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22 THE CHINESE TRADITION IN ANTIQUITY

senior ancestors appear to have grown more powerful as they moved up the genealogical ladder with the passage of time, must also have provided a strong emotional basis for, as it may have been reinforced by, &_zi1i_l?_l hi<crarc:hj�s of organization and ritual among the living. The rigid scheduling of the cult to the ancest9rs,. the use of a limited number of day-name categories to classify them, and the willingness to give them ordinal temple names_, such as "fourth Ancestor Ding," all indicate a vrefcrcncc in the religious world for_the kin_d_of

1 cf r I 1 "1"orderlv :md j,mp�r_sgD_al ar_rangerl}_�nt§that can be associated with the develo � ment of the imperial bureaucracy in Zho!J and Han. That kin �nnections were

frequently to play ,1 key role in the operations of that bLfreaucracy only confirms

} . 11

/h_e closeness _of the link to the earlier ancestral cu!t ;7:e historians' commit- / 111 r ·ment to keeping a true record of what the ruler did and said also appears to () i c have its roots in filiang divinatory record-keeping.61

bW-Ci\ e :he Shang king's concern for good harvests and rainfall62 was also continued

in a variety of Zhou and Han rituals, such as the ploughing of the sacred field at the start of the agricultural year (referred to in the Classic of Odes and the Record of Rites), all of which _§lssumed the ruler's responsibility for encouraging Heaven's benevolence toward the state and its peop!_e. The general assumption that the ancestors, when properly treated, continued to smile on their living descendants is again central to much of the religion of Zhou and Han. The preference for male children - so marked in later Chinese culture and entirely comprehensible in a dynastic system in which descent passed through the male

-/ ' line -was already present in the Shang divinatory reco_r:d_. The central value of

'} xiao or "filiality" must surely have had its origins in the great reverence that th� Shang paid to their ancestors - in divinatory inquiry, in cultic offerings, and in the rich furnishing of their graves.

Ii , And, not least, the Zhou conception of a supreme being, Tian (Heaven), · residin over lhe univ�rfC �; w�s l!nalogous to the Shang <:_oncep_ti9n of Di who not only_s_tood above the ancestors64 and Nature Powers .. b.11.Lrnigbt on occasion command other groups to attack the Shang65 in a way that appears, at least in its mechanism, to have anticipated the �hou "Mand_;i_t�9f Heave.n." Unlike Tian, however, Qi a_s he is recorded in the oracle-bone __ inscriptions seems not to have been a force for moral good; he was evidently inscrutable in

91 c,,/ ,bis actions,_ an impartial and mysterious figure whose existence may have been invoked to explain the Shang ancestors' inability to answer their descendants' prayers. The Zhou claim that Di (or Tian) had ordered the Zhou rulers to

, I o 11I o h SI h conquer t e 1ang would thus ave been not a new invention of Zhou political

61. See the discussion above of 15A-B and 42A-D. fo. As in 7A-B, 12A-B, 13A-E. 63_ See ch. 2. 64. As in 18A-F.

65. As in 24B; see also 21A-B for another instance in which Di issues commands.

p The Oracle-Bone Inscriptions of the Late Shang Dynasty

the ry b11t a logi al extension from the religious belief of Shang times. The -readiness with which the Shang are said to have accepted their conquerors'

explanation for the Zhou victory lends some support to the view_jhat a "Mandate qf Di" wa�-!2.i!It of LaJe Shang olitical culture.

Th i11te11sely rs,ligious natme of Shang political ullurc-in which virlually all aspects of the ki11g's act'ivities were subject to the approval and scrul·iny of 1he Powers-suggests the considerable humanization that the philosophers of the Eastern Zhou, most notably Confucius (551-479 B.C.E.),66 were to under­ take in articulating their concerns. Ancestor worship, by its very interest in honoring and replicating the deeds and beliefs of the ancestors, is bound to be a powerful force for conservatism in any theocratic political culture. That the magico0religious assumptions of Shang divinatory culture still played a large role in the elite culture of Zhou and Han further suggests the degree to which these assumptions must have satisfied social and psychological needs. Whether or not the Shang diviners forecast or sh_Eped the future with notable accuracy­ @d it i.s worth reflecting on the record of modern economic forecasters before re�I · h rsl · · · mcnt-. Sha_ng_c;lj_vjn,ition �9r(e_d ,so weil -to Sil,_tisfy, tf� culturaulemand.s..of_tho_� who use_d it that many of its underlyirig_assump1ions .. � were.to endure for a millennium and more.

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66. See ch. 3.