Ancient Chinese Religion

1. Ancient Chinese Religion The Shang and Zhou Dynasties 商　－　周

2. Ancient Chinese Civilization

3. Shang and Zhou Religion • Ancient Chinese Civilization (6000-2000 BCE)The Pre-Historic Period • The Shang Dynasty (1766-1122 BCE) Shang Foundations of Modern Chinese Religion • The Zhou Dynasty (1040-256 BCE)

4. Ancient Chinese Civilization (6000-2000 BCE)The Pre-Historic Period • The Shang Dynasty (1766-1122 BCE) • Shang Foundations of Modern Chinese Religion • The Zhou Dynasty (1040-256 BCE)

5. Archeological discoveries • 周口店 Zhoukoudian (500,000 BCE) • 仰韶 Yangshao (6000-3000 BCE) • 龍山 Longshan (3000-2000 BCE)

6. 周口店

8. 仰韶文化 半坡

9. Yang-shao (6000-3000 BCE) 仰韶 • Settlement around rivers • “Flash and burn” agriculture • Domesticated dogs, pigs, goats, silkworms • Supplemented diet with hunting & gathering • Stone implements • Grain storage pits within the houses • Painted pottery • Few weapons found • Houses of wood, straw, and mud, sometimes semi-subterranean – doors facing south • Burial grounds separated from the village, some including more than one village, suggesting regional kinship relations • No signs of social stratification in houses and graves • Burial of deer with humans, pottery and implements 半坡, 4500 BCE(excavated 1954-57)

10.  龍山文化

11. Long-shan (3000-2000 BCE) 龍山 • Permanently settled villages • Rammed earth walls • Irrigation • Rice, peaches, melons, peanuts, beans • Cattle, sheep, pigs, water buffalo • Wheel-made pottery • Weapons and fortified villages • Evidence of bone and shell divination • Developing social stratification • More elaborate burials

12. Yangshao and Longshan Cultural Contrasts (from K.C. Chang, Archeology of Ancient China) Yangshao (6000-3000) Longshan (3000-2000) Permanent settlements Domesticated cattle & sheep Far-reaching expansions Harvesting tools Wheel-spun pottery Defensive walls & weapons Burial practice indicating social stratification Evidence of “ancestral cult” • Shifting settlements • Domesticated pigs & dogs • Geographically confined • Game-hunting tools • Handmade pottery • No defensive works • Burial practice indicating age and sex differentiation • Evidence of “fertility cult”

14. Evidence of Pre-historic Religion(multiple Neolithic cultures) • Tomb offerings: • Placement of graves • Deer burial • Divination tools pottery jade

15. The Prehistoric Period in Chinese Myth The “Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors” 三皇五帝 Dating to the Han Dynasty (2nd c. BCE), but purporting to describe events ca. 3000 BCE

16. 三皇五帝 • Fuxi (伏羲) • Nüwa (女媧) • Shennong (神農) • Huang-di (黄帝) • Zhuanxu (顓頊) • Emperor Ku (帝嚳) • Emperor Yao (堯) • Emperor Shun (舜)

17. Legends of Fu-xi 伏羲China’s “First Emperor” • First of the 三皇“Mythical Emperors” • Survivor of the great flood -- “inventor” of fishing, trapping, writing, civilized domestic life • With sister Nű-wa (女媧 – second of the 三皇), procreator of humankind, making companions of clay

18. Legends of Fu Xi “伏羲坐像” 馬麟 (13th c.) • In the beginning there was as yet no moral or social order. Men knew their mothers only, not their fathers. When hungry, they searched for food; when satisfied, they threw away the remnants. They devoured their food hide and hair, drank the blood, and clad themselves in skins and rushes. Then came Fu Xi 伏羲and looked upward and contemplated the images in the heavens, and looked downward and contemplated the occurrences on earth. He united man and wife, regulated the five stages of change, and laid down the laws of humanity. He devised the eight trigrams, in order to gain mastery over the world. • Ban Gu, Baihu tongyi (白虎通義), Han Dynasty(trans. by Richard Wilhelm) Perhaps corresponding to what period?

19. Legends of Shen-nong 神農 -- third of the 三皇 • “The ancient people ate meat of animals and birds. [When] there were so many people that the animals and birds became inadequate for the people’s needs, Shen-nong taught the people to cultivate. • “There was a red bird holding in its mouth a cereal stalk with nine ears. Some of the grains fell to the ground. Millet rained from heaven. Shen-nong picked them up and cultivated them in the field. Those who ate the grains lived long and did not die. • “Shen-nong invented wooden agricultural implements and taught the whole world his inventions. He instituted the market held at noon. He administered all the peoples of the world and gathered their produce in the markets. After exchanging their goods, the people went back to their homes and rested contented” • Translated by K.C. Chang, The Archaeology of Ancient China (1963) Shu-jing 書經 (Western Han) Perhaps corresponding to what period?

