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Shang dynasty religious practitioners

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Ancient Chinese polytheistic religion
Oracle bone from the Bīn 賓 group of diviners from period I, corresponding to the reign of King Wu Ding (c. 1250 BCE)
A Shang oracle text written by the Bīn group of diviners from period I, corresponding to the reign of King Wu Ding (c. 1250 BCE)

The Shang dynasty of China (c. 1600 - 1046 BCE), which adhered to a polytheistic religion centered around worshipping ancestors, structured itself into key religious roles with the king acting as head. As recorded on Shang oracle bones, royal adherents were grouped into specialist teams such as diviners, spirit mediums and those who conducted sacrifices. Outside of the capital area, lineages of Shang royal origins also developed religious activities resembling those of the central government.

The involvement of shamans in the Shang religion is under debate as written records are not sufficient for a conclusive determination. A prominent theory proposed by K. C. Chang contends that actual shamans were employed by the Shang, but it has met various counterarguments. However, it is agreed that the spirit medium group referred to as Shang shamans played active roles in Shang religious traditions.

As Shang practices varied throughout its dynastic course, several roles within its religious structure experienced substantial changes. The Shang kings gradually consolidated their religious authority, and by the last decades of the Shang they had personally assumed the role of diviners. After the fall of Shang, the succeeding Zhou dynasty bestowed the state of Song upon Shang descendants, who continued the worship of their royal ancestors.

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Stylisation of the 禄 lù or 子 zi grapheme, respectively meaning "prosperity", "furthering", "welfare" and "son", "offspring". 字 zì, meaning "word" and "symbol", is a cognate of 子 zi and represents a "son" enshrined under a "roof". The symbol is ultimately a representation of the north celestial pole (Běijí 北极) and its spinning constellations, and as such it is equivalent to the Eurasian symbol of the swastika, 卍 wàn.
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Zhenkong, "Void of Truth".
Zhenkong, "Void of Truth".

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Royal adherents

Oracle bones serve as the primary source for studies of Shang religion. They focused on the religious life of the king and the royal family. A typical ritual would feature many key roles; David Keightley conjured such a ritual based on actual inscriptional records, attempting to reconstruct a ceremonial scene normally observed by the Shang court.

Shang kings

This oracle bone is incomplete. A diviner asked the Shang king if there would be misfortune over the next ten days; the king replied that he had consulted the ancestor Xiaojia in a worship ceremony.
An oracle bone inscription which records the king consulting his ancestor Xiao Jia in a worshipping ritual.

The Shang king was at the center of all practitioners and acted as both the chief priest and the supreme intermediary between humans and spirits; he was sometimes referred to by modern studies as a 'thearch'. He ruled as a surrogate for the Shang supreme god throughout all four directions and exercised authority over all royal cult practices.

The Shang king communicated through means of divination, written on oracle bones. During a typical divination the king would usually give the final prognostications which were then inscribed on oracle bones. He might as well carry out the hosting ritual to connect with his ancestors; in fact, the king had exclusive rights to himself conduct the hosting ritual. He also facilitated lineage ancestor worship, with Wu Ding sending sacrificial materials to a Shang prince living outside of the capital. The highly religious King Wu Ding also seemed to be the organizer of his relatives' mortuary rituals, including that of his father Xiao Yi and his son Zu Ji.

Shang religion mostly concerned royal ancestors, and the High God Di was also probably a collective of many Shang ancestral spirits. The king's being a descendant of the gods would then strengthen his legitimacy to rule. Besides his own ancestors, the king also seemed to have incorporated tribal spirits into his pantheon in a move to gain support from his tribal allies. Some among the tribal spirits he worshipped later featured in classical Chinese literature, such as a deity named Kui. It was also a practice of the king to conduct rituals to the Sun, arguably a way for him to control Shang familial branches.

Some close relatives of the Shang king may assume their role as priests. A prominent figure among those was Fu Hao, a consort of Wu Ding recorded on inscriptions as host of sacrificial ceremonies. In one particular example, she presided over the offering of about 500 Qiang prisoners. The king and his heirs were granted exclusive access to some ritual bronzes such as the ding.

