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. 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")), 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).

Tian in the Early Chinese Religio-Political Sphere

In earliest Chinese history, it is postulated that the Shang dynasty (ca. 1766-ca. 1050 B.C.E.) (who worshiped a heavenly ancestor called Shang Di) were displaced by the more war-like Zhou (ca. 1050-256 B.C.E.), who instituted a new social order and a new religious system, centered around a sky god - a "deity above who rules the Heavens" (Tian). Under this system, Tian was considered responsible for the orderly functioning of the cosmos, including the maintenance of appropriate seasonal weather (allowing for maximal harvests and growing seasons).

As with the (semi-)divine rulers of many early civilizations (including the pharaohs of Ancient Egypt and the emperors of the Incas), the first Chinese kings (wang 王) were understood to be directly affiliated with the cosmological order, as manifested by Tian. This connection is most readily apparent in an honorific often used to describe these monarchs: tian zi (天子), which can be literally translated as "Son of Heaven." Because of this purported lineal relationship, the king was understood to possess, via his station, a thaumaturgical ability to regulate the cosmos through ritual activity:

The king, the Son of Heaven, was the instrument by which this balance [between yin and yang, growing weather and harvesting weather] was maintained. His duty was to perform the sacrifices at appropriate times and establish a relationship between Man and Heaven. In his first beginnings the king was far more priest than soldier. His terrestrial duties of government could be delegated to lesser men, his ministers. He alone could perform the magical sacrifices which assured the harmony of the divine powers.... The Son of Heaven alone sacrificed to Heaven and Earth.

The concept of Tian, in addition to its role in sacralizing the political order, moralized it as well. Specifically, the legitimacy of a king, including his right to rule, were seen from the Zhou dynasty onward as dependent upon receiving the Mandate of Heaven (tian ming 天命). As such, the rulership of the Middle Kingdom was, at least in theory, tied to the equitable use of power by those within the office. This understanding is evidenced in the relatively ancient Classic of History (a tome that came to be recognized as one of the Five Classics by the Confucian tradition):

We do not presume to know and to say that the lords of Yin (Shang) received Heaven's Mandate for so many years... But they did not reverently attend to their virtue and so prematurely threw away the Mandate... Now our king has succeeded and received the Mandate... Being king, his position will be that of a leader of virtue.

A major impetus for the development of this doctrine was to legitimize the reign of the Zhou monarchs, who had, after all, conquered the territories belonging to the Shang dynasty. When moral excellence becomes a necessary component of maintaining Tian's sanction, usurpation by an ethical elite becomes a possibility:

The Son of Heaven could not properly fulfill his functions unless his moral nature was pure and his conduct above reproach. Heaven could not be served by a tyrant or a debauchee, the sacrifices of such a ruler would be of no avail, the divine harmony would be upset, prodigies and catastrophes would manifest the wrath of Heaven.... [Since the Zhou were invaders,] it was necessary to show why an alien family could be capable of performing the magical rites of the Son of Heaven, by which the harmony was maintained. The Shang dynasty had fallen, but their ruin had to be explained as the will of the great gods, of Heaven itself.

Confucian Conceptions

Tian, in a religious (or at least cosmological) context, was one of the foundational concepts for the Confucian school. As each of the early Confucians built their religio-philosophical worldviews around the idea of an orderly cosmos where people could lead meaningful lives, an understanding of Tian became central to each of their respective humanistic programmes. However, and in spite of this notable similarity, each of them also interpreted the term in a particular manner.

Confucius

Confucius built upon the inherited, cultural understanding of Tian (described above) by reinterpreting it in an immanental, humanistic light. Though it was still understood to refer to Heaven (and to orderly natural processes), these processes were understood in light of their relationship to lived human experience. As Tu Weiming notes, "Confucius' insistence that he loved the ancients and that he was a transmitter rather than a maker symbolises his attempt to provide a transcendental anchorage for human civilization. To Confucius, what had already been created, notably the 'ritual and music' of the human community, was not merely of humans, it was also sanctioned and sponsored by the mandate of heaven." Further, Confucian historicism can be seen as "predicated on a deep-rooted faith in the continuation of human culture not only as a historical fact but also as the unfolding of a transcendent reality."

From this perspective, human life and culture have a transcendental referent, and are based upon the sanction of

Mencius

For Mencius, Tian played a more particularized role than it did for Confucius. In his framework, Tian was the originator of humanity's tendencies toward moral order - a position that developed organically from the sage's conviction that human nature was fundamentally good. In the text ascribed to to, he argues that:

If you let people follow their feelings (original nature), they will be able to do good. This is what is meant by saying that human nature is good. If man does evil, it is not the fault of his natural endowment.... The Book of Odes says, "Heaven produces the teeming multitude. As there are things there are their specific principles. When the people keep their normal nature they will love excellent virtue."

The entirety of the Mencian position on this issue is elegantly summarized by Schwartz:

Heaven has in fact endowed humans with a kind of transcendental 'heart within the heart' which is capable, through arduous moral effort expressing itself in moral decisions based on reflection and deliberate thought, of preserving the spontaneous heart of goodness and not losing contact with it through all the vicissitudes and assaults of our ordinary life.... [Those who follow this path] are able to understand the world in which they live, to feel at one with it and at one with Heaven. With Heaven's help, the noble man can help create world 'out there' in which all men will be able to reestablish contact with the inherent sources of their own natures.

It is only by virtue of this "heavenly" endowment that orderly and ethical human conduct are possible.

Xunzi

As on many other issues, Xunzi and Mencius present divergent (almost polar opposite) perspectives on the role of Tian in human affairs. Master Xun, following his aggressively humanistic program, argues vehemently for the lack of a divinely-ordained "goodness" within people, focusing instead on the role of teachers, exemplars, and proper rituals for inculcating moral sentiments. However, he still finds a place for the depersonalized Heaven (Tian) within his framework by postulating that its orderly operations provided the inspiration for the early sage-kings (who invented the rites): "the former kings looked up and took their model from heaven, looked down and took their model from the earth, look about and took their rules from mankind. Such rules represent the ultimate principle of community harmony and unity." Commenting on this fruitful ambiguity, Benjamin Schwartz suggests: "We have already noted that the ‘objective’ order of society embodied in li and law is also on some level embedded in the order of Heaven and that in fashioning the human order the sages do not freely invent but actually make manifest a universal pattern somehow already rooted in the ultimate nature of things."

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.

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."

See also

• Chinese mythology
• Emperor of China

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• The Analects of Confucius. Translated and with an introduction by Roger T. Ames and Henry Rosemont, Jr. New York: Ballantine Books, 1998.
• 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.
• Granet, Marcel. The Religion of the Chinese People. Translated and with an introduction by Maurice Freedman. New York: Harper and Row, 1975. ISBN 0-06-136172-0.
• 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.
• * Watson, Burton. Basic Writings of Mo Tzu, Hsün Tzu, and Han Fei Tzu. New York and London: Columbia University Press, 1967.

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