Don’t Know Much About® Mythology (52 page)

Made from the bones of deer and oxen, and tortoise shells, these artifacts were later identified as “oracle bones” used by royal priests—and even by early Chinese kings themselves—in making prophecies, communicated through dead ancestors. Representing the earliest form of Chinese religion, the bones were marked with Chinese characters from one of the earliest known forms of written Chinese. In ancient divining sessions, the bones were marked with a shallow cut—which evolved into written “questions”—and then heated until the bone or shell cracked. The resulting fissures were then “read” by a priest, who made predictions based on the configuration of the cracks. Usually a simple “fortune-telling” question about the weather, the success of a hunt or battle, or the sex of an expected child would be asked. Interestingly, a “reading” of “yes” meant boy, while “no” meant girl—an indication of a very old Chinese preference for male children, still a concern in China today, where modern sex-screening methods are used to abort female fetuses.

Although they probably represent traditions that go back much further in Chinese history, many of the oracle bones are dated to 1300 BCE, during the Shang Dynasty (1523–1027 BCE), one of the first kingdoms in Chinese history for which there is significant archaeological evidence. Based in the Huang He Valley, the Shang was organized as a city-state with a king who probably served as high priest, similar to the organization in ancient Mesopotamia. Other finds from the Shang Dynasty include sophisticated bronze drinking vessels that show a high degree of metalworking skill. On the grimmer side of the archaeological ledger are Shang tombs in which kings and nobles were buried with treasures that included war chariots—often complete with horses and charioteers. Clearly, human sacrifices were made during the Shang period, and the remains of sacrificial victims, ceremonially beheaded in groups of ten, have been found in these tombs. Patricia Ebrey, a scholar of Chinese family and kinship, writes that one tomb of a Shang king, who ruled around 1200 BCE, “yielded the remains of ninety followers who accompanied him in death, seventy-four human sacrifices, twelve horses, and eleven dogs…. Some followers were provided with coffins and bronze ritual vessels or weapons of their own, some (generally female) with no coffins but with personal ornaments; others were provided with no furnishings and were beheaded, cut in two, or put to death in other mutilating ways.” (Human sacrifice was apparently abolished during the next dynastic period, that of the Zhou Dynasty, 1027–221 BCE.)

During this very early period in Chinese history under the Shang, “religion” was largely based on the idea that each person had two souls—one a “physical” soul, and one an “eternal” soul—that could be kept alive through sacrifices performed by a male family member. With proper sacrifice, the eternal soul became a deity of power and influence that could respond to divination requests or perform other heavenly favors. But if a deceased ancestor’s soul was neglected or treated poorly, that soul could become a demon and haunt the living. The vast majority of China’s people throughout history have been rural peasants, and this farmer class had little to do with these lofty beliefs, which were reserved for the landed wealthy. Instead, the religion of the peasant farmers centered on the worship of local deities of soil and water and shamanistic cults featuring spirit mediums—practices largely dismissed by the upper classes of China. Just as there was human sacrifice at the royal level, there was a grim side to these local rites. In many farming villages, there were river festivals in which beautiful girls were selected as the “bride of the river.” Set afloat in a boat, they were ultimately drowned as an offering to the river god.

Chinese religion developed without a powerful priestly class, and the sacrificial cult services were performed by the head of the family, or by state officials. The sacrifices included a variety of domesticated animals, or wine poured as a libation. The concept of proper sacrifice was so important, according to historians W. Scott Morton and Charlton Lewis, that the downfall of a kingdom would be attributed to times when “the sacrifices were interrupted.”

The methods of divination that produced the ancient oracle bones became more sophisticated over time, and were formalized in an important Chinese classic called the I Ching (also commonly called Yi Jing, among other various Romanized spellings), or Book of Changes. Counted among the earliest and most influential of the ancient Chinese texts called the Five Classics, the I Ching probably originated about 1122 BCE, early in the Zhou Dynasty, which ruled China for more than 800 years, including the period in which Confucius lived. Grouped together with the I Ching were The Classic of History, material about early kings of questionable authenticity; The Classic of Poetry, a collection of folk and ceremonial songs; The Collection of Rituals (or Rites); and The Spring and Autumn Annals, attributed to Confucius. This family of books constituted the basis of study for the imperial examination that had to be mastered by anyone wanting to advance in the Chinese imperial bureaucracy right up to the early twentieth century.

Like oracle bones, the I Ching was first used to predict the future. A person with a question followed a specific ritual that involved tossing special sticks or coins and then referencing the appropriate commentary in the I Ching. Over time, with the growing influence of Confucianism, the function of the I Ching evolved, and by the 500s BCE, the I Ching was viewed as a book of philosophy.

Traditionally, it was believed that the principles of the I Ching originated with Fu Hsi (Fu Xi), a creator god said to be one of China’s legendary early rulers. (
Who’s Who of Chinese Gods
.) It was also long accepted that Confucius himself had either written or edited the I Ching. During the past fifty years, however, discoveries in archaeology and linguistics have reshaped theories of the book’s history. Scholars have been helped immensely by the discovery in the 1970s of intact Han Dynasty–era tombs in Hunan Province. (The Han ruled China for roughly 400 years from about 200 BCE to 200 CE.) One of these tombs contained more or less complete second-century BCE texts of the I Ching that are centuries older than the previously discovered texts. Mostly similar to the well-known I Ching, these tomb texts include additional commentaries on the I Ching, previously unknown and apparently written as if they were meant to be attributed to Confucius. The bottom line is that, after considerable investigation, many modern scholars doubt the actual existence of the mythical ruler Fu Hsi (Fu Xi), and think that Confucius had nothing to do with the Book of Changes.