Divination staff

Shang diviners were referred to as duobu and were possibly directed by a supervisor. Oracle bone inscriptions record approximately 120 diviners whose names are known to modern academics. The staff prepared the bones, mainly scapulae and plastrons, and then applied heat on them. Diviners then tried to determine spiritual responses from bone cracks caused by the heat and scribes inscribed their interpretation on the bones. The staff may carry out divination in the capital ritual center, but they could also proceed outside, such as on a hunt.

Shang diviners seemed to trace their origins to various regions with close connection to the ruling elite in Anyang; in fact, over 30 out of 120 diviners had their names coinciding with places outside the capital area. The family grave of such a diviner in Anyang offers evidence that the person originated somewhere else, although he grew up in the capital area.

The 20th century Chinese academic Dong Zuobin assigned some Shang diviners into five chronological phases:

Dong Zuobin's diviner periodization
Period Kings Some contemporary diviners
I Wu Ding Què 㱿, Bīn 賓, Zhēng 爭
II Zu Geng, Zu Jia Dà 大, Lǚ 旅, Xíng 行, Jí 即, Yǐn 尹, Chū 出
III Lin Xin, Kang Ding Hé 何
IV Wu Yi, Wen Ding Lì 曆
V Di Yi, Di Xin

In modern studies, significant changes to Dong's classification have been made. The very earliest inscriptions is identified to be that of the Shi group, and was probably the ancestor of later inscriptions. This group was active during the early reign of Wu Ding and included diviners Fu, Shi, Ye, and Shao. This diviner group functioned under the direct supervision of Wu Ding, who sometimes appeared as a diviner in its inscriptions. Shi-group diviners were separated into factions and, also during Wu Ding's reign, developed into the Bin and Li diviner teams.

Ox scapula from the reign of King Wu Ding, with inscription by a Bin-group diviner named Zheng.

After the Shi diviner group, diviners were divided into two distinct branches, North and South, based on the location of their writing's remains. The North branch's Bin group was the most active Wu Ding-era group and remained functional during the reign of Zu Geng. This group was further composed of two subdivisions with different script content and calligraphy; it was from these two that a group named Chu (North branch) was derived. Another prominent team active during Wu Ding's reign was the Li group, whose members often divined about the same topics as the Bin-group diviners despite their calligraphic distinctions. Diviners of the Li group used to be placed during the Wu Yi and Wen Ding reigns by Chen Mengjia and Dong Zuobin, but later studies suggested a much earlier date. These diviners probably worked from Wu Ding's reign to that of Zu Jia.

A group named Chu emerged during the last years of Wu Ding's reign and operated actively during the eras of his two sons Zu Geng and Zu Jia. Regular diviners in this group include Chu, Da Ji, Xiong, Xi, Xian and several others. The Shang king was in charge of many among their divinations. Their calligraphy is considered very neat and distinctive, and their content reveals the first mentions of the regular five-ritual cycle that became the norm during later reigns. Chu-group diviners did not concern pre-Shang Jia mythological ancestors as much as earlier groups, and they also practiced a different bone-cracking method.

During the last reigns of the Shang, a major group named Huang arose, mostly featured diviners Huang, Pai and Li. It was a combination of the He group and another unnamed team called Wuming ('Unnamed'). Huang-group diviners are characterized by their small, vertical writing. They often wrote about sacrifices, war, and hunting; some of their longest inscriptions do not concern divination but rather documenting ceremonial events.

Inscriptions by two diviners Huang and Chu have been used to infer a ritual schedule employed during the last reigns of the Shang.

The 'wu' and shamanism

The hosting ritual commonly carried out by the king is a point of academic contention about shamanism in Shang religion. Some scholars understand the hosting ritual to have featured the kings as ceremonial hosts uniquely equipped to "hear" the spiritual messages in religious events. There was also a ritual whose graph depicts a figure – assumed as the Shang king himself – dressed with a ghost head mask and kneeling in front of an ancestral altar. Some assert that this the king desired to invoke the spirits through this, and that it was also his exclusive right to carry it out. He might use materials such as wine and grass bundles to accompany him in this trance-like act.

Oracle bone inscriptions record instances in which the king engaged in invocative ceremonies, as demonstrated by the two examples below:

At divination on the gengzi day Xi tested the proposition: As for meat cut with the yue it should be the king who carries out invocation.

— Fu yin 6

At divination on the gengchen day: The king will carry out the rite of invocation to Father Xin with sheep, pigs you-buckets of millet wine.

