Shangdi

“ One result of this is that the people may sometimes state, when they wave their incense-sticks or light their candles, that their humble sacrifice is made to Shang Ti, whom in reality they have no right either to worship or to offer sacrifice to, but whom they may unofficially pay respect and make obeisance to, as they might and did to the emperor behind the high boards on the roadsides which shielded him from their view as he was borne along in his elaborate procession on the few occasions when he came forth from the imperial city. ”

“ The people could not worship Shang Ti, for to do so would imply a familiarity or a claim of relationship punishable with death. The emperor worshipped his ancestors, the officials theirs, the people theirs. But, in the same way and sense that the people worshipped the emperor on earth, as the ‘father’ of the nation, namely, by adoration and Page 95obeisance, so also could they in this way and this sense worship Shang Ti. An Englishman may take off his hat as the king passes in the street to his coronation without taking any part in the official service in Westminster Abbey. ”

“ The same high authority cites a remarkable prayer of an Emperor of the Ming dynasty (1538 A.D.) to show that in spite of the agnosticism and reticence of Confucius, Shangte has been worshipped in the centuries which have followed his time. The prayer is very significant as showing how the One Supreme God stands related to the subordinate gods which polytheism has introduced. The Emperor was about to decree a slight change in the name of Shangte to be used in the imperial worship. ”

“ They come in multitudes.
King has the Ho for its outer border [6] .
That Yin [7] should have received the appointment (of Heaven) was entirely right;—
(Its sovereign) sustains all its dignities.
↑ The father of Shang is Hsieh, who has already been mentioned. The mother of Hsieh was a daughter of the House of the ancient state of Sung, and a concubine of the ancient ruler Khû (B.C. 2435) . According to Mâo, she accompanied Khû, at the time of the vernal equinox, when the swallow made its appearance, to sacrifice and pray to the first match-maker, and the result was the birth of Hsieh. ”

“ Now Shâu, the king of Shang, follows only the words of his wife. In his blindness he has neglected the sacrifices which he ought to offer, and makes no response (for the favours that he has received) ;* he has also cast off his paternal and maternal relations, not treating them properly. They are only the vagabonds from all quarters, loaded with crimes, whom he honours and exalts, whom he employs and trusts, making them great officers and high nobles, so that they can tyrannize over the people, and exercise their villainies in the cities of Shang. ”

“ Shang took his advice and no help was sent. When the messenger returned without success T‘an was very angry and showed it by putting Fêng Chi to death. He also began to talk of surrendering to Ts‘ao. Soon spies brought news of this to Shang and again Shên P‘ei was called in. Said he, “If he goes over to Ts‘ao they will both attack Ch‘ichou and we shall be in great danger.” Finally Shên P‘ei and Su Yu were left to take care of the defence of the city and Yüan Shang marched his army to the rescue of his brother.
“Who dares lead the van?” said Yüan Shang. ”

“ About 1600 B.C. we come at last into the realm of history. Of the Shang dynasty, which now followed, we have knowledge both from later texts and from excavations and the documents they have brought to light. The Shang civilization, an evident off-shoot of the Lung-shan culture (Tai, Yao, and Tunguses) , but also with elements of the Hsia culture (with Tibetan and Mongol and/or Turkish elements) , was beyond doubt a high civilization. Of the origin of the Shang State we have no details, nor do we know how the Hsia culture passed into the Shang culture. ”

“ During the troublous times which followed after the reign of the few first sovereigns of the Chow Dynasty, the belief in a personal deity grew indistinct and dim, until, when Confucius [born B. C. 551] began his career, there appeared nothing strange in his atheistic doctrines. He never in any way denied the existence of Shang-te, but he ignored him. His concern was with man as a member of society, and the object of his teaching was to lead him into those paths of rectitude which might best contribute to his own happiness, and to the well-being of that community of which he formed part. ”

“ The supreme god of the official worship was called Shang Ti; he was a god of vegetation who guided all growth and birth and was later conceived as a forefather of the races of mankind. The earth was represented as a mother goddess, who bore the plants and animals procreated by Shang Ti. In some parts of the Shang realm the two were conceived as a married couple who later were parted by one of their children. The husband went to heaven, and the rain is the male seed that creates life on earth. ”

“ Shang Ch'iu-k'ai bore all their rudeness without the slightest appearance of anger, until the ingenuity of his assailants was exhausted and they themselves tired with their game. Then they drove him to the top of a high tower, and one of them cried with a loud voice, "A thousand ounces of gold to any man who will jump down!" The rest all vied with one another in professing their willingness to do it; but Shang Ch'iu-k'ai, believing them to be in earnest, threw himself over at once. His body looked like a flying bird, and he alighted on the ground without sustaining the slightest injury. ”

“ Yet if he was lost to his contemporaries, he has been preserved by posterity. Perhaps there never lived a man so worshipped by posterity who had so slight a following by the men of his own time,--unless we liken him to that greatest of all Prophets, who, being despised and rejected, is, and is to be, the "headstone of the corner" in the rebuilding of humanity. Confucius says so little about the subjects that interested the people of China that some suppose he had no religion at all. Nor did he mention but once in his writings Shang-te, the supreme deity of his remote ancestors ”

“ In order to promote the fertility of the earth, it was believed that sacrifices must be offered to the gods. Consequently, in the Shang realm and the regions surrounding it there were many sorts of human sacrifices; often the victims were prisoners of war. One gains the impression that many wars were conducted not as wars of conquest but only for the purpose of capturing prisoners, although the area under Shang control gradually increased towards the west and the south-east, a fact demonstrating the interest in conquest. In some regions men lurked in the spring for people from other villages ”

