Tian
Tian (天 Pinyin Tiān) is the Chinese character for heaven or sky. As such, it holds an important place in many Chinese belief systems such as Mohism, Taoism and Confucianism. The ideograph itself suggests the expanse of sky above the earth on which humans dwell, thereby giving rise to the term "Tianxia" (天下 All under heaven); the phrase is often used to describe the earthly domicile in Chinese literature.
Tian sometimes seems to be God itself, or Heaven, or the entire celestial bureaucracy. Therefore, it is often difficult to ascertain whether Tian is being used to mean a personal force or an impersonal one.
Although the Zhou Dynasty claimed that their deity, Tian, originated with the Xia Dynasty, modern historians believe that Tian was originally a deity worshipped only by the Zhou people. In the beginning, Tian likely referred to esteemed ancestors. After conquering the Shang Dynasty, the Zhou Dynasty merged their deity, Tian, with that of the Shang, Di (Shangdi). By the time of the founding of the Zhou Dynasty, Tian acquired the ability to alter the Mandate of Heaven and was linked to the Zhou Emperor, who was considered to be the "Son of Heaven".
Tian in the Classical Chinese Idiom
First and foremost, the Chinese word tian (represent by the character 天) refers simply to the celestial firmament.[1] Though later uses add considerable nuances to this basic notion (from the ideas of destiny and the relationship with proper leadership, to the moralization of the Confucian philosophers), it never loses this basic meaning.
Further, the significance of tian as a single character led to its frequent use in compound phrases (which pervade classical and poetic literature, and have also entered vernacular Chinese as idiomatic expressions). Two of the most common include tian xia (天下), meaning "under heaven" (which refers to the entire world (as everything is, quite literally, "under Heaven"),[2] and tian di (天地), literally "heaven and earth," but used to signify the entire universe (as everything, in the classical cosmology, belonged to the domain of one of these two polarities).[3]
Tian in the Early Chinese Religio-Political Sphere
Confucian Conceptions
Confucius
Mencius
Xunzi
Tian in Later Confucianism
Daoist Conceptions
Moist Conceptions
The Moist tradition, which flourished during the Hundred Schools of Thought period (700-220 B.C.E.), propounded views of Tian that held much in common with their Daoist and Confucian contemporaries, though their conception of its nature and role were far more specific than either. Namely, they believed that Tian referred to a quasi-anthropomorphic deity who viewed human actions with omniscient vision and dealt out rewards and punishments accordingly. As described by Benjamin Schwartz:
- The order of human society (and, one would presuppose, of the cosmos) is produced and maintained by the purposeful cooperation of Heaven, spirits, and men of good will in the face of what seems to be the inherently centrifugal tendencies of the pluralistic, recalcitrant world of the "ten thousand things." ... Order must be imposed on chaos. Unless men believe that Heaven, the spirits, and they themselves can exert themselves constantly and without relaxation against the disintegrating tendencies, disorder and chaos will prevail.[4]
Despite the stated importance of Tian in this framework, it is not necessarily the case that Moism was a more religious doctrine than the Confucian or Daoist theories that it was contending with. As A. C. Graham notes, "there is little evidence of a spiritual dimension deeper than a guilty fear of ghosts. The Mohists are in a sense less religious than some they would denounce as skeptics. The awe and resignation with which thinkers as far apart as Confucius and Chuang-tzu [Zhuangzi] accept the decree of Heaven has much more of the sense of the holy than anything in Mo-tzu."[5]
Tian in Inter-Religious Dialogue
See also
- Chinese mythology
- Emperor of China
Notes
- ↑ Richard Harbaugh, Chinese Characters: A Genealogy and Dictionary, (New Haven, CT: Yale University Far East Publications: 1998), 123. Harbaugh notes the classic etymological explanation that the character consists of the expanse of the heavens (一) over the people (大), though he suggests that it could also depict an individual with a supernaturally enlarged head (which would correspond to the later associations between Tian and God).
- ↑ Harbaugh, 123.
- ↑ Harbaugh, 123. This expression is a prototypical example of the "X and Y" phrase-type in classical Chinese, where two balanced terms (in this case, heaven and earth) are joined to create a single phrase built upon the similarity or contrast between the two. See Jeanette L. Faurot's Gateway to the Chinese Classics: A Practical Guide to Literary Chinese (San Francisco: China Books, 1995), 1.
- ↑ Schwartz, 141-142. In describing these issues, three surviving chapters of Mozi's text ("Heaven's Will," "Throwing Light on the Spirits," and "Rejection of Fate") are of particular importance (ibid).
- ↑ Graham, 48 (emphasis original).
ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
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- Berthrong, John H. Transformations of the Confucian Way. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1998. ISBN 0813328047
- Chan, Wing-tsit. A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1963.
- Ching, Julia. Mysticism and Kingship in China: The Heart of Chinese Wisdom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. ISBN 0-521-46293-2.
- Creel, Herrlee G. The Origins of Statecraft in China. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970. ISBN 0226120430.
- Faurot, Jeanette L. Gateway to the Chinese Classics: A Practical Guide to Literary Chinese. San Francisco: China Books, 1995.
- Fitzgerald, C. P. China: A Short Cultural History. London: The Cresset Library, 1986. ISBN 0-09-168751-9.
- Graham, A.C. Disputers of the Tao: Philosophical Argument in Ancient China. LaSalle, IL: Open Court Press, 1993. ISBN 0812690877.
- Harbaugh, Richard. Chinese Characters: A Genealogy and Dictionary. New Haven, CT: Yale University Far East Publications: 1998.
- Schwartz, Benjamin. The World of Thought in Ancient China. Cambridge, MS and London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1985.
- Tu Wei-ming. "The Way, Learning, and Politics in Classical Confucian Humanism" in Way, Learning, and Politics: Essays on the Confucian Intellectual. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1993. 1-12. ISBN 0-7914-1755-1.
- Tu Wei-ming. "The Structure and Function of the Confucian Intellectual in Ancient China" in Way, Learning, and Politics: Essays on the Confucian Intellectual. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1993. 13-28. ISBN 0-7914-1755-1.
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