— Jinbun 3014

Kwang-chih Chang and fellow proponents strongly endorse the theory that the ritual must be shamanic, while others argue that the ritual did not involve the king immersed in ecstasy and spirit commingling and was thus non-shamanic.

The Shang employed spirit mediums called by an ancient character that modern scholars render as wu (巫). According to Gilles Boileau, four possible interpretations of the wu were identified:

  1. "a spirit, wu of the north or east, to which sacrifices are offered"
  2. "a sacrifice, possibly linked to controlling the wind or meteorology"
  3. "an equivalent for shi 筮, a form of divination using achilea"
  4. "a living human being, possibly the name of a person, tribe, place, or territory"

In addition, there exist several notable characteristics of the wu:

  1. The gender of the wu is not determined;
  2. The character could denote both the name for a function and the name of a particular person or group of people;
  3. The wu occasionally presided over several divination rituals;
  4. The wu is seen as offering a sacrifice of appeasement, but it was not always the one chosen to carry out this activity, which the king and other staff also participated in;
  5. There is only one inscription where a direct link between the king and the wu appears. Nevertheless, the nature of the link is not known, because the status of the wu does not appear clearly;
  6. The wu follows (being brought, presumably, to Shang territory or court) the orders of other people; it is perhaps offered to the Shang as a tribute.
  7. After death, the wu was worshipped by the Shang together with regular spirits.
  8. Inducing the spirits to send down rain was the wu most important practice. If they failed to do this and harvest damage was imminent, the last resort was to sacrifice the wu themselves by burning.

The fact that the wu was offered to the Shang suggests a non-Shang origin of this figure. Sinologist Victor H. Mair examined the wu by looking at evidences from outside of China. He proposed a connection between the wu and the ancient Mesopotamian magus, whose ancient pronunciations resemble each other. Mair then suggested that since the magus were not shamans, the wu should be perceived as those who communicated with spirits via means of arts and ritual rather than shamanic practices. David Keightley also rejected the conflation of wu with shamans.

Other court religious positions

七日己未斲庚申月又食

On the seventh day jǐwèi (day 56) cleaving into gēngshēn (day 57), the moon was eaten.

Oracle bone Heji 40610v.

The Shang utilized astronomers to make observations they deemed necessary for religious activities.

Chinese literature after the Shang dynasty mentioned Shang astronomers such as Wuxian, who allegedly composed a star map. The Grand Historian of the Han dynasty, Sima Qian, stated in the Shiji that he took Wuxian's celestial map as a source to identify the residence of the Shang high god on the sky.

There were dancers employed by the Shang, and the ancient character denoting them suggests that they danced with oxtails. Often, dancers would perform in religious sanctuaries, including natural landscapes such as the Yellow River.

Lineage adherents

The main corpus of oracle texts made by the king's entourage is augmented by smaller amounts of inscriptions from the aristocracy. These consist of four groups, commonly called the 'non-king divinations'. Three are named after their notable diviners, and the remaining one features inscriptions with no particular diviner identified. All four serve as descriptions of religious practice not sanctioned directly by the king, but by the ennobled lineage leaders with familial ties to him. These inscriptions seem to indicate that the non-royal adherents focused their worship on ancestors who did not become kings, as well as peculiar spirits that might be only worshipped privately by these non-king lineages.

Huayuanzhuang lineage adherents

One among the four groups, identified as inscriptional records left by a Shang prince during the reign of Wu Ding, provides by far the most rigorous documentation of lineage religious activities. This person was identified to be a son of Wu Ding who administered a Shang-conquered land called Rong. His texts, now excavated at the Huayuanzhuang East site, comprise about 500 separate inscribed bones. Inscriptions on these bones indicate significant differences between the prince's lineage divination practices and that of the royal apparatus. For example, his diviners extensively specified the time of divination within a day and almost always included in their inscriptions the phrases 'used / not used' unseen in the royal inscriptions. Despite the distinctions, the cult recipients the prince's entourage mentioned are the same as those worshipped by the central authorities.

