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Oracle bones serve as the primary source for studies of Shang religion. [2] They focused on the religious life of the king and the royal family. [3] A typical ritual would feature many key roles; David Keightley conjured such a ritual based on actual inscriptional records, attempting to reconstruct a ceremonial scene normally observed by the Shang court.
It is known that the two zones were separated by Wu Ding, who was the first king and the head of the "late Shang". He founded the West zone for his future successors' burial, apart from the section for his predecessors. Ancestor rituals that honored kings before Wu Ding were conducted in the East zone.
Texts written by Wu Ding's scribes contain the word 'learn' (學; xué), which in context could imply a course of ritual education. In addition, some attested inscriptions appear to have been used for teaching – described by Guo Moruo as possibly being example inscriptions used by teachers.
Shang kings such as Di Yi, Tang, Wu Ding and Tai Jia were addressed in Predynastic Zhou oracle bone inscriptions, being regularly prayed to and offered sacrifices by the Zhou. [ 19 ] [ 20 ] [ 21 ] The fact that the Zhou people adopted Shang spirits into their own recipients of religious honor suggests that the Predynastic Zhou was, before the ...
Chinese religions have a variety of sources, local forms, founder backgrounds, and ritual and philosophical traditions. Despite this diversity, there is a common core that can be summarised as four theological, cosmological, and moral concepts: [ 9 ] Tian , the transcendent source of moral meaning; qi , the breath or energy that animates the ...
Some scholars believe the Heavenly Stems, and the associated ten-day week, are connected to a story from Chinese mythology where ten suns appeared in the sky, whose order comprised a ten-day cycle (旬; xún); the Heavenly Stems are conjectured to be the names for each of these ten suns. [2]
There was, within ancient China, a heterogeneity of culture areas, with female shamans favored in some, males in others. The "licentiousness" of the ceremonies of such a state as Cheng (doubtless preserving the ancient Shang traditions and customs) was a byword among Confucian moralists.
The Houmuwu ding (Chinese: 后母戊鼎; pinyin: Hòumǔwù dǐng), also called Simuwu ding (司母戊鼎; Sīmǔwù dǐng), is a rectangular bronze ding (sacrificial vessel, one of the common types of Chinese ritual bronzes) of the ancient Chinese Shang dynasty. It is the heaviest piece of bronzeware to survive from anywhere in the ancient ...