The oracle bones and divination texts of the Shang period contained another important Chinese mythical religious concept that dictated Chinese history for two thousand years. The Shang Dynasty had ruled because of the belief that they had “family connections.” In the view of the ancient Chinese, the founders of China had been deities, and the Shang ancestors had joined these divine rulers in heaven. To the Shang, heaven was very active in earthly matters, and they ruled with the intercession of a supreme god they called Shang Di—the Lord on High.

The idea that heavenly connections guided an earthly king’s reign evolved into a Chinese concept called “the mandate of heaven.” In essence, the mandate was a sign of divine approval. If a king ruled well, he continued in power; if he ruled unwisely, heaven would be displeased and would give the mandate to someone else—sort of like a divine board of directors canning the CEO. The first people to exercise the mandate were the Zhou Dynasty (1027–221) from western China, when they overthrew the Shang Dynasty. The Zhou made it clear, in explaining the mandate to the defeated people of the Shang Dynasty, that if their king had not been so evil, his mandate would not have been withdrawn. The same logic was later used to overthrow the Zhou.

One significant consequence of the idea of the mandate of heaven was that it was not necessary for a person to be of noble birth to lead a revolt and become a legitimate emperor. In fact, a number of dynasties were started by commoners, including the mighty Han, whose first emperor was a rebel army officer who seized power during a civil war. If the emperor ruled unwisely or failed to perform the proper rituals, he was out the door—whether a noble or commoner—and, most likely, without a generous “severance package.”

On the other hand, the mandate of heaven also promoted the “might is right” idea, since any dynastic founder possessed the mandate by virtue of his success, and any failed ruler was considered to have lost it, no matter how great his personal virtue. The mandate also encouraged both Chinese unity and a disdainful attitude toward the outside world, since there was only one mandate, and so only one true ruler of humankind, the emperor of China.

When the Shang Dynasty was overthrown by the Zhou, the essential continuity of Chinese civilization continued. It was during the Zhou Dynasty that the major philosophers of Chinese history, Confucius and Lao-tzu, both lived and formulated the two schools of thought that would shape Chinese civilization—Confucianism and Taoism.

How did the ancient Chinese think the world began?

Eggs and mud. Yin and yang. A giant, a gourd, and children in peril. These ancient elements all figure prominently in China’s Creation stories, which run the gamut from the profoundly primordial and primitive to the folkloric and fanciful, as they attempt to explain how the world got started.

Like other civilizations, China has several Creation stories that emerge from its many regions and long history. These stories come down through a variety of sources, including the Five Classics,
Questions of Heaven
(an ancient text from the fourth century BCE), and an anonymous compilation called
The Classic of Mountains and Seas
. The last of these works, collected between the third century BCE and second century CE, is the closest thing there is to a Chinese “encyclopedia” of myths, including more than two hundred mythical figures.

The most influential of China’s Creation stories describes the universe simply coming into being from a cloud of vapor that is suspended in darkness. Out of this primordial chaos come the two essential forces, yin and yang. Dual opposites—stuck together like cosmic peanut butter and jelly—these forces profoundly affected Chinese culture and society, especially in the philosophic system that later emerged, called Taoism.

Often represented by a circle with dark and light areas, yin and yang exist in a delicate balance and underlie the entire Chinese universe. While yin is associated with the qualities of the “feminine”—cold, heaviness, darkness, and earth, yang is linked with the “masculine” qualities—warmth, light, brightness, heaven, and the sun. The interaction of these opposites is believed to have created a major portion of the universe, the seasons, and the natural world. Yin gave birth to water and the moon; yang gave birth to fire and the sun.

As historian Alasdair Clayre writes in
The Heart of the Dragon
, “Thinking in yinyang terms means analyzing the universe into pairs of fluidly netting opposites, such as shadowed and bright, decaying and growing, moonlit and sunlit, cold and hot, earthly and heavenly or female and male…. Men and women are not seen as exclusively yangor yin: each has only a predominance of the one aspect or the other…. The relation of the two elements of a yinyang pair is not a static one, but is thought of as a continuous cycle in which each tends to become dominant and responsive in turn.”

The Creation is described in several other stories that were well known to the ancient Chinese. Two of most popular involve a pair of China’s most important gods, Panku (Pan Gu, P’an Ku), a gigantic primeval deity described as the child of yin and yang, and Nü Gua (also Nü Kua, Nu Wa), a popular deity known as “gourd woman” or “woman Gua.” The latter name refers to snail-like creatures that lose their shells and symbolize regeneration.

In the Creation myth of Panku, whose story became the widely accepted Chinese Creation myth by the third century Common Era, the world is an enormous egg filled with chaos, in which the giant Panku has been sleeping for 18,000 years. When Panku—whose name is translated as “coiled antiquity”—grows large enough to crack the egg, its clear, translucent fluid (the ethereal yang matter) oozes out and floats up and becomes the heavens. The yolk and heavy (yin) parts drip down to become the earth. Afraid that sky and earth might converge, Panku pushes the sky up with his head and the earth down with his feet. Like the Greek Atlas, he remains that way for another 18,000 years, until he realizes that the sky is high enough and won’t fall. Exhausted by his efforts, Panku lies down to rest and dies in his sleep. As he is dying, his breath becomes the wind and the clouds, his voice the thunder. One of his eyes becomes the sun and the other the moon. His limbs become mountains and his veins turn into the roads. No part of his giant body goes unused in the creation of the world. In later versions of the story, even the flies, fleas, and other parasites on his body are transformed into the ancestors of man.

Prefer a Creation story that is a little more “dirty”? The chaste Chinese don’t have a very sexy Creation tale, but there is one that involves playing in the mud.