The Age of the Sages

by Mark W Muesse

  Apparently, the bones and shells were etched with questions of this sort and then heated or burned, causing them to crack. These cracks were then interpreted, probably by a specialist in the art. It is not known exactly how the cracks were evaluated—whether the diviners were interested in the shape, the direction, the sound, or the speed of the crack. But once an answer was obtained, the procedure was repeated several times to ensure accuracy. After the fissures were interpreted, the answers they rendered were also engraved on the animal part. The fact that over 100,000 such fragments of bone and shell have been recovered indicates that this procedure, known generically as divination, was an extremely important part of this early period in China and that it was used for both political and religious purposes.

  Divining is a very common practice throughout the world’s religions. The methods differ, but the principle behind them is basically the same. Something tangible involving an element of randomness—like crack patterns or the choice of cards in a deck—is used to allow the intangible spirits to communicate to mortal beings. Divination is one way of solving basic religious issues: how do we determine what the gods want, and what must we do to ensure that things go well with us? Divination is still popular, even in our ostensibly modern scientific world. Consider the continuing presence of tarot cards, Ouija boards, horoscopes, palm reading, and the eight ball in Western culture. There is quite a variety of divination methods in world history, including some lesser-known techniques such as observing how a rooster pecks grain (alectromancy), how a person laughs (geloscopy), and watching the movements of mice (myomancy).

  “Divining is a very common practice throughout the world’s religions. The methods differ, but the principle behind them is basically the same. Something tangible involving an element of randomness—like crack patterns or the choice of cards in a deck—is used to allow the intangible spirits to communicate to mortal beings. Divination is one way of solving basic religious issues: how do we determine what the gods want, and what must we do to ensure that things go well with us?”

  Still today, the use of divination is widespread throughout Asia, and many Asians would not even consider making an important decision without consulting an astrologer or some other soothsayer. In the 1980s, a minor scandal occurred when it came to light that President and Mrs. Reagan had consulted astrologers in the White House. It was never clear whether the president had ever based any decisions of state on the stars or whether the astrologers were just consulted on personal matters. Nevertheless, against the backdrop of world history, the Reagans’ use of divination practices would not be considered unusual at all. In fact, for many societies, to make a political decision without conferring with the spirits would be regarded as extremely risky and perhaps downright blasphemous. In ancient China, political and religious matters were intimately connected, and no one would ever consider trying to separate them. The court astrologers and diviners were paid state officials.

  Heaven and Earth

  The “dragon bone” inscriptions tell us about other important aspects of Shang religion. From them, we learn of the prime importance of maintaining harmony between heaven and earth—the principal dimensions of the universe—and the role of the spirit world in keeping these realms in balance.

  Harmony

  The ancient Chinese saw a very close connection between the spirit and human worlds, or as they would say, between heaven (tian) and earth (di). In Chinese thought, heaven and earth did not refer to two separate regions of the cosmos; rather, they were understood to be coterminous realms. This view of heaven meant that the gods and the spirits were immediately available to human beings.

  A great part of Shang religion focused on maintaining harmony between these worlds. The well-being of everyone depended on it, and preserving this balance was one of the king’s principal functions. Harmony is a common theme throughout Chinese culture and one of the primary ideals of its religions.

  Gods

  How did the ancient Chinese imagine the heavenly realm? Who were the beings who lived in this world, and what did they do? In Shang theology, the divine dimension was thought to be a heavenly court that paralleled the earthly royal court. Just as the king ruled on earth through a bureaucracy of nobles, advisers, and various other functionaries, the high god ruled heaven with his minions and assistants. The Chinese called the high god Shangdi, or simply Di, the Lord Supreme. Di presided over a court that included many lesser divinities who controlled, or at least influenced, the powers of the natural and human worlds. These were the gods to whom the Chinese turned for favors in matters of agriculture, hunting, military campaigns, and health and longevity. The high god would not be bothered for these trivial matters. Not all the gods were universal, either; many were decidedly local, including the municipal or village gods, whose power extended only as far as the city limits, similar to the jurisdiction of the local sheriff.

  The bone inscriptions reveal that relationships between the ancient Chinese and their gods were rather businesslike. The human interest in the divine was defined by what the god could do. The bones reveal no indication that people wanted to have a friendship or some other intimate relationship with their deities. We find no expressions of love or tenderness between a god and a devotee. The kind of close relationship we see in the Bible between the god Yahweh and Moses, or between Arjuna and Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita, would be unimaginable in Shang religion. Furthermore, we find no evidence that the gods were concerned with the moral behavior of human beings. They did not give commandments or grant favors on the basis of how well humans treated each other. Shangdi would not bring calamity upon the country because people treated each other poorly, in the way that Yahweh killed everyone except Noah and his family because of humanity’s wickedness. For the Chinese gods, the central concerns in the divine–human relationship were in receiving pleasing sacrifices and tributes; humans, in return, expected divine assistance with ‘worldly’ matters such as producing an abundant crop, gaining victory over enemies, healing illness, and living a long life with many descendants. Here, we might compare the religious interests in China with those of the Indo-Aryans, who at this same point in history were mainly concerned with meeting basic needs and enjoying a prosperous life. Morality and personal spirituality were not part of Chinese religious practices at this time.

