Shang ancestral deification


The Shang dynasty of China practiced a spiritual religion that includes veneration of deceased royal ancestors. Shang ancestors were perceived to possess divine powers ranging from trivial matters to state-related affairs, and sometimes were interpreted as a component of the Shang supreme god Di. Towards the later years of the Shang dynasty, activities of ancestral veneration became increasingly frequent compared to those of supernatural deities. The Shang dynasty organized performance of ancestral rituals into a full year with 36 weeks, intended for all deceased members of the royal clan.
Rituals were conducted by the representative of the living royal members, the Shang king, together with his bureaucratic court assistants. Usually, ceremonial performers would offer large-scale sacrifices to intended recipients in attempts to convince them to assure state welfare. Similar to the supernatural gods in the Shang's pantheon, its dead kin's spirits could exercise their power over the living realm. A spirit's power increased with seniority: more distant ancestors wielded power on the entire kingdom such as dictating agricultural successes and indirect help in wars. As such, Shang emphasized the importance of appeasing those godlike spirits for stability and development.

History

Pre-Shang

Traditional narratives of later Chinese dynasties claim that elements of Shang theology had been practiced during previous eras, among them was ancestor veneration. The Book of Documents dedicates several chapters as the "Books of Xia", describing virtues of Xia kings. These figures often glorify the image of their preceding generations. For example, the chapter "The Songs of the Five Sons", dedicated to Tai Kang, contains a verse, the first sentences of which go:
In another example, it is claimed that the Xia king Zhong Kang presented great virtues of Yu the Great and his successors:
Since the Xia dynasty's existence is debated, the narrative given is not verified. However, there are signs that cultures contemporary with the Xia dynasty's alleged time frame practiced traditions that centered on dead ancestors. People living around the Yellow River valley had the practice of sacrifices and proper funerals.

Shang practices

Royal ancestors of the Shang dynasty were treated as godly authorities, being revered together with deities that took origins from the natural world. The ancestors received daily offerings as well as earthly inquiries. In some cases, they were not only individual spirits, but also representatives of the Shang supreme being Di and intermediaries of sacrificial rituals aimed at the being.
Shamanic practices were possible during the Shang dynasty. Some oracle bone inscriptions describe rituals in which the Shang king "took" an ancestral spirit as a "guest". Some argue that the information obtained from these oracle bones are not sufficient to conclude the presence of shamanism.
Sacrifices came in large numbers. The Shang would offer bronze, bones, animals, as well as captured humans to the spiritual world. As the tradition continued, more changes were made and by the final years of the Shang dynasty, it had developed into a complex sacrificial system, overlapping a full-Shang year. However, despite making up a large portion of court life, sacrifices at that point became "insufficient" and "mechanical". Shang kings of the late period tended to offer to their predecessors not in exchange for assistance but for mere veneration. This occurs notably during the reign of the last king Di Xin.

Post-Shang influences

The Zhou dynasty overthrew the Shang around 1046 BC, vilifying the image of Di Xin as a reason of their taking of state control. The new dynastic regime was influenced by the Shang religion and allowed direct descendants of the Shang royal family to continue ancestral veneration traditions in Song.
Ancestor deification and veneration was practiced by many Chinese royal and imperial dynasties up to the modern era. In the present day, Confucian thoughts on emphasizing the importance of ancestors still have profound impacts on Chinese folk religions.

Zhou dynasty evaluation

The Zhou dynasty blamed Di Xin of Shang for being impious and cruel, portraying him as no longer suitable to be a ruler and justifying its right to rule "All under Heaven". The Zhou accused Di Xin of neglecting rituals dedicated to Shang progenitors, thereby losing the ancestors' support.
The Book of Documents records the Western Overlord Ji Fa's speech just before the decisive Battle of Muye, condemning the Shang king's failure in satisfying the honorable Shang spirits:
After its establishment, the Zhou royal clan kept the worshiped spirits of their preceding dynasty as honorable figures. Many Zhou famed people were compared with figures during the Shang dynasty, such as King Cheng of Zhou and his regent-uncle Duke of Zhou, whose relations were analogous to the Shang ruler Tai Jia and chief minister Yi Yin. In classical texts of the ancient era, Shang dynastic rulers who purportedly emphasized on venerating his predecessors were viewed as righteous, gentle monarchs. Similar to Shang, the Zhou also practiced honoring their own ancestral spirits, especially King Wen and King Wu.
Bloody human sacrificial rituals that were conducted was not important to the Zhou, and left no trace in their traditional historiography. Initially, Zhou kept human sacrifice in their rituals, but these were later abandoned, the human victims being replaced by man-made figurines.