Inscriptions suggest that the prince's lineage started to develop Shang religion in Rong right after the place was conquered. The patron commissioned additional constructions serving for worship, including an ancestral temple, a tower, and a guesthouse intended to store sacrifices. There is also evidence that his lineage temple complex was designed in a way that resembled the Zhou dynasty's spatial zhaomu system. The Huayuanzhuang prince particularly built a cult around 'Ancestress Geng', who was mentioned as Wu Ding's mother in royal texts:

己亥卜：子于(戎)宿，夙殺牢妣庚。用。

Divined on jihai: Our lord, staying overnight in Rong, at dawn will kill some pen-raised cattle (for) Ancestress Geng. Used.

— HYZ 267

戊申卜：其將妣庚于(戎)東官(館)。用。

Divined on wushen: Should carry in offerings (to) Ancestress Geng in Rong’s eastern guesthouse. Used.

癸丑，將妣庚，其歲妣庚牢。在(戎)。一二三

On guichou, carrying in offerings (to) Ancestress Geng, should sacrifice (to) Ancestress Geng some pen-raised cattle. At Rong.123

— HYZ 248

The prince frequently reported to Ancestress Geng about his sickness and dreams; if exorcism was necessary, it would be performed to this ancestress together with the prince's great-grandmother Ji. Other ancestral deities revered by the Huayuanzhuang entourage include 'Ancestor Yi' (Xiao Yi), 'Ancestor Jia' (Yang Jia), 'Ancestor Xin' (Xiao Xin), 'Ancestor Geng' (Pan Geng), and 'Ancestor Ding' (Zu Ding). All these spirits were well known through Wu Ding's own royal divinations and spanned through two generations. A particular spirit he worshipped was probably not an ancestor but rather his own son, who died early. It also appears that the prince, while worshipping many common ancestors with the royal schools, rarely paid attention to the Predynastic ancestors as well as spirits of nature like Yue and He.

The patron himself personally acted as diviner in twenty-six different inscriptions, which is a unique feature since King Wu Ding as a contemporary almost never conducted such a practice. In many rituals he appeared to make a prayer. Sometimes he would personally preside over an exorcism to ensure safety to his staff. Although he entrusted many people to conduct sacrifices on his behalf, in some occasions he directly made sacrifices to the spirits, as one text indicates:

乙卯卜：歲祖乙牢，子其自，弜(勿)速。用。

Divined on yimao: In sacrificing (to) Ancestor Yi some pen-raised cattle, our lord should do it himself; (he) ought not invite (anyone else). Used.

— HYZ 294

Wu Ding maintained a close connection with his son in terms of religion, sending sacrificial materials to Rong and assigning a royal official to safeguard the prince remotely. Some of Wu Ding's own diviners might have also been active in the Huayuanzhuang diviner teams. Oracle bones also record the involvement of brothers and cousins, who seemed to take the protagonist as leader. According to the inscriptions collected, these people included:

  1. Zi Hua, an entrusted cousin of the patron, who held the second-most highest status and was the only one chosen to conduct rituals on behalf of the prince ;
  2. Zi Pou and Zi Yu, two cousins of the prince who participated in sacrificial ceremonies to ancestors of the nearest generations;
  3. Zi Hu and Zi Bi, who were associated with rituals involving dance and music.

Lineage adherents from Wu and Zi inscription groups

Non-royal inscriptions other than the Huayuanzhuang texts are also characterized by descriptions of religious activities that, while being similar to royal practices, exhibited independent features. Two particular inscription groups, named Wu and Zi, refer to numerous cult recipients that are never mentioned in the royal records. Some of them are listed as below:

Spirits receiving sacrfices in Wu and Zi inscriptions
Diviner group Name of cult recipients
Wu 午 Zu Ren 祖壬, Fu Ding 父丁, Fu Ji 父己, Fu Bing 父丙, Bi Yi 妣乙, Zi Geng 子庚, Nei Yi 內乙, Wai Wu 外戊, Shi Jia 石甲, Tian Geng 天庚
Zi 子
  • The 'Many Ladies' (zhufu 諸婦)
  • Long Jia 龍甲, Long Mu 龍母, Si Gui 司癸, Xiao Ji 小己

A notable inscription, namely the Zi group's Heji 19849, describe ancestral rituals performed by a prince or head of a lineage to two ancestors, one of which was the founder of the Shang dynasty. The inscription on this bone suggests that the rituals performed were comparably similar to the king's school, particularly the Shi group. In some cases the diviners exhibit a delicate, feminine writing on ancestress-related topics, indicating that these diviners were themselves female or they may have operated under the supervision of a queen or a king's consort.