  “For the Chinese gods, the central concerns in the divine–human relationship were in receiving pleasing sacrifices and tributes; humans, in return, expected divine assistance with ‘worldly’ matters such as producing an abundant crop, gaining victory over enemies, healing illness, and living a long life with many descendants.”

  The Ancestors

  In addition to the gods—and not sharply distinguished from them—were the ancestors. The ancestors were the deceased individuals in one’s clan, who existed in the spirit world, from where they continued to exert influence on living family members. Belief in ancestors is actually a widespread phenomenon throughout the world’s religions, though it is not by any means universal. It has been part of the religious beliefs of people from parts of Africa, native America, Polynesia, South and Southeast Asia, as well as China. In ancient China—and to a great extent throughout Chinese history—ancestors have been seen as having a continuing interest in the welfare of their descendants. Hence, they were to be consulted on important matters, and they were to be honored with sacrifices and gifts. They were also believed to mediate with the gods, especially if they were ancestors of a powerful earthly family, such as that of the king.

  Some early theorists of religion in the nineteenth century thought belief in ancestors may have been one of the earliest forms of religion. Burial of the dead was probably the earliest religious ritual, and, if so, reverencing the dead might have been connected to it. One hypothesis suggests that the belief that one’s relatives might still exist in the spirit world following death comes from the experience of dreaming. Most of us—perhaps all of us—have had dreams about someone who has died, often someone v
ery close to us. These dreams can be very powerful. For ancient people around the globe, the dream world was just as real as—and frequently more real than—the world of waking life.

  Ancestor reverence as it was practiced in China, though, involved more than just belief in the continued existence of the dead. People also felt the need to keep the ancestors happy and appeal to them for favors. We do not know much about ancestor reverence in the Shang period, because we lack historical evidence about the practice among the common people, but we do know that the king’s relationship to his ancestors was extremely important. The bone inscriptions suggest that the king’s ancestors had a great influence over his well-being and could mediate between the king and Shangdi. Each day of the week was even dedicated to one or another of the royal ancestors.

  About ordinary folk and their ancestors we know very little, but judging by the importance of this practice throughout the rest of Chinese history, we can surmise that ancestor reverence was also widespread among everyday people in the Shang period. Even today, in places where traditional Chinese religions are still practiced, ancestor worship is very popular. In Taiwan, Tomb-Sweeping Day is a spring festival when extended families gather at the cemetery for a reunion to clean the graves of the departed and make offerings to them. This holiday underscores for us the great significance of the family and the sense of continuity with the past that pervades Chinese culture.

  Ghosts

  Ghosts, like ancestors and gods, were part of the unseen spirit world in the ancient Chinese worldview. Whereas the ancestors were generally benevolent toward the living, ghosts were not. They could cause great misfortune, sickness, and other problems. Generally, ghosts were understood to be the spirits of the dead who had not been properly buried. Like the ancient Greeks, ancient Chinese believed a ghost would haunt the living until its body received a fitting funeral.[2]

  Early in the twenty-first century, ghosts became a news item in a story reporting how many East and Southeast Asians were avoiding vacationing at the beaches of Thailand and other parts of the Indian Ocean where the tsunami of 2004 killed almost a quarter million people. The great fear among these individuals was that because so many people who died in that disaster were simply washed out to sea and never received a burial, the shores would be full of ghosts wreaking havoc on human life. As this story illustrates, ghosts were to be avoided as much possible. But when they couldn’t be avoided (and sometimes you just cannot avoid ghosts), the Chinese tried to appease them with offerings or, as a last resort, to banish or exorcize them.

  The Concept of Virtue

  Before we leave this brief sketch of preaxial China, one final concept should be noted because it plays an extremely important role in the development of Axial Age thought. That is the concept of de, a word found on many of the bone inscriptions used for communicating with the spirits. De is usually translated as “virtue,” although its meaning in preaxial China is different from the way we use the word virtue today.

  At that time in Chinese history, de referred to a power or force that came to exist within a person who acted generously or kindly toward another individual or to a god or spirit. De was generated by an act of compassion or by a sacrifice that was pleasing to a god or ancestor, but what was important was mainly the inner disposition, or the attitude, with which the act was performed. This power of virtue was believed to accumulate in an individual who performed many acts of kindness and compassion. Virtuous people were powerful people. (It would not be accurate to say, however, that powerful people were always virtuous people.) For their part, those who benefited from these compassionate acts were believed to feel indebted to the benefactor and would want to repay the benefactor with a similar act of kindness. The Chinese called this desire to respondto a kindness bao. Thus, virtue carries with it the power to affect the lives of others in a positive way. Your virtuous act toward me encourages my virtue, prompting me to act kindly. De and bao were regarded as being causally connected in the nature of things. These were not viewed as psychological so much as natural phenomena, operating as surely as we today think gravity works, or the way Indians view the function of karma.

