Relationship Between The High God Di And The Shang Dynasty

People believed their ancestors controlled what went on in life and could guide them on the right paths, provided they kept them happy. Therefore, many people would use oracle bones to communicate with them, divining answers to their questions and foretelling the future using cracks fire made in the bones. This belief in all-powerful ancestors was so deeply held in Chinese society that when the Zhou dynasty began, in order to cement their legitimacy as rulers and prevent any possible revolts, they claimed they had the “Mandate of Heaven” and that the Shang had lost theirs by ruling poorly. The Mandate of Heaven was, essentially, the divine right to rule, but with ancestors in place of a single deity. This was readily accepted, for the Chinese people trusted their ancestors’ decisions (considering their omnisciency) and did not wish to go against their wishes, risking the consequences of displeasing them. The Zhou knew that this aspect of Chinese culture was ingrained and therefore took advantage of the fact that their claim was virtually

The Vedic Age and the Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties set the ground work for some of the prevailing spiritual principals of their societies. On the surface, these beliefs appear to be different, but a closer look may uncover some similar experiences and commonalities.

When comparing their religious views, Ancient South Asia and China were very different. In Ancient South Asia, they held that trees and animals were sacred because of their associations with vital forces. In comparison, Ancient Chinese people believed in their ancestor’s presence and they believed in their continuing influence. Family heads, in Ancient China, presided over the rites of honoring their ancestor’s spirits.

o Ancestors could intercede with Di (Shang deity), punish the kings, and provide clues about the future

Firstly, the relationship expectations in Chinese customs and traditions were strongly held onto. The daughters of the Chinese

To start with, the ancient Mesopotamians and Chinese had fairly similar religious beliefs. Both were polytheistic, and their gods were anthropomorphic. The Chinese, however, primarily worshipped a supreme god. The first was Di and the second was Tian, a more benevolent god. In Mesopotamia, there were high priests and temples to preform religious rituals, while the common Chinese belief was that only the ruler could communicate with the supreme god through their ancestors. Alternatively, two relevant ideals present in both societies was the belief an afterlife, as shown through the possessions left in tombs, and the thought that gods demonstrated anger through natural disasters. The Chinese, especially, valued the idea of gods using natural disasters to show disapproval in the current ruler, and called it the “Mandate of Heaven”.

The region of China is extensive and profound. “In China lay people did not belong to an institutionalized sect, nor did their religious life have anything to do with signing articles of faint. Religion in China was so woven into the broad fabric of family and social life that there was not even a special word for it until modern times, when one was coined to match the Western term” (Thompson, 1). In China, Taoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism are all blended. In the earliest period, Shang Dynasty (2000 BC), people in China had worshipped a lot of different gods (polytheism) such as weather god, river god. People in the Shang Dynasty believed that their ancestors become like gods after they died, so people worshipped their

Their most famous gods were Zeus, (the king of gods) Ares, (the god of war) Aphrodite, (the goddess of war) and Athena (the goddess of wisdom), who Athens is named after. Han China on the other hand believed in Buddhism and Taoism. Buddhism’s basic beliefs are based on 4 noble truths: (1) life is full of pain and sorrow (2) the cause of pain and sorrow is non-virtue (3) the way to overcome that pain and sorrow is by overcoming non-virtue and (4) the way to overcome non-virtue is by following the 8-fold path.

The people who lived under the Shang Dynasty strongly believed that whenever their ancestors died, they became similar to gods, and deserved to be worshipped as if they too were gods. Each family in the Shang Dynasty would not only worship the gods, but would also worship their own ancestors. Along with ancestor worship, during the late Shang Dynasty, people in ancient China also began to use written oracle bones to try to predict the future and also to communicate with the gods.

In ancient China, government is very different then most countries. Instead of presidents they have dynasty’s. A dynasty is a line of hereditary rulers of a country. The shang dynasty was responsible for the starting blocks of of chinese culture and civilization. The steadiness of the country during the Shang Dynasty led up to many cultural advances such as industrialized bronze casting, the calendar, religious rituals, and writing. The first king was Tang. He began to work for the people of

Shamanism in the Shang Dynasty Dustin Soderberg Pacific College of Oriental Medicine Shamanism in the Shang Dynasty Thesis Page Authority During the Shang Dynasty Religion played an important role in the authority of the King during the Shang Dynasty. Although the king was the highest position in government the actual decision making authority of the King was more limited than one might think. The king was limited because his decisions were made based on messages he received from his ancestors. The king relied on the ancestors for personal and political matters. The ancestors played a very imporatant role during the Shang Dynasty. "

The early Chinese believed that the afterlife was somehow like the world of the living and that wealthy Chinese nobles and leaders needed everything they might need in the journey to the afterlife. Human sacrifice to them was providing the wealthy people with servants often times the servants they had when the noble or leader was alive would be the protectors of the grave or to serve them in the afterlife.

Shang-Ti also regulated human affairs as well as ruling over the material universe. This dual function would, in the Chou dynasty, be attributed to a more abstract figure, "t'ien," or "Heaven." The Shang also believed that their ancestors dwelled in heaven after their death and continued to show an interest in their familiy and descendants. The obligations within the family included, therefore, the ancestors. Failing in one's duties to the ancestors could bring all sorts of disaster on a family. All of these divine and semi-divine figures, from Shang-Ti to a family's ancestors, were sacrificed to. However, we know little of the nature or the frequency of these sacrifices. We do know, however, that in the Chou dynasty only the king could sacrifice to Shang-Ti; it is highly likely that Shang-Ti was the "local god" of the Shang kings who was subsequently elevated in order to elevate the Shang themselves. The one disturbing fact of Shang sacrifice is that it certainly involved humans; slaves and prisoners of war were often sacrificed by the hundreds when a king died. Lesser numbers were sacrificed at the founding of a palace or temple. F. Major reasons for decline and fall: 2. Chou: dynasty (1122-221 B.C.) that ruled ancient china from almost a thousand years establishing a distinctive political and cultural characteristics which would be identified with China for the next 2,000 years. A. Reason's for Rise: B. Territorial Location & size

In the Confucianism religion, rituals are held to bring people together. The core unifying factor of rituals is worship. One of the oldest rituals in the Confucian is the worship of the ancestors. Confucians took ancestors worship as a source of their moral and spiritual fulfillment something that brought harmony in the society. The rise of Han dynasty in 202 BC, endorsed Confucianism as a leadership ideology, and it came with the incorporation of the ancestors worship (Dubs, 1938). Shrines to ancestors mostly consisted of pictures of the dead elders and to show respect to them, one was required to clasp incense in the hand and kneel before the picture to place the burning incense in the holder. Ancestors are taken to be a link to the Supreme Being and the people. The respect for the dead was caused by the belief that a person has two souls, namely hun and po. The two souls are associated with yang and yin

Filial piety was an integral part of Chinese culture and therefore was embraced by three of China's main religions: Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism. Among the three, Confucianism, with its well documented social hierarchy, supported the ideals of filial piety the most. Buddhism and Daoism also supported filial piety in some of their texts, but had monastic systems that prevented monks and nuns from being filial children.