It is also these non-king records that document the lineages' use of white animals for the exorcism ritual. This is also observed in the royal inscriptions, notably the Li-group ones. In some cases, the lineage patron himself conducted the exorcism rite to several clan members; for example, inscriptions from the Wu group record the patron carried out exorcism for ancestors Zi Geng, Xiong Geng, Fu Ding, and Fu Wu.

Specialist training

Scribal training

Table of the sexagenary cycle from the reigns of the last two Shang kings, inscribed on a scapula

The complex nature of the Shang oracle bone script indicates a level of training necessary for scribes to acquire literacy. Robert Bagley noted that the process of acquiring full literacy for Shang scribes is not understood.

The Shang character for 'learn' (xué 學) has been identified and determined to be both a verb and a noun. For example, some inscriptions reveal that when the word is used in collocation with 'great' (大), the resulting phrase could refer to an alternative place for performing an unknown ritual. Xué could possibly be a noun in HD: 181 (wǎngxué 往學 ‘to go to the xué’) and in HD: 450 (rùxué 入學 ‘to enter the xué’), but these examples could equally be verbs. Generally, the presence of this word in Shang inscriptions suggest a real system for specialist training.

Within the complex corpus of Anyang inscriptions are a set called xike (習刻), literally meaning 'practice engraved'. This group consists of atypical inscriptions that exhibit incompetent writings and other features, indicating that the scribe was not recording divinations but rather practicing the skills required for that purpose. A notable content of xike writings is the sexagenary (ganzhi) table used as the Shang religious calendar. Examining these as an example, academics such as Matsumaru Michio theorized that the tables are divided to those used as models and others as student writing practice.

The content consists of the ganzhi for days 1 to 10 engraved repeatedly. In the fourth line of text, the graphs are finely written and orderly, as though engraved by a teacher (xiānshēng 先生) to serve as a model (fànbĕn 範本). The rest are crooked and inferior, as though written by someone learning to engrave (xuékè 學刻). This is no different from the method by which today’s children practice writing (xízì 習字). Shedding light on the educational circumstances of three thousand years ago, it is of the utmost interest. Furthermore, interspersed within the columns written by the trainee are finely written graphs identical to those of the model, where presumably the attendant teacher took up the knife. Examples include the 辰，庶, and 申 of the second line and the 卯, 己, and 辛 of the third.

Guo Moruo's description of xike writing

The Chinese sinologist Guo Moruo was the first to note down characteristics of this writing in 1937. Guo arguably considered the xike set to be examples of literacy training for future specialists. Later scholars argued for an alternative explanation in which the 'students' writing the xike were already literate and were intended to practice engraving techniques. This interpretation later became the general consensus. It also seem to indicate that scribes might have received literacy training on media other than oracle bones that have long faded away. In any case, these inscriptions seem to be real examples of scribal training.

A particular example of learning inscriptions is the bone with designation number Heji 26907:

己巳卜彭貞...
Day 6 cracking, Peng divined...

— HJ 26907

This inscription belongs to the He divination group's workshop. The real divinatory record on the bone was well-written except for the preface, which was probably inscribed by a person allowed to do so. That individual was likely diviner Peng, who might be also learning divination performance as well. The rest of the bone inscription were fragmented, disorderly, and not complying with the normal style standards. Two of these additional texts appear to be Peng's own work.

Training other ritual activities

The records of the Huayuanzhuang prince indicate a form of dance schooling. In five inscriptions, the word 'learn' comes with 'shang' (商), speculated to denote a form of dance. There are inscriptions about continuing to perform 'shang', and there is an oracle bone anticipating Wu Ding's inspection of this practice.

It is generally believed that the Shang might have had some kinds of institutionalized training locations for religious teaching.

History and development

Neolithic precursors

Longshan culture, around 3000 to 1900 BCE.
The Longshan culture, where ancestor worship rituals were practiced.

Before the dawn of organized states in China, the area was inhabited by various tribal confederationsn which shared religious practices based on ideas of animism, totemism and shamanism. The spirits were thought to possess divine powers and were able to intervene in the living realm. That led to the necessity of direct communication with the spirits, through means of mystics. A group of specified individuals referred to as shamans arose and took responsibility for conducting their respective tribe's religious rituals. In many regions of China, Neolithic cultures had utilized bony materials from cattles for divination. Many cultures also sought to communicate with spirits via prayers, grave goods and animal sacrifice.

