清代钱塘江潮神崇拜研究——兼论政府对民间信仰的引导作用

Study on Belief of Tide God of Qiantang River in Qing Dynasty

潮神是钱塘江下游沿岸富有地方特色的一类民间信仰是对与涌潮有关的、能抵抗潮灾的一类神灵的泛称。绶过梳理钱塘江流域各类潮神信仰产生的自然与人文背景,并对清代杭州府的潮神信仰进行分类统计,认为在当时的历史条件下,钱塘江的潮神崇拜有利于地方的稳定和农业发展,也有利于政权的巩固,因此,政府不遗余力地对这些神灵进行嘉封、立庙,以此方式将各潮神纳入符合儒家道德规范的神灵体系,并在潮灾泛滥地区加以推广。

God Tide is a kind of folk belief with local characteristics along the lower reaches of Qiantang River banks.It is not the specific name for one God,but a generic term for a kind of Gods related to Qiantang tide who are capable of helping people resist frequent tidal disasters.And yet,they don t form a divine system with each other.This paper studies on various God Tide beliefs of the Hangzhou Fu in the Qing Dynasty,makes a classification and statistics of them,and analyses the natural and humanistic background of their birth and development.It comes to a conclusion that people s worship of God Tide is conducive to local stability and agricultural development,as well as to the consolidation of government power.Therefore,the government spared no effort to remodeling gods related to tide as some Confucian moral models,and publicize them to the local.