29 replies to this topic

[MengTzu]

Was the original meaning 帝 ancestor?

[nishishei]

Was the original meaning 帝 ancestor?

When Shang kings died, they were given titles of 帝. It's not just any ancestor, but God-like.

[MengTzu]

When Shang kings died, they were given titles of 帝. It's not just any ancestor, but God-like.

Did 上帝 perhaps once refer to an ancient ancestor, perhaps an ancestor of all humans or of the Shang people?

[Yun]

Yes, the view of many scholars is that it was the legendary progenitor (first ancestor) of the Shang ruling house. This is why after the Zhou overthrew them, the Zhou kings did not worship Shangdi but rather Tian (Heaven).

[MengTzu]

Yes, the view of many scholars is that it was the legendary progenitor (first ancestor) of the Shang ruling house. This is why after the Zhou overthrew them, the Zhou kings did not worship Shangdi but rather Tian (Heaven).

Did 上帝 eventually become synonymous with 天? Also, I'm not doubting your words (you've been extremely informative my friend, are you a Chinese history Ph.D. student?) but I hope it's not too much trouble for you to give me some sources for this? Thanks in advance.

[Yun]

MengTzu, I did some searching and found this on the 'net: http://spp.pinyin.in...108_heaven.html

You might want to order the printed copy of the journal for the full article.

There were another two discussions on this some time ago: http://www.chinahist...?showtopic=1564

http://www.chinahist...topic=903&st=15

Of course, there's also the ongoing thread on whether Confucius was a monotheist.

And finally, here's a neat diagram of the Di concept that I found:



It's from an online textbook http://www.east-asia...M-China/ch2.htm that also contains the following passages:

The religious practices of the Shang king and aristocrats centered on a hierarchy of royal ancestral spirits (that is, the spirits of the previously deceased Shang kings). At the top of this hierarchy was an all powerful deity known as Shangdi 上帝 or Lord-on-High in English. Shangdi was so powerful and awesome that no mere mortal dared communicate with him directly. Instead, humans communicated with Shangdi indirectly via the other royal ancestral spirits.

We saw that elite members of Shang society believed in an all-powerful deity called Shangdi. The early Zhou aristocrats also spoke and wrote of Shangdi, but by the middle of the Zhou period, the word tian had replaced Shangdi. The usual English translation of tian 天 is "Heaven." This translation is fine but requires an important caution: "Heaven" here does not mean a place to which one's soul goes, or a state of being one's soul attains, after death--or anything like it. "Heaven" had *several specific meanings* in Chinese usage:

1. "Heaven" was an all-powerful entity that actively intervened in human affairs. In this meaning, "Heaven" is similar to the older Shangdi.

2. "Heaven" was the cosmos in general or as a whole. It did not actively intervene in human affairs. Instead, "Heaven" was the sum total of the workings of nature including the laws and patterns by which nature operates.

3. "Heaven" also meant the sky, or that which is apart from the earth. This meaning is similar to the English usage in a sentence like "Rain poured down from the heavens."

Which of the above meanings of "Heaven" prevailed during the Zhou dynasty? The answer is all three. There was a general tendency for Zhou-era intellectuals to emphasize meaning #2 over meaning #1, but we can find many instances of meaning #1 in texts at any time during the Zhou period. Even the same individual might not be consistent, sometimes speaking of "Heaven" in the sense of meaning #1 and sometimes in the sense of meaning #2. These three meanings of "Heaven" remained a part of Chinese intellectual discourse throughout later dynasties as well.

[Yun]

are you a Chinese history Ph.D. student?)

I'm in my final undergrad semester, aiming for a PhD but still years away from it.

[MengTzu]

Thanks a lot bro. Do you have an actual source that expressly states that 上帝 was originally considered the first ancestor of the Shang royal house? I didn't see this (may be I didn't look carefully) in the sources you gave, unless the article I need to purchase talks about this. So are you a Chinese history major? Where are you studying?

[Yun]

Do you have an actual source that expressly states that 上帝 was originally considered the first ancestor of the Shang royal house?

I venture a guess that this is an inference from the fact that the other 'di' were all royal ancestors.

So are you a Chinese history major? Where are you studying?

I'm doing a general history degree for now, but taking as many Chinese history courses as I can. Have also just written my Honours thesis (in the US, that might be the History 101 paper) on Age of Fragmentation Buddhist political ideology. Look it up in the Projects and Articles section.

[MengTzu]

I venture a guess that this is an inference from the fact that the other 'di' were all royal ancestors.

But you mentioned some scholars who believed that, can you show me something they wrote? (Sorry if I'm asking for too much.)