  This idea of virtue is important in Chinese religions in many ways. For example, let us explore how it functions in an issue we have been discussing: family obligations. Consider the importance of including ancestors as part of the ongoing life of the family. This practice is associated with what the Chinese call filial piety (xiao), or the reverence for parents and ancestors. According to the ancient understanding of virtue and the sense of obligation it evoked, children were greatly indebted to their parents for giving them life. The debt one owed to one’s parents was immeasurable and could never, really, be repaid. The only proper response, in view of this indebtedness, was reverence.

  A poem from the classic Book of Odes nicely captures the sense of filial indebtedness that was foundational for Chinese family life. The poem was written down in the Zhou dynasty (c. 1045–221 bce), but it was probably composed in preaxial times. In any event, it reflects what seem to be prevalent attitudes of the Shang period. The poem is addressed to the author’s parents:

  Oh father, you begat me!

  Oh mother you nourished me!

  You supported and nourished me,

  You raised me and provided for me,

  You looked after me and sheltered me,

  In your comings and goings,

  You [always] bore me in your arms.

  The kindness [de] I would repay [bao]

  Is boundless as the Heavens![3]

  This belief in the importance of filial responsibility has been foundational for Chinese culture up to modern times.

  A similar point can be made with respect to each of the elements of Shang religion that we have examined. They all endured in some fashion into the Axial Age and have persisted through much of Chinese religious history. We have discussed the closeness of heaven and earth in the Chinese imagination and the vital importance of maintaining harmony between them. The chief method for preserving harmony was essentially ritualistic. The residents of heaven demanded less in terms of moral and ethical behavior and more in terms of sacrificial food. The responsibility for this harmony fell in great measure—if not exclusively—on the king. Thus, we see the very close association of politics and religion in Chinese culture, a closeness that may seem alien to many modern minds. We should also observe that religious practice essentially served the needs of the collective rather than the needs of individuals, including the king himself. Sacrifices and divination practices were mainly for the well-being of society. And this, we should note, is characteristic of preaxial religions. The practice of religion pertained chiefly to ritual and was performed principally for the material benefit of the community. We observed this in preaxial South Asia as well. When the Axial Age came to China, however, these central elements of religious practice began to change.

  * * *

  Gloria L. Cronin and Ben Siegel, eds., Conversations with Robert Penn Warren (Oxford: University Press of Mississippi, 2005), 20.↵

  See the Iliad and the Odyssey.↵

  From the Shijing in James Legge, The Chinese Classics 4:352, (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1970), quoted in Philip J. Ivanhoe, Confucian Moral Self-Cultivation, 2nd ed. (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2000), xii.↵

  17

  The World of Confucius

  In our first glimpse of China’s religious history, we discussed the prominent practices and beliefs of the preaxial period, which included divination, ancestor reverence, ritual sacrifices, and gods and ghosts. Those ancient concepts and practices endured into the Axial Age and up to modern times. In this chapter, we will examine the transition to the Axial Age and introduce the most influential individual of that era, the sage Confucius. In subsequent chapters, we will study the fundamental elements of Confucian thought, how they were interpreted by others, and some significant opposing viewpoints, including the religion of Daoism.

  The Early Zhou Dynasty />
  Scholars are not absolutely sure when the Shang dynasty began—probably in the fifteenth or fourteenth centuries bce—but we know when it ended. In or about the year 1045 bce, the Shang rulers were deposed by another aristocratic family, the Zhou dynasty, who established the next period in Chinese history. The Zhou dynasty lasted, at least in name, some eight hundred years, until it was supplanted by the Qin dynasty in 221 bce. These dates mean that the Zhou dynasty roughly spanned the entire Axial Age.

  Political and Cultural Changes

  To help us comprehend the religious dimensions of this period, it is essential to discuss its salient political and cultural aspects. The Zhou dynasty is traditionally traced to a King Wen, who was known as the “cultured king” and was credited with refining the book of divination called the Yi Jing. Despite his title, “King” Wen never actually ruled China. Wen had been a feudal lord who was imprisoned by the last Shang king. When Wen’s son Wu overthrew Shang rule, he freed his father from imprisonment and bestowed on him the honorific title “king,” although Wu himself was the actual ruler. When King Wu died at an early age, his younger brother Dan became regent for Wu’s thirteen-year-old son. Dan was better known by his title, the Duke of Zhou. These figures in the early history of the Zhou dynasty—especially the duke—came to be regarded as the paragons of leadership and moral behavior by later Chinese, particularly Confucius, who reported that he had frequent dreams about the duke.