“ Lhagpa-tsering had been a silversmith, and had by patient work amassed such wealth that he established himself as a jeweller and banker. His business prospered; in his shop were all kinds of goods—fine china, besides pearls, coral, turquoises, and jade; and here came all the great men of the country. He became noted also for his munificent gifts to the lamasery of Tashilhunpo. Some ten years ago there lived at Shang a saintly lama called Chyabtam lama; the purity of his life and his vast learning had made him an object of worship for all classes of people in Tsang. ”

“ The area under more or less organized Shang control comprised towards the end of the dynasty the present provinces of Honan, western Shantung, southern Hopei, central and south Shansi, east Shensi, parts of Kiangsu and Anhui. We can only roughly estimate the size of the population of the Shang state. Late texts say that at the time of the annihilation of the dynasty, some 3.1 million free men and 1.1 million serfs were captured by the conquerors; this would indicate a population of at least some 4-5 millions. ”

“ The Shangalla were formerly a very numerous people, divided into distinct tribes, or, as it is called, different nations, living each separately in distinct territories, each under the government of the chief of its own name, and each family of that name under the jurisdiction of its own chief, or head.
These Shangalla, during the fair half of the year, live under the shade of trees, the lowest branches of which they cut near the stem on the upper part, and then bend, or break them down, planting the ends of the branches in the earth. These branches they cover with the skins of wild beasts. ”

“ In China, Shang-ti is less definite than God [105] and it does not appear that he is thought of as the creator of the world and of human souls. Even the greater Hindu deities are not really God, for those who follow the higher life can neglect and almost despise them, without, however, denying their existence. ”

“ Trafford thought of Shangi, the Indian,—where had he gone? He had disappeared as suddenly as he had come to their camp in the South.
As they sat silent in the growing night, the door opened and the Scarlet Hunter stood before them. "There is food," he said, "on the threshold— food for those who go upon a far journey to the South in the morning. Unhappy are they who seek for gold at the rainbow's foot, who chase the fire-fly in the night, who follow the herds in the White Valley. Wise are they who anger not the gods, and who fly before the rising storm. ”

“ Shâu, the present king of Shang, is without principle, cruel and destructive to the creatures of Heaven, injurious and tyrannical to the multitudes of the people, lord of all the vagabonds under heaven, who collect about him as fish in the deep, and beasts in the prairie. I, the little child, having obtained (the help of) virtuous men, presume reverently to comply with (the will of) God, and make an end of his disorderly ways.* Our flowery and great land, and the tribes of the south and north, equally follow and consent with me. ”

“ Treat us as clods, as deaf and blind! And then we will venture to ask you to instruct us."
"I have no doctrine," replied Shang. "I am perfectly unconscious of possessing any special power. Nevertheless, there is one point which bears upon the matter, and I will try and explain it to you. Lately, two of your number passed a night in my cottage, and I overheard them expatiate upon the great fame and influence of Mr. Fan; saying how he held men's lives in his hand, and how he could enrich the poor and impoverish the rich. ”

“ Some of the Shang popular deities, however, were admitted into the official Heaven-worship. Popular deities became "feudal lords" under the Heaven-god. The Shang conceptions of the soul were also admitted into the Chou religion: the human body housed two souls, the personality-soul and the life-soul. Death meant the separation of the souls from the body, the life-soul also slowly dying. The personality-soul, however, could move about freely and lived as long as there were people who remembered it and kept it from hunger by means of sacrifices. ”

“ Shang was the name under which the dynasty that superseded Hsiâ (B.C. 1766) held the kingdom for fully 300 years. Yin then began to be used as well as Shang, and the dynasty was called indifferently Shang or Yin, and sometimes Yin-Shang by a combination of the two names. The ruling House traced its origin into the remote times of antiquity, through Hsieh, whose appointment by Shun to be Minister of Instruction is related in the Canon of Shun. For his services Hsieh was invested with the principality of Shang, corresponding to the present small department of the same name in Shen-hsî. ”

“ After the first civilities were over, I asked the governor of Waalia all the questions that were needful about the state of the roads and the country, and whether the Shangalla ever made an attempt upon Tcherkin? They said, All was peace; that the people came and went to the market without being interrupted. They laughed at the question about the Shangalla. Ayto Confu, they said, sometimes went down and destroyed many of that people, and brought others away as slaves ”

“ He appears in it commissioning 'his great uncle,' an elder brother, that is, of his mother, to go and rule, as marquis of Shan, and chief or president of the states in the south of the kingdom, to defend the borders against the encroaching hordes of the south, headed by the princes of Khû, whose lords bad been rebellious against the middle states even in the time of the Shang dynasty;--see the last of the Sacrificial Odes of Shang.
Grandly lofty are the mountains, With their large masses reaching to the heavens. ”

“ It was not that Heaven had any private partiality for the lord of Shang;—it simply gave its favour to pure virtue.* It was not that Shang sought (the allegiance of) the lower people;—the people simply turned to pure virtue. Where (the sovereign's) virtue is pure, his enterprizes are all fortunate; where his virtue is wavering and uncertain, his enterprizes are all unfortunate. ”

“ It is in the age of the (last) sovereign of Hsiâ.'
↑ The meaning seems to be that, whatever miseries might prevail, and be ignorantly ascribed to God, they were in reality owing to men's neglect of the law of Heaven inscribed on their hearts. ↑ We speak of 'turning night into day.' The tyrant of Shang turned day into night. Excesses, generally committed in darkness, were by him done openly. ↑ These 'demon regions' are understood to mean the seat of the Turkic tribes to the north of China, known from the earliest times by various names—'The hill Zung,' 'the northern Lî,' 'the Hsien-yun,' &c. ”