Archaeological evidence indicates that music culture developed in China from a very early period. Excavations in Jiahu Village in Wuyang County, Henan found bone flutes dated to 9,000 years ago, and clay music instruments called Xun thought to be 7,000 years old have been found in the Hemudu sites in Zhejiang and Banpo in Xi'an.

Dong Zuobin's diviner chronological theory

Throughout the late Shang dynastic course when written materials came in abundance, several distinct scribal groups existed and often intermingled. Their style, calligraphy and inscriptional contents are comparably different. 20th century Chinese scholars, most prominently Dong Zuobin, divided the diviners into two groups referred to as the 'Old School' and the 'New School'. According to Dong's periodization, since the religious reforms commissioned by Zu Jia during the 12th century BCE, these two groups had experienced periods of high activity alternating with times in which they were not favored. The Old School diviners used to work under Wu Ding and Zu Geng, but later replaced by the New School established by Zu Jia. Dong contended that the succeeding reigns were characterized by interchanging employment of either school, ending with the last two kings Di Yi and Di Xin returning to the New School. Dong also identified major distinctions between the two groups, including calendar recording, writing styles, divination topics, and even the materials selected for divination. Although the theory has once been prevalent among academics, it has recently been challenged by alternatives.

During the Zhou dynasty

Around 1046 BCE, the Shang dynasty collapsed, and a new Zhou dynasty commenced its course. The early Western Zhou period (c. 11th century BCE) kept the old Shang religious practices by revering Shang spirits. Early Zhou oracle bones found in Zhouyuan contain inscriptions concerning Di Yi, one of the last Shang kings who used to be worshipped by the Shang people.

King Wu of Zhou, the first king of the new royal family, enfranchised the Shang prince Wu Geng and allowed him to continue worshipping Shang spirits. After King Wu's death, Wu Geng rebelled together with the Three Guards, but was defeated and killed by the royal army. The Zhou dynasty enfeoffed another Shang prince, titled Weizi, as ruler of Song, and Weizi's lineage continued the old ancestral worship. Shu Yi, a high official of the state of Qi around 600 BCE, was a direct descendant of the Shang. He owned a bronze artifact named 'Shu Yi Zhong' to memorialize his royal Shang ancestral spirits.

When Qi conquered Song in 286 BCE, the Shang religion ceased to be practiced formally, although the spirits of Shang kings were still revered in later imperial dynasties of China.

Traditional narrative

Many Chinese dynasties that ruled after the Shang composed various texts that mention alleged Shang religious practitioners. The Chinese classics of the Zhou dynasty, the Xunzi, the Records of the Grand Historian as well as others describe these figures as illustrious models for righteousness and virtue.

Tang of Shang, as depicted by Ma Lin

Chinese tradition describes the first Shang king, Tang, as a religious and perspicacious figure in Chinese history. According to most classical records, there was a great drought accompanied by famine happening during Tang's reign. It was suggested at last that a human being be offered in a sacrificial ritual to 'Heaven', and prayers bemade for rain. Tang allegedly said: "If a man must be the victim, I will be he." and then proceeded to cut off his hair and nails. Tang, in a horse-drawn carriage, dressed as a sacrificial victim, and went to a forest of mulberry trees in which an altar was built. There he prayed, asking about which of his wrongdoing had led to calamities. It is told that a heavy rain fell when Tang had not finished his prayer, saving the Chinese people from further disasters.

The Book of Documents also refers to a quote by Yi Yin, who was a chief minister of Tang, when he counsels the young new king Tai Jia after Tang's own death. Yi Yin purportedly made a remark about Tang:

The former king kept his eye continually on the bright requirements of Heaven, and so he maintained the worship of the spirits of heaven and earth, of those presiding over the land and the grain, and of those of the ancestral temple; all with a sincere reverence.

