Kingship

The Heart of Chinese Wisdom

 Kingship
• Anthropologist Arthur Hocart: “at
present we only know that when
history begins there are kings, the
representatives of gods.”

• People commonly believe “Kingship” is

a gift of gods inherited through a
special lineage

• The succession of new king on the

death of the predecessor signifies
continuity and stability
 Shamanic Kingship
• Ancient Chinese religion was known as a
religion of wu ( 巫 ) or wuzhu ( 巫祝 )
• In ancient China, there were three types
of religious specialists:
• Bu ( 卜 ) ： diviners
• Zhu ( 祝 ) : invocators
• Wu ( 巫 ): shaman

• There was no exact parallel to the English

word “priest”
Shamanic Kingship –
the wisdom of
divination
• Divination is a mean to seek for
“Knowing” ( 知 )

• Tung Chung-shu ( 董仲舒 ) ：“ (To know) is

to predict accurately … The person
who knows can see fortune and
misfortune a long way off, and can
anticipate benefit and harm”

• In this sense, “to know” is “to be

wise”, have “Wisdom”
 Wisdom
• Wisdom is usually understood as (1) in
term of “holistic knowledge”
• to understand the world and our life in this
world in a profound sense

• Also as (2) in term of practice

• Knowing how to live in this world, how to
be good human being, relating, helping
and teaching other to be the same

• But for many, Wisdom means especially

“knowing the future”
 Divination in Shang
Dynasty
• There are evidences show that Chinese
were practicing divination since the
Neolithic period (10000 BCE –
4000/2000 BCE)

• Shang court (royal family) made use of

divination to seek for
knowledge/supernatural advice for
practical issues

• They use ox shoulder blades and

tortoise shells for divination – the
 Divination in Shang
Dynasty
• In its earliest forms, the wisdom that
divination brought might have come
with the assistance of spirits or gods
during the diviner’s experience of
trance
• Trance ( 恍惚 / 失神 ): a state that is like
being asleep except that you can move
and respond to questions and
commands like a person who is awake
 Divination in Shang
Dynasty
• In oracle records, a word bin (guest 賓 ) is often
placed between the name of the ancestor and
the word for king
• Speculation: it refers to the king “receiving as
guest” a specific ancestor, or the Lord-on-High
himself, to a kind of séance ( 降神 ) in which the
two met
• It has been suggested that this guest might have
been a shamanic figure – a prototype of later
institution of medium in whom the spirit descend,
and to whom ritual offerings were made
Decline of Divination
after Shang
• The use of divination by royal family to
seek for foreknowledge (wisdom)
began to decline after the Shang
dynasty fell

• But it does not mean that the practice

of divination fade out in Chinese
religious economy. It continuous, but
spread to, in the daily life of common
people (even up to today)
 Changes in Religious Role
• The institution of divination began with a
greater role for trance or ecstasy, but
evolved into a mechanical exercise
handled by a bureaucracy
• Compared against the Shang kings, the
religious fervor of the Zhou rulers had
greatly diminished

• Nevertheless, the religious character of

kingship remain clear. It persisted in term
of the question of a Mandate from a
 Religious Roles of Zhou
Kings
• According to The Institute of Zhou ( 周
禮 ) ， the Minister of Rites, who was
always under royal supervision, in
charge of the rituals toward heavenly
deities, human ghosts, and earthly
spirits for the sake of assisting the king
in his task of building and protecting
the country
 Different Religious
Officials
• Zhu ( 祝 ) ： invocator who was mainly
responsible for sacrifices and prayer
rituals, including ritual announcement,
petitions ( 呈請 ), invocation ( 禱告 )and
incantations ( 唸咒 ).
• Wu ( 巫 ) : usually serve the community
by divination and healing, in China,
praying for raining has been a principal
responsibility
 Shaman
• Scholars agree that shamanism has to
do with the claim of spirit possession
and the ensuing ecstatic experience

• The origin of wu in China can be found

in the text of Guo-yu
 Wu as Shaman
• “Anciently, human beings and spirits did not mix. But certain
persons were so perspicacious, single-minded, reverential and
correct their intelligence and could understand what lies above
and below, their sagely wisdom could illumine what is distant and
profound, their vision was bright and clear and their hearing was
penetrating. Therefore the spirits would descend upon them. The
possessors of such powers were, if men, called xi and if women,
wu. They supervised the positions of the spirits at the
ceremonies, took care of sacrificial victims and vessels as well as
of seasonal robes.”
Guo-yu “Chu-yu”
part 2

• 『古者民神不雜。民之精爽不攜貳者，而又能齊肅衷正，其智能上下比義，其聖能光遠宣朗，其明能光照之，其聰能聽徹之，如是則明神降之，
在男曰覡，在女曰巫。是使制神之處位次主，而為之牲器時服』

《》
• “The ancient kings made use of the yarrow
stalks and the tortoise shell; arranged their
sacrifices; buried their offerings of silk; reciting
their words of supplication and benediction;
and made their statutes and measures”

Book of Rites,
Chapter 7

• 『故先王秉蓍龜，列祭祀，瘞繒，宣祝嘏辭說，設制度，故國有禮，官有御，事有職，禮有
序。』

《》 24
 Wu as Shaman
• The world of human beings and spirits are
separated, and with wu or xi acts as a
mediator

• They possess certain unusual qualities that

enable them to do so, keeping
communication between the two worlds
open

• Their principal characteristic is “sagely

wisdom” (sheng 聖 ), given as the reason
why the spirits would descend upon them
 Wu as Shaman
• In Zhou time, the theory of Heavenly
Mandate has been well-established.
We can assume that wu played an
important role in human affairs since
they could communicate with the
spirits, the Heaven, and therefore
should play an important role in the
understanding of the Mandate

• Crucial to mention the physical

characteristics of zhu and wu
 Wu The Shamanic
King
• Zhu (the priest) were expected to be
perfect examples of humanity, without
physical blemish or disability

• Wu (the shaman) were always the

opposite.

• Ancient texts indicate that the Duke of

Zhou, (or might be even his father King
Wen and his elder brother King Wu)
were all hunchbacks and shaman
 Wu the Shamanic
King
• Their spiritual qualification to the title
of kingship was in the possession of
superior intelligence and shamanic
power, while their physical
appearances marked them out as such
• Early Chinese kings, especially the
Shang rulers, considered themselves
as descendants of the demigods, and
therefore also, as relative of the
divinities
 The Social Change
• Shang was most probably a matrilocal society,
and they practiced endogamy. Therefore, it is
not surprise for them have no family names, but
a clan name
• The tribe which the Zhou rulers came from
probably practicing exogamy because of their
patrilocal social structure.
• Because of the needs of ancestral cult, the
institutionalization of patriarchal system of
lineages was developed, and was known as the
zongfa ( 宗法制度 )
 The Social Changes
• With this system, the pater familias ( 家
長 ), who was the eldest male successor
of the previous pater familias, was the
head of the whole lineage

• Together with the zongfa, the early

Zhou rulers also installed another
system with long-lasting impacts to
Chinese polity and ethics – the feudal
system ( 封建制度 )
 The Social Changes
• To strengthen the Zhou ancestral cult,
the country was divided into a number
of smaller kingdoms ruled by the royal
family members as military allies.
These nobilities acted as the pater
familias within their own domains.

• Through the zongfa and the feudal

systems, China was built upon a
relational and ritual order with the Son
of Heaven in the center
 The Son of Heaven
• The Zhou kings, who were most
probably descendants of shaman,
consolidated their ruling status and
political power by playing a ultimate
pater familias for the whole country
after their gradual losing of shamanic
powers and physical characteristics