vivid. Music and Dance The main musical instruments of Xixia during the Dangxiang period were pipa, horizontal blow, and fou, among which the horizontal blow was the bamboo flute. Later, after accepting the music culture of the Central Plains, Li Deming adopted the Song system to make music and gradually became more numerous. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Xia Jingzong abolished the music of Guanjie in the Tang and Song Dynasties, and "the five tones of Ge music became one." In 1148 AD, Xia Renzong ordered the music official Li Yuanru to change the temperament and named it "Dingxin Rhythm". The music of Xixia is very rich, and there is a Yuan of Bo-Han Musicians. During the reign of Emperor Huizong of Xia Dynasty, prostitutes and musicians from the Han Dynasty were attracted to join the Yuan. Operas such as "Liu Zhiyuan Zhugong Tiao" and so on have also been introduced to Xixia. The dances of the Western Xia Dynasty left vivid images in stele inscriptions and cave murals, and were rich in the styles of Tang and Song dances and Mongolian dances. For example, in the "Liangzhou Huguo Temple Induction Pagoda Stele", the lines on both sides of the monument's forehead are engraved with dancers. The dancers are symmetrical, naked and barefoot, holding a scarf and wearing a necklace. They are bold and charming at the same time. The "Music and Dance Picture" in the Xixia mural in Cave 3 of Yulin Grottoes shows the left and right legs dancing with each other in a vigorous posture. Architectural Sculptures Many party members live in felt tents. In residential houses, only those with official titles had to cover the tiles. Before and after the founding of the People's Republic of China, a large number of Han craftsmen came to the Xia Kingdom and worked with Dangxiang craftsmen to build palaces and temples. The emperor's tomb is also of great size. The No. 8 Mausoleum of the Xia King that was cleaned up in 1972 (it is inferred to be the tomb of Xia Shenzong Zunxu) consists of the Que, stele pavilion, moon city, inner city, Xiandian, spiritual platform, inner sacred wall, outer sacred wall, corner platform, etc. Architectural composition. They are symmetrically deployed left and right along the central axis, strictly following the architectural format of the Tang and Song Dynasties, but they also show some of the ethnic characteristics of Dangxiang and the influence of other ethnic funeral customs. There are existing Chengtian Temple Tower (in Yinchuan, Ningxia) built in the first year of Tianyou Chuisheng (1050 AD) and Liangzhou Huguo Temple Induction Tower (in Wuwei, Gansu) rebuilt in the fifth year of Tianyou Min'an (1094 AD). It was rebuilt in later generations and still shows the grandeur of the building at that time.
The large reclining Buddha at the Reclining Buddha Temple in Ganzhou is a masterpiece of sculptures with its burly body and solemn appearance. The stone horse unearthed from the Xia royal tomb area is a round sculpture with a vivid expression. The stone statues found at the royal tomb stele pavilion site have a strange shape, with thick lines, and their faces and limbs have a prominent sense of strength. The damaged bamboo carvings found in the same area include courtyards, pine trees, rockeries, flowers and figures, with appropriate arrangements and beautiful shapes.
Dangxiang people have adopted the system of step marriage since the Sui and Tang Dynasties. They are allowed to marry concubines, uncles, brothers-in-law, and children's wives, but they do not marry the same surname. The head of a wealthy family with a male surname can adopt many women and practice polygamy. It is an old custom among Dangxiang people to burn the body after death, which is called cremation. After the founding of Xixia, most of the royal family and nobles switched to burial burials, and built luxurious tombs imitating the Han system.