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I finally finished reading Michael J Puett's book To become a God: Cosmology, Sacrifice and Self-divination in Early China. A book about early Chinese religious and cosmological thought. Previously I had read KC Chang's book on early Shamanism in the Shang and Zhou (1300-300BC)periods of Ancient China. I was recommended Puett's book as a more recent look at early Chinese thought and religion.
The book was written from an anthropological perspective. Which I found very interesting, it was the type of work that originally made me interested in anthropology in the first place. He examined a lot of the previous ideas of sacrifice and how different world views had been applied to early Chinese thought and then basically went on to say how all these ideas had been wrong. He looked at the different comparative work that people had done with Greece and also pointed out it's short comings. My only criticism of the book was that nearly everyone he mentioned in the main text he strongly disagreed with. Only in footnotes did he ever recommend the work of another scholar. He did also have the tendency to go on too much about Ancient Greece and Rome. However when he was simply talking about China I thought it work was very strong.
He established a series of different approaches and ideas that had been popular in China several centuries BC. He looked at the historical context of the situation, rather than just taking each idea as a basis for Chinese thought and looked at what was being argued when and what was being argued against it. Instead of one early uniform view of Chinese thought, he showed the arguments and discussions that were going on in China at the time, and how they reflected and built on each other. It seemed that a lot of the texts he used were what I'd consider to be philosophical texts rather than about popular religion. However he showed how these texts were arguing about the same thing. Rather they complained about the ideas of the spirit specialists, and were a reaction to their growing popularity and power.
His basic ideas was that in the Shang and Zhou times people changed their deceased relatives into spiritual ancestors who could then be influenced through sacrifices and divination. There was a hierarchy in the pantheon and ritual specialists would appeal to the lower, more recently dead, ancestors who in turn would appeal to those higher up, who would appeal to the supreme God, DI or heaven. In the 4th Century a group called Shi started gaining their own support in court. The criticized the ritual specialists and rejected sacrifice. Instead the linked everyone to a common ancestor of the One. This new cosmology had everyone and everything in the physical and spiritual world as subject to the One. The looked at the idea of self divination, becoming like the spirits, and later becoming a spirit. Following this came the First Emperor of Qin, and Emperor Wu of the Han who used their ideas not simply to become a spirit but to become a God. This was done through sacrifices, trying to gain the powers of the spirits around them. Sima Qian and the Confucians later criticized the Emperor for his trust in the spirits, and ideas began to become settled that a ruler was not divine but that humans and spirits were separate beings.
One of the most interesting passages in the book comes from the end of the last chapter.
A very interesting idea, which I wish he'd pursued further. Though I do wish he'd spent more time on what was the popular religion of the time, Rather than simply the ideals that the elite were arguing about in court.
The book also mentioned two authors who look closer at the early religious state before Han, Anna Seidel and Donald Harper. Two authors I'll have to look into more closely. At least when I've finished the list of books on the subject recommended to me by Pat Ebrey.
The book was written from an anthropological perspective. Which I found very interesting, it was the type of work that originally made me interested in anthropology in the first place. He examined a lot of the previous ideas of sacrifice and how different world views had been applied to early Chinese thought and then basically went on to say how all these ideas had been wrong. He looked at the different comparative work that people had done with Greece and also pointed out it's short comings. My only criticism of the book was that nearly everyone he mentioned in the main text he strongly disagreed with. Only in footnotes did he ever recommend the work of another scholar. He did also have the tendency to go on too much about Ancient Greece and Rome. However when he was simply talking about China I thought it work was very strong.
He established a series of different approaches and ideas that had been popular in China several centuries BC. He looked at the historical context of the situation, rather than just taking each idea as a basis for Chinese thought and looked at what was being argued when and what was being argued against it. Instead of one early uniform view of Chinese thought, he showed the arguments and discussions that were going on in China at the time, and how they reflected and built on each other. It seemed that a lot of the texts he used were what I'd consider to be philosophical texts rather than about popular religion. However he showed how these texts were arguing about the same thing. Rather they complained about the ideas of the spirit specialists, and were a reaction to their growing popularity and power.
His basic ideas was that in the Shang and Zhou times people changed their deceased relatives into spiritual ancestors who could then be influenced through sacrifices and divination. There was a hierarchy in the pantheon and ritual specialists would appeal to the lower, more recently dead, ancestors who in turn would appeal to those higher up, who would appeal to the supreme God, DI or heaven. In the 4th Century a group called Shi started gaining their own support in court. The criticized the ritual specialists and rejected sacrifice. Instead the linked everyone to a common ancestor of the One. This new cosmology had everyone and everything in the physical and spiritual world as subject to the One. The looked at the idea of self divination, becoming like the spirits, and later becoming a spirit. Following this came the First Emperor of Qin, and Emperor Wu of the Han who used their ideas not simply to become a spirit but to become a God. This was done through sacrifices, trying to gain the powers of the spirits around them. Sima Qian and the Confucians later criticized the Emperor for his trust in the spirits, and ideas began to become settled that a ruler was not divine but that humans and spirits were separate beings.
One of the most interesting passages in the book comes from the end of the last chapter.
In ultimately choosing to side with Kuang Heng and his followers the emperors of the Western Han effected a fundamental shift in the orientation of the Han state. Following these reforms, claims of ascension and self-divination ceased to be favored at court. And, indirectly these reforms may have been responsible for the later popularity of millenarian movements, many of which would in the critiques of the Han state, embrace the notions of divination and ascension that the reforms of Kuang Heng and others had driven out of the central court.
A very interesting idea, which I wish he'd pursued further. Though I do wish he'd spent more time on what was the popular religion of the time, Rather than simply the ideals that the elite were arguing about in court.
The book also mentioned two authors who look closer at the early religious state before Han, Anna Seidel and Donald Harper. Two authors I'll have to look into more closely. At least when I've finished the list of books on the subject recommended to me by Pat Ebrey.