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The Shang dynasty dedicated many temples ̣(and altars) for veneration of ancestral deities. Most of the temples were designed in a squared form, consistent with the role of the Celestial Square in the ancestors' spiritual identity. Many scholars assert that this square was also used linguistically to denote the Shang words for ancestral temples.
Shang ritual was based on an ancestral hierarchy. The king was able to convene directly with his most recent ancestors, who could themselves provide access to more senior spirits – who in turn passed the king's requests to Di. [109] Prominent Shang practices included divinations, liturgical sacrifices, prayers, and funerals.
The Zhou dynasty enfeoffed another Shang prince, titled Weizi, as ruler of Song, and Weizi's lineage continued the old ancestral worship. Shu Yi, a high official of the state of Qi around 600 BCE, was a direct descendant of the Shang. He owned a bronze artifact named 'Shu Yi Zhong' to memorialize his royal Shang ancestral spirits. [111]
The Eulogies of Zhou are the oldest eulogies among those dedicated to the three first dynasties of China, and consists of songs created and sung during early Western Zhou ancestral rituals, with the very oldest ones probably dated to the Zhou conquest of Shang (c. 1046 BCE), and the youngest ones being much more recent. [41]
Among Predynastic Shang rulers Shang Jia (1st generation) and the five other leaders including Bao Yi (2nd generation), Bao Bing (3rd generation), Bao Ding (4th generation), Zhu Ren (5th generation), and Zhu Gui (6th generation) were addressed the Six Spirits, the beings who dictated harvests, by the kings of the Shang dynasty who practiced a spiritual religion that includes veneration of ...
Shang ancestral deification; Shang dynasty religious practitioners This page was last edited on 29 July 2024, at 21:32 (UTC). Text is ...
Many religious beliefs and practices of prehistoric China are claimed to be precursors of the Shang religion, which in turn influenced Chinese civilization due to similar elements among them. Certain traits such as animism, ancestor veneration and pyromancy characteristic of the Shang are found to be existent during the Neolithic and Bronze Age ...
[note 2] The concept of Shangdi is especially rooted in the tradition of the Shang dynasty, which gave prominence to the worship of ancestral gods and cultural heroes. The "Primordial Deity" or "Primordial Emperor" was considered to be embodied in the human realm as the lineage of imperial power. [81]