The concept of religious authority and power of the monarch in Shang Dynasty

Abstract

The Shang Dynasty people practiced theocentrism, Valuing Sacrifices and serving ghosts,and everything had to be predicted through divination. There are many deities in the Shang Dynasty, including three major systems: heavenly gods, earthly spirits, and human ghosts. Di has the greatest authority and is the ruler of nature. He has the characteristics of being extraordinary, not being influenced by human will, and is the supreme god in the belief world of the Shang Dynasty people. He is integrated with the ancestors of the Shang kings. The original meaning of Di was the ancestor and the god of reproduction of all things in the universe, which was very similar to the Western concept of 'God' as the creator. In the religious belief system of the Shang Dynasty, people did not directly offer sacrifices to the heavenly gods, and every request must be achieved through the intermediary of the ancestral ghosts. After the death of the Shang kings, they were all honored as Di, which led to the formation of the "combination of sorcerers and kings" and the "the unification of politics and religion" system in the late Shang Dynasty. In the late Shang Dynasty, a trinity structure of Di, Ancestral Spirit, and Kings was formed,which dominated the heavens and earth jointly, completed the integration of theocracy and kingship, and the combination of supreme god and extreme authoritarianism, formed a political ideological system of Religious indoctrination, had an important impact on later Chinese history and is worthy of our in-depth study.