— Yi Yin to Tai Jia

Other than that, the ancient Chinese tradition additionally say of later Shang kings who were given counsels by their ministers. Such a literary example is the Book of Documents chapter 'Day of the Supplementary Sacrifice to Gaozong'. According to the narrative, the Shang king, assumed to be Wu Ding, was carrying out a ritual honoring Tang when a wild pheasant was spotted on a sacrificial vessel. The king interpreted it as a negative sign from the gods, but his eldest son Zu Ji remonstrated with him, counselling him to carry out religious reforms by reducing offerings to Shang ancestral spirits, as to correct the meaning of sacrifices. Zu Ji's speech was recorded in the Book of Documents:

On the day of the supplementary sacrifice of Kao-Tsung , there appeared a crowing pheasant. Tsoo-Ke said, 'To rectify this affair, the king must first be corrected.' He delivered accordingly a lesson to the king, saying, 'In its inspection of men below, Heaven's first consideration is of their righteousness, and it bestows on them (accordingly) length of years or the contrary. It is not Heaven that cuts short men's lives; they bring them to an end themselves. Some men who have not complied with virtue will yet not acknowledge their offences, and when Heaven has by evident tokens charged them to correct their conduct, they still say, "What are these things to us?" Oh! our Majesty's business is to care reverently for the people. And all your ancestors were the heirs of the kingdom by the gift of Heaven; in attending to the sacrifices, be not so excessive in those to your father.'

— Zu Ji to the king

Traditional texts refer to a minister of Wu Ding named Fu Yue, who criticized the Shang king's excessive sacrificial rituals. In Fu's counsels given to his king, too much sacrifices would be harmful and counterproductive, as they were not respectful to the spirits, and therefore brought disorder. The Book of Documents obliquely mentions Shang pyromancy, with a reference to Pan Geng lauding those who did not "presumptuously oppose the decision of the tortoise".

The last Shang king, Di Xin, was described by the Zhou dynasty as a ruler who completely neglected religious affairs, especially sacrifices. Zhou people interpreted his actions as one of the reasons why his regime collapsed eventually. The Book of Documents section Book of Zhou - Speech at Mu quotes:

今商王受惟婦言是用。昏棄厥肆祀弗答，昏棄厥遺王父母弟不迪。乃惟四方之多罪逋逃，是崇是長，是信是使，是以為大夫卿士，俾暴虐于百姓，以奸宄于商邑。

Now for Shou, the king of Shang, it is indeed the words of his wife that he follows. He blindly discards the sacrifices he should present and fails to respond . He blindly discards his paternal and maternal uncles who are still alive and fails to employ them. Thus, indeed, the vagabonds of the four quarters, loaded with crimes—these he honors, these he exalts, these he trusts, these he enlists, these he takes as high officials and dignitaries, to let them oppress and tyrannize the people and bring villainy and treachery upon the City of Shang.

— King Wu of Zhou giving speech, translated by Martin Kern

Notes

  1. Dong also included kings Pan Geng, Xiao Xin and Xiao Yi. However, few or perhaps no inscriptions can be reliably assigned to pre-Wu Ding reigns. Many scholars assume that earlier oracle bones from Anyang exist but have not yet been found.
  2. Many academics contend that the wu of the Shang was a female.
  3. Old Chinese reads wu as mag (Bernhard Karlgren), mjuo < *mjwaɣ (Zhou Fagao), *mjag (Li Fang-Kuei), mju < *ma (Axel Schuessler).
  4. Some academics consider this individual to be a brother of Wu Ding, rather than his son.
  5. A bone in the corpus, designated HYZ 82, records that the patron's entourage also conducted sacrifices in this guesthouse.
  6. It was also known through the Huayuanzhuang oracle bones that some people in the prince's staff could conduct exorcism for him. For instance, an inscription designated HYZ 284 concerns whether archer-lord Dian should carry out exorcism for his lord.
  7. Some prehistoric Chinese cultures produced artifacts that bear the "AZ" motif, which represented some kind of a "High God" similarly to the Shang dynasty's spirits.
  8. According to David Pankenier, the Zhou overlord Ji Fa defeated the last Shang king on 20th January, 1046 BCE, marking the end of the old regime.
  9. Zu Ji appears in Shang oracle inscriptions under the name Jie, while post-Shang texts often refer to him as Xiao Ji.
  10. This chapter's name in the Book of Documents contain Wu Ding's alleged posthumous name. This causes some to suspect that the event described did not take place during Wu Ding's reign but rather after he died, and Zu Ji might have been remonstrated with Zu Geng instead.

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