Don't Know Much About Mythology - Kenneth C. Davis [177]
The oracle bones and divination texts of the Shang period contained another important Chinese mythical religious concept that dictated Chinese history for two thousand years. The Shang Dynasty had ruled because of the belief that they had “family connections.” In the view of the ancient Chinese, the founders of China had been deities, and the Shang ancestors had joined these divine rulers in heaven. To the Shang, heaven was very active in earthly matters, and they ruled with the intercession of a supreme god they called Shang Di—the Lord on High.
The idea that heavenly connections guided an earthly king’s reign evolved into a Chinese concept called “the mandate of heaven.” In essence, the mandate was a sign of divine approval. If a king ruled well, he continued in power; if he ruled unwisely, heaven would be displeased and would give the mandate to someone else—sort of like a divine board of directors canning the CEO. The first people to exercise the mandate were the Zhou Dynasty (1027–221) from western China, when they overthrew the Shang Dynasty. The Zhou made it clear, in explaining the mandate to the defeated people of the Shang Dynasty, that if their king had not been so evil, his mandate would not have been withdrawn. The same logic was later used to overthrow the Zhou.
One significant consequence of the idea of the mandate of heaven was that it was not necessary for a person to be of noble birth to lead a revolt and become a legitimate emperor. In fact, a number of dynasties were started by commoners, including the mighty Han, whose first emperor was a rebel army officer who seized power during a civil war. If the emperor ruled unwisely or failed to perform the proper rituals, he was out the door—whether a noble or commoner—and, most likely, without a generous “severance package.”
On the other hand, the mandate of heaven also promoted the “might is right” idea, since any dynastic founder possessed the mandate by virtue of his success, and any failed ruler was considered to have lost it, no matter how great his personal virtue. The mandate also encouraged both Chinese unity and a disdainful attitude toward the outside world, since there was only one mandate, and so only one true ruler of humankind, the emperor of China.
When the Shang Dynasty was overthrown by the Zhou, the essential continuity of Chinese civilization continued. It was during the Zhou Dynasty that the major philosophers of Chinese history, Confucius and Lao-tzu, both lived and formulated the two schools of thought that would shape Chinese civilization—Confucianism and Taoism.
MYTHIC VOICES
People say that when Heaven and earth opened and unfolded, humankind did not yet exist. Nü Kua kneaded yellow earth and fashioned human beings. Though she worked feverishly, she did not have enough strength to finish her task, so she drew her cord in a furrow through the mud and lifted it out to make human beings. That is why rich aristocrats are the human beings made from yellow earth, while ordinary poor commoners are the human beings made from the cord’s furrow.
—from Chinese Mythology, Anne Birrell
How did the ancient Chinese think the world began?
Eggs and mud. Yin and yang. A giant, a gourd, and children in peril. These ancient elements all figure prominently in China’s Creation stories, which run the gamut from the profoundly primordial and primitive to the folkloric and fanciful, as they attempt to explain how the world got started.
Like other civilizations, China has several Creation stories that emerge from its many regions and long history. These stories come down through a variety of sources, including the Five Classics, Questions of Heaven (an ancient text from the fourth century BCE), and an anonymous compilation called The Classic of Mountains and Seas. The last of these works, collected between the third century BCE and second century CE, is the closest thing there is to a Chinese “encyclopedia” of myths, including more than two hundred mythical