20. The Divine Farmer‘s Herb-Root Classic (神農本草經) Dating to Western Han (2nd c. BCE) but attributed to Shennong A Taoist foreshadowing? Place in the Taoist Canon

21. Ancient Chinese Civilization (6000-2000 BCE)The Pre-Historic Period • The Shang Dynasty (1766-1122 BCE) • Shang Foundations of Modern Chinese Religion • The Zhou Dynasty (1040-256 BCE)

22. Ancient Chinese Civilization

23. The Shang 商Dynasty (1766-1122 BCE) • Hereditary kings • Large landholdings • Armed warfare • Human sacrifice • Earliest writing • Bronze casting

24. Shang Dynasty Religion • Shangdi 上帝 • Royal Ancestors • Nature Spirits

25. Interaction with Deities • Sacrifices • Divination

26. Oracle Bones • Materials • Inscriptions • Procedure • Contents • Values and themes

27. Takashima Kenichi Plastron shell 1

28. Oracle-bone Inscriptions Ox scapula • Preface/postface: time, diviner, place • Questions: prayers, predictions, or plans • The prognostication: interpretation of the cracks by the king • Verification: confirming accuracy 2

29. On the day gui-hai (60th day), the king made cracks and divined: “In the next 10 days there will be no disasters.” The king read the cracks and said: “Auspicious.” On the day gui-zhou (50th day), the king made cracks and divined: “In the next 10 days there will be deer [from the hunt].” The king read the cracks and said: “Auspicious.” Preface prognostication verification 3

30. Guess the Glyph*! Let’s play *A sculptured mark or symbol (Oxford English Dictionary)

31. Shang Inscriptions 甲骨文jiǎgǔwén

32. Shang Inscriptions 甲骨jiǎgǔ文

33. Shang Inscriptions 甲骨jiǎgǔ文

34. sacrifices military campaigns hunting expeditions excursions the coming ten-day week the coming night or day the weather agriculture sickness childbirth distress and trouble dreams settlement building orders tribute payments divine assistance or approval requests addressed to ancestral or nature powers Contents of Oracle-bone inscriptions 4

35. Values and themes • Whenever possible, cracks were interpreted auspiciously • Only verifications were recorded, never errors, emphasizing the power and accuracy of the king • Complementarity: reality as a series of balanced dualisms • Use of writing as a religio-political tool 5

36. Abiding features of Shang religion • Centrality of ancestor worship / spirits of the dead • Bureaucratization of the afterworld • Offerings of meat, grain, and wine • Ritualization of nature • Continuum of heaven and earth, dead and living (the cosmos as an inter-related whole) • Reciprocity, mutuality • Priestly / magical power over the spirit world

37. Ancient Chinese Civilization (6000-2000 BCE)The Pre-Historic Period • The Shang Dynasty (1766-1122 BCE) • Shang Foundations of Modern Chinese Religion • The Zhou Dynasty (1040-256 BCE)

38. Ancient Chinese Civilization

39. Zhou Dynasty (1122 BCE – 256 BCE) 1122-771 BCE (capitals: various) 770-256 BCE (capital: Luoyang)

40. Dating All dates B.C.E. 商 朝 Shang Dynasty 1766-1122 西 周 Western Zhou (Chou) Dynasty 1122-771 東 周 Eastern Zhou (Chou) Dynasty 770-256 春 秋 Spring & Autumn Period 722-481 戰 國 Warring States Period 403-221

41. Zhou Dynasty Religion • Heaven (天 Tian) :the Zhou high god, increasingly “depersonalized” • Ancestor worship (spirits of the dead) • The cult of the Earth (“nature” spirits)

42. The Mandate of Heaven 天命 • Shang overthrow (1066 BCE) • Religious justification: “For his many crimes, the King of Shang has been punished by Heaven. Heaven is going by means of meto rule the people.” (史記 Shi ji – Book of History) • Divine/Moral right to rule

43. Speaking to the Shang nobles, the Duke of Zhou explained: King Wu of Zhou possessed a mandate which said, ‘Destroy the Shang Dynasty.’ Because our actions did not go contrary to Heaven’s course of action, your Royal House has come under our control. I will explain it to you. Your ruler was greatly lawless. Our house did not originate this movement against your house. It came from your own court. When I reflect that Heaven has applied such great severity to the Shang ruler, it shows that he was not upright.” From the  書經 Shu jing(Book of Documents) 天命 See Ivanhoe and Van Norden, pp. xiii-xiv

44. God of the hearth Deities of city gates and city walls, roads Deities of stars and constellations, sun, moon Deities of mountains and rivers, wind and rain Popular deities of the Eastern Zhou

45. Religious specialists of the Eastern Zhou • Diviners • Dream-interpreters • Interpreters of extraordinary phenomena • Exorcists • Shamans

46. Dating All dates B.C.E. 商 朝 Shang Dynasty 1766-1122 西 周 Western Zhou Dynasty 1122-771 東 周 Eastern Zhou Dynasty 770-256 春 秋 Spring & Autumn Period 722-481 戰 國 Warring States Period 403-221

47. The Warring States Period (403-221)

48. Decline of royal ancestral rites Decline in power of the royal ancestors Use of religion for political purposes Idea of “individual mandates” Strengthening of the “Six Schools” Growing allegiance to nature deities of localities Growing religious skepticism Religious Decline of the Warring States Period

49. Shi jing 204 Shi jing 272 詩經 Religious Decline of the Warring States Period

50. Growing religious skepticism: • Heaven is violent and terrifying. He does not foresee, He does not calculate the future. He pardons those who have committed crimes. Even those who have already expiated their sins as well as those who have committed no crimes at all are [still] made to suffer. • Heaven is not just. He sends down these great quarrels. Heaven is not kind. He sends down these great oppressions. Heaven is not just. From the  詩經 Shi jing (Book of Poetry) -- trans. by Homer Dubs