I need help with a Religion question. All explanations and answers will be used to help me learn.
After completing the readings for the week, discuss five new things you learned. Paraphrase the information (write in your own words) and include page number citations (p. 53). For each item discuss why you found the information interesting, significant, and/or noteworthy.
READING:
Ancient China Ancient China emerged in the fertile valleys of two great waterways: the Yellow River and the Yangtze River (L Map 1.5). As early as 3500 B.C., Neolithic villages in China were producing silk, a commodity that would bring wealth and fame to Chinese culture, but the distinctive features of the civilization—urban centers, metallurgy, and writing—did not appear until the second millennium B.C. By 1750 BC, the Chinese had developed a calligraphic script (see Figure 1.13) that used about 4,500 characters (each character representing an individual word), some of which are still in use today. Incorporating pictorial and phonetic elements, Chinese characters became the basis for writing throughout East Asia. It is likely that the dynastic system of China was in place long before the advent of writing. But there was no evidence of a fully developed urban civilization in Bronze Age China until the advent of the well-known warrior tribe.
Shang Dynasty (circa 1520-1027 BC) Shang rulers were hereditary kings who were seen as mediators between people and the spirit world. Constrained in power by councils made up of Chinese nobles, they claimed their authority from the Lord on high (Shang-di). Hence, as in Egypt, they ruled by divine right. The dragon symbolized royal power, a hybrid beast representing strength, fertility and life-giving waters (Fig. L 1.36). Occupants of the “Dragon Throne”, the early kings of China defended their position with a powerful bureaucracy and huge armies of archer warriors recruited from the provinces. The king’s soldiers consisted of peasants who cultivated the land in peacetime with the help of slaves captured in the war. The Chinese social system is clearly the Shang royal tombs, where the king is surrounded by the men and women who served him. The royal tombs also contain several hundred decapitated bodies, possibly those of the slaves who built the tombs. As in Egypt and Mesopotamia, the Chinese royal tombs were full of treasures, most of which took the form of carved jade and exquisitely crafted bronze objects (Fig. 1.37); See also Figure 1.14).
The aristocracy of merit from ancient China comes from the earliest evidence of a meritocracy. That is, leadership based on the principle of excellence, is directly linked to the education and testing system. The Chinese argued that since order governs all of nature, it must also govern man’s intelligence and ability. So, those with greater abilities must govern, while those with lesser abilities must satisfy the material needs of the state. Between the 12th and 8th centuries BC, China implemented the world’s first system whereby individuals are selected for government service on the basis of merit and education. Written exams tested the competence and skill of those seeking a government position. This system lasted for several centuries and became the basis for a well-deserved aristocracy that has characterized Chinese culture well in modern times.
The Mandate of Heaven The sacred right to rule was known in China as the Mandate of Heaven. Although the notion of divine-right kingship began in the earliest centuries of China’s dynasties, the concept of a divine mandate was not fixed until early in the Zhou era (ca. 1027–256 B.C.E.), when the rebel Zhou tribe justified their assault on the Shang by claiming that Shang kings had failed to rule virtuously; hence, heaven had withdrawn its mandate. Charged with maintaining the will of heaven on earth, the king’s political authority required obedience to established moral law, which in turn reflected the natural order.
Spirits, Gods, and the Natural Order The agricultural communities of ancient China venerated an assortment of local spirits associated with natural forces, and with rivers, mountains, and crops. But the most powerful of the personalized spirits of ancient China were those of deceased ancestors, the members of an extended familial community. According to the Chinese, the spirits of powerful rulers and deceased ancestors continued to exist in heaven, where they assumed their role as mediators between heaven and earth. Since, like the pharaohs of Egypt, deceased rulers exerted a direct influence upon human affairs, their eternal welfare was of deep concern to the ancient Chinese. They buried their dead in elaborate tombs, regularly made sacrifices to them, and brought offerings of food and wine to their graves. The dead and the living shared a cosmos animated by spirits and regulated by the natural order-a holistic and primordial arrangement. In the regularity of the seasonal cycle and the everyday workings of nature, the Chinese found harmony and order. Signifying the order of nature most graphically is the cosmological metaphor of yin/yang. This principle, which ancient Chinese emperors called “the foundation of the entire universe,” interprets all nature as the dynamic product of two interacting cosmic forces, or modes of energy, commonly configured as twin interpenetrating shapes enclosed in a circle
The natural order might be symbolized by way of abstract symbols, such as the circle, but it was also worshiped in the form of nature spirits and celestial deities. The creative principle, for instance, was known interchangeably as the Lord on High (Shang-di) and, more abstractly, as heaven (Tian). Although not an anthropomorphic deity of the kind found in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, Shang- di/Tian regulated the workings of the universe and impartially guided the destinies of all people. Chinese mythology described cosmic unity in terms of the marriage of Tian (the creative principle, or heaven) and Kun (the receptive principle, or earth).
The ancient Chinese perception of an inviolable natural order dominated all aspects of China’s long and productive history. Unlike the civilizations of Egypt and Mesopotamia, China left no mythological tales or heroic epics. Rather, China’s oldest text, the I jing (the Book of Changes; ca. 1000-500 B.C.E.), is a directory for interpreting the operations of the universe. The Book of Changes, which originated in the Shang era but was not recorded until the sixth century B.C.E. (see U page 47), consists of cryptic symbols and commentaries on which diviners drew to predict the future. Order derived from the balance between the four seasons, the five elements (wood, fire, earth, metal, and water), and the five powers of creation (cold, heat, dryness, moisture, and wind). For the Chinese, the cosmic and human order was a single sacred system. This holistic viewpoint identified gi (pronounced “chee”) as the substance of the universe and, thus, the vital energy that pervades the human body.
Daoism: The Philosophy of the Way The most profound expression of the natural order is the ancient Chinese practice known as Daoism As much a philosophy as a religion, Daoism embraces a universal natural principle: the Dao, or Way. Daoism resists all intellectual analysis. It manifests itself in the harmony of things and may be understood as the unity underlying nature’s multiplicity and the harmonious integration of yin and yang. Only those who live in total simplicity, in harmony with nature, can be one with the Dao. Daoists seek to cultivate tranquility, spontaneity, compassion, and spiritual insight. They practice meditation and breath control and observe special life-prolonging dietary regulations. While Daoism has its roots in Chinese folk religion, no one knows where or when it originated. The basic Daoist text is the Dao de jing (The Way and its Power; ca. mid-sixth century B.C.E.). This 5000-word “scripture” associated with the name Lao Zi (“the Old One”) is a landmark work that has influenced every aspect of Chinese culture.
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