Shen (Chinese folk religion)
is a Chinese word with senses of deities, divinities, or spirits. The Japanese equivalent is kami, as in Shintoism. This single Chinese term expresses a range of similar, yet differing, meanings.
The first meaning refers to deities which are intimately involved in the affairs of the world, or spirits, such as dead ancestors. Spirits generate entities like rivers, mountains, thunder, and stars.
A second meaning of refers to the human spirit or psyche that is seen in the body as luster or vigor and in the mind as vitality and enthusiasm; it is the basic power or agency within humans that accounts for life, and in order to further life to its fullest potential, the spirit is transformed to actualize potential.
A third understanding of describes an entity as supernatural in the sense of inspiring awe or wonder because it combines categories usually kept separate, or it cannot be comprehended through normal concepts.
In the traditional Chinese theory of sanbao, is associated with the side of yin and yang and Jing is yin in comparison. Heaven is the origin of the spiritual aspect of humanity and provides ongoing spiritual influences, and therefore, it is associated with the heart, while Earth is the origin of the physical aspect of humankind/nature and is traditionally related to our kidneys or lower. The ongoing harmonious interaction of Heaven and Earth creates in this case human and therefore is associated with the spleen, stomach and liver in the middle Jiao, which is essential to create balance and harmony of yin and yang, therefore maintaining a good standard of health and creating life.
It is said in the classics that the human is the best creation of Heaven and Earth. In traditional Chinese medicine, Taoist, Buddhist, and Chinese folk religious tradition, the balance of and is important to provide external harmony and internal health within life, thereby preventing injury, illness, or harm to body, mind, spirit, or the environment.
Pronunciation
is the Modern Standard Chinese pronunciation of 神 "god, deity; spirit, spiritual, supernatural; awareness, consciousness etc". Reconstructions of in Middle Chinese include , , , and . Reconstructions of in Old Chinese include , , , , and .Although the etymological origin of is uncertain, Schuessler notes a possible Sino-Tibetan etymology; compare Chepang "spirit of humans".
The Chinese is also present in other East Asian languages. The Japanese Kanji 神 is pronounced or in On'yomi, and , , or in Kun'yomi. The Korean Hanja 神 is pronounced .
The dictionary notes that 神 had a special pronunciation in the name Shen Shu 神荼, one of two "gods of the Eastern Sea", along with Yu Lu 鬱壘.
In the Vietnamese language, it is pronounced as thần.
File:Canonization scroll of Li Zhong jadeemperor.jpg|thumb|260px|Ming dynasty painting of the canonization of Li Zhong as part of the Heavenly Pantheon under the Jade Emperor.
Semantics
's polysemous meanings developed diachronically over three millennia. The, an authoritative historical dictionary, distinguishes one meaning for and eleven meanings for 神 translated below:- Celestial god/spirit of stories/legends, namely, the creator of the myriad things in heaven and earth and the supreme being.
- Spirit; mind, mental faculties; consciousness. Like: concentrated attention; tire the mind; concentrate one's energy and attention.
- Expression, demeanor; consciousness, state of mind.
- Portrait, portraiture.
- Magical, supernatural, miraculous; mysterious, abstruse. Like: ability to divine the unknown, amazing foresight; highly skilled doctor; genius, masterpiece.
- Esteem, respect; valuable, precious.
- Rule, govern, administer.
- Cautious, careful, circumspect.
- Display, arrange, exhibit.
- Dialect. 1. Dignity, distinction. 2. Entrancement, ecstasy. 3. Clever, intelligent.
- Surname, family name.
The Chinese language has many compounds of. For instance, it is compounded with in, with in, and in. Several "spirit; god" compounds use names for other supernatural beings, for example, in, in, in, in, and in. The earliest discovered character form for shen suggests two components. The right side of the character gives the basic meaning and pronunciation, as well as providing a graphic representation of flashing lightning from the clouds. This visual displays ancient people’s belief that lightning was the manifestation of god.1 The left side displays a modified character shi which pertains to ritual ceremonies, worship, or prayer. This concept originally referred to stone table used for offering ceremonial sacrifices to the gods.
Wing-Tsit Chan distinguishes four philosophical meanings of this : "spiritual beings", "ancestors", "gods and demons", and "positive and negative spiritual forces".
The primary meaning of is translatable in English as god, gods, God; deity, deities, spirit, spiritual, spiritlike, spirits, Spirit, spiritual beings; celestial spirits; ancestral spirits, supernatural beings, etc. is sometimes loosely translated as "soul", but Chinese hun and po distinguishes and. can be used as a loanword. The Oxford English Dictionary defines in these terms, "In Chinese philosophy: a god, person of supernatural power, or the spirit of a dead person." can also refer to a living, "'spiritual' or 'spiritlike'" person or people when they accomplish things perceived to be superhuman, such as saving "people through the power of Virtue."
In acupuncture, is a pure spiritual energy devoid of memory and personality traits, whereas is the spiritual energy associated with the personality and the energy tied to the sustenance of the physical body. In this system, resides in the heart and departs first at death, resides in the liver and departs second, and resides in the lungs and departs last.
plays a central role in Christian translational disputes over Chinese terms for God. Among the early Chinese "god" names, or was the Shang term, was the Zhou term, and was a later usage, and .
Graphics
The character 神 for exemplifies the most common class in Chinese character classification:, which combine a radical that roughly indicates meaning and a phonetic that roughly indicates pronunciation. In this case, 神 combines the "altar/worship radical" 礻or 示 and a phonetic of. Compare this phonetic element differentiated with the "person radical" in, the "silk radical" in, the "mouth radical" in, the "stone radical" in, the "earth radical" in, and the "big radical" in.Chinese was an ancient phonetic loan character for. The Mawangdui Silk Texts include two copies of the Dao De Jing and the "A Text" writes interchangeably as 申 and 神: "If one oversees all under heaven in accord with the Way, demons have no spirit. It is not that the demons have no spirit, but that their spirits do not harm people.". The defines as and says that in the 7th lunar month when forces increase, bodies.
The earliest written forms of occur in Zhou dynasty bronzeware script and Qin dynasty seal script characters. Although 神 has not been identified in Shang dynasty oracle bone script records, the phonetic has. Paleographers interpret the Oracle script of 申 as a pictograph of a "lightning bolt". This was graphically differentiated between with the "cloud radical" and with the "worship radical", semantically suggesting both "lightning" and "spirits" coming down from the heavens.