[Yun]

Hmm, let's see... on reading into this a bit more, I found that there are actually two schools of thought on the Shangdi issue. The Gregory Smits reading that I provided actually does imply that Shangdi was an ancestral spirit, as seen in the parts I have highlighted in bold:

The religious practices of the Shang king and aristocrats centered on a hierarchy of royal ancestral spirits (that is, the spirits of the previously deceased Shang kings). At the top of this hierarchy was an all powerful deity known as Shangdi 上帝 or Lord-on-High in English. Shangdi was so powerful and awesome that no mere mortal dared communicate with him directly. Instead, humans communicated with Shangdi indirectly via the other royal ancestral spirits.

This, according to my lecturer a few years ago, is a common current view of Shangdi. But it seems that Charles Hucker saw Shangdi as an "antropomorphic deity" rather than a royal ancestor, and if Hucker's book seems dated, then Patricia Buckley Ebrey seems to express the same view in her Cambridge Illustrated History of China: "There were spiritual forces separate from ancestors - especially Di, the Lord on High, who could grant bountiful harvests, lend divine assistance in battle, send rain, thunder, wind, drought, or epidemics. But to communicate with these forces, the king regularly called on his ancestors to act as intermediaries."

So in Ebrey's formulation, there was only one Di, and He was not an ancestor but an all-powerful deity.

[jwrevak]

Was the original meaning 帝 ancestor?

I don’t think anyone knows how old the notion of the Lord-on-High (Shang-ti 上帝) is; however, clearly it is very ancient. I don’t think anyone knows for sure if Shang-ti was originally the ancestor of the Shang; however, some scholars have speculated that this is possible, including Bary, Chan, & Watson (Eds.), Sources of Chinese Tradition (Vol. 1). Still, even they make clear the origins of Shang-ti and his original nature are unclear. What we do know is that he was seen as a supreme god of sorts by the late Shang period. To make matters more confusing at times, including during the early Chou, Shang-ti and T’ien 天 were sometimes used synonymous and sometimes apparently not.

According to Bary, Chan, & Watson (Eds.), Sources of Chinese Tradition (Vol. 1):

“Not only in the texts of the Classics but also in the inscriptions on the Shang period oracle bones we find frequent references to a deity called Shang-ti or the Lord-on-High. Just who this deity originally was we cannot tell, but by the time we know much of him he appears as a divine ruler who watches over human society and regulates the working of the universe.”

Some references to the Lord-on-High from the classics follow.

From Shu ching (Shun tien):

“But in the first month, the first day, he [Shun] accepted the abdication of Yao in the Temple of Accomplished Ancestor. . . . Then he made lei sacrifice to the Lord-on-High. . . .”

From Shu ching (Shao kao):

“The Duke of Chou said: . . . ‘Oh, august Heaven, the Lord-on-High has changed his principal son [i.e., the ruler] and this great state Yin’s mandate. . . . May the king [Ch’eng of the Chou dynasty] come and take over the work of the Lord-on-High.’ ”

From Shih ching (Ta ya, Wen wang):

“Shang’s grandsons and sons;
Was their number not a hundred thousand?
But the Lord-on-High gave his command
And they bowed down to Chou.”

I suppose unless new evidence is found, we’ll never know the exact origins of Shasng-ti and his original nature.

Returning to the theme of the monotheistic God, I suppose you could make the case that the Lord-on-High is either a monotheistic God or close to being one, but I wouldn’t go so far as to conclude that he is identical to the Judeo-Christian God. Of course, many Christian missionaries, including Ricci, have done just that.

[MengTzu]

Hmm, let's see... on reading into this a bit more, I found that there are actually two schools of thought on the Shangdi issue. The Gregory Smits reading that I provided actually does imply that Shangdi was an ancestral spirit, as seen in the parts I have highlighted in bold:
This, according to my lecturer a few years ago, is a common current view of Shangdi. But it seems that Charles Hucker saw Shangdi as an "antropomorphic deity" rather than a royal ancestor, and if Hucker's book seems dated, then Patricia Buckley Ebrey seems to express the same view in her Cambridge Illustrated History of China: "There were spiritual forces separate from ancestors - especially Di, the Lord on High, who could grant bountiful harvests, lend divine assistance in battle, send rain, thunder, wind, drought, or epidemics. But to communicate with these forces, the king regularly called on his ancestors to act as intermediaries."

So in Ebrey's formulation, there was only one Di, and He was not an ancestor but an all-powerful deity.

Which website is that quotation from? Can you give me the website?

[Yun]

Which quotation are you referring to? If it's Smits, then go to this link: http://www.east-asia...M-China/ch2.htm

[MengTzu]

Which quotation are you referring to? If it's Smits, then go to this link: http://www.east-asia...M-China/ch2.htm

You still haven't shown me an explicit reference by any scholar that says 上帝 originally meant first ancestor of Shang's royal house. Are these sources tough to find?