Shang ancestral deification

Shang designated character for the high ancestor Shangjia, the highest of the venerated "Six Spirits".
Shang designated character for the high ancestor Shangjia.

The Shang dynasty of China (c. 1600 – 1046 BCE) practiced a spiritual religion that includes veneration of deceased royal ancestors.[1] 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,[2] 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.[3] 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.[1] As such, Shang emphasized the importance of appeasing those godlike spirits for stability and development.

  1. ^ a b Eno (2010a).
  2. ^ Chang Zhengguang (常正光). Yinli kaobian (殷曆考辮), in Guwenzi yanjiu 古文字研究 6. pp. 93–122.
  3. ^ Theobald, Ulrich (2018). "Shang Period Government, Administration, Law".{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)