Beliefs in ancestral powers

Six Spirits

The "Six Spirits" belong to the Predynastic Shang ancestors, composed of six beings arranged in six generations before the first Shang king Tai Yi. They are: Shang Jia, Bao Yi, Bao Bing, Bao Ding, Zhu Ren, and Zhu Gui. Among of the six, Shang Jia was the highest, commonly interpreted to be identical with Di; meanwhile, the remaining five were commonly referred to as the "Lesser Spirits". The "Six Spirits" appear frequently on Shang oracle bones, where they receive considerable numbers of sacrifices. The Shang believed in their ability to affect the economy, which was based on agriculture, by controlling the climatic phenomena. Such abilities distinguish the "Six Spirits" from less distant dynastic ancestors, whose powers were more limited, and make them more associated with Shang weather spirits. The six ancestors were additionally perceived to be indirect supporters in Shang's battles with neighboring polities.
Shang Jia's identification with Di was possible and might have been used to "deify" kingship of the royal family. The Shang oracle bone script grapheme for the individual includes the squared component known as the representation of the Celestial Polar Square, which housed the divine identity of Di. The other component of the oracle character is postulated to be the equivalent of the modern word "shang", which further supports the ancestor's identity.

Dynastic deceased kin

The Shang dynasty revered dynastic kin of both genders. Rituals were dedicated to previous kings and their royal consorts. Contrary to their predynastic counterparts, these ancestors often only involved themselves in the reigning king's personal matters. Nearest predecessors of the Shang king would be responsible for his health, and that sacrifices would be delivered to them to ensure their protection. David Keightley reconstructed a ritual happening during Wu Ding's reign, in which the king suffered from a toothache and attempted to receive a treatment from his uncle Pan Geng. In another case, Wu Ding asked his father Xiao Yi to cure a stomach ailment. Female ancestors seem to be responsible for more negative events. Many Shang inscriptions mention the king, or a relative of his, encountering "disasters" sent by consorts of long-dead previous monarchs. Usually, the Shang carried out sacrifices for female spirits after such ominous predictions. On the other hand, females also affected childbirth. Some individuals were offered sacrifices and prayed for a consort's conception of male offspring.
Towards the last decades of the Shang period, divinations and sacrifices were made primarily for veneration and unlikely to request assistance from the recipients. David Keightley suggested that this might reflect the change in perception of ancestral influences.

Identity of ancestral spirits

Cosmological divinity

Many oracle bone inscriptions show that Shang royal ancestors cannot be interpreted and understood by simply looking at the royal line. In fact, ancestral spirits have strong connections with the other section of the Shang's pantheon, the gods of non-ancestral origins. Shang Jia, the most senior member in Shang royal lineage, was represented on oracle bones by the square component drawn out of the character for "jia", which resembles a "plus" sign. Since the cross represents the "jia" stem, the square must denote "Shang". The square has already been understood to be the source of supreme divinity, and the residence of Shangdi's power. The inclusion of 口 in Shang Jia's name would, therefore, relate him to Shangdi, creating a connection between the utmost progenitor of the Shang royal family and the supreme deity of the natural world. Three of the Six Spirits bear the character "Bao" which in oracle bone texts takes the form of 口 with the left side of the square missing. Scholars have postulated that to the Shang, the "Bao" actually was the "口".
The "口" was additionally used in combination of posthumous titles. In such cases, its meaning is the Heavenly Stem "ding". John C. Didier has presented a theory claiming that "口" was a phonetically borrowed word for an oral pronunciation of what was actually the "ding" stem. Furthermore, studying the ding-derived character "頂", which means "above" and "top", he further argued for the Stem representation of a character whose original notion was related to celestial and divine authority. Didier projected the squared form as consisting of five stars surrounding the ecliptic pole at the time of the Shang dynasty, taking Thuban as a referential object. That area was believed by the Shang to be the source of Di's power, and hence ascribing "口" to ancestors in their posthumously conferred names elevated them to the level of "true gods", hence polishing the image of the royal family.