The formation of ancient Chinese civilization can be divided into three stages: village society, village group society and national society. In ancient times, anyone could communicate with the heavens with the help of wizards. In some ancient texts, the Five Emperors, and some records that King Mu of Zhou, cut off this universal contact method, so he separated heaven and earth, and from then on communicated with heaven and heaven, which only emperors and wizards could do.
In ancient civilizations, man's knowledge came from heaven, and whoever could control communication with heaven had dominance. Famous emperors such as Xia Yu and Shang Tang used witchcraft to sacrifice the heavens and pray for rain. Moreover, the Shang king closely supervised the activities of these witchcraft, and the patriarch also mastered the norms and rituals of sacrifice, and controlled the country through this religious activity.
Ancient shamans gained a special status by communicating with the gods, observing celestial phenomena and formulating calendars part-time in addition to sacrifices, and some wizards also had to study medicine to cure others. Wizards can reach the heavens, can do a lot of things that ordinary people can't do, and of course enjoy the benefits that ordinary people can't enjoy, which seems to be a very cool profession. But wizards also have to pay a big price, that is, life.
Play self-immolation to pray for rain
After shang tang, the founding monarch of the Shang Dynasty, ascended the throne, it was not long before he encountered a seven-year drought, and almost all the ways of praying for rain at that time were used, including killing cattle, killing slaves, etc., did not work. So Shang Tang found the chief diviner and asked him to find a way. The wizard gave the ultimate skill, that is, to sacrifice the wizard to the heavens and burn the highest level of wizards.
At that time, the highest level of wizards was in the hands of the monarch Shang Tang, which meant that Shang Tang wanted to play self-immolation. Shang Tang first cut off his own hair and nails, burned them in a mulberry forest, and prayed to the gods, and it really rained. In ancient times, the skin of the body was a symbol of the body, and Shang Tang was also very lucky, otherwise the next stage must be real.
The reason why the wizard is burned to ask for rain is not that the wizard is treated well, but because the wizard has the ability to communicate with the heavens, and the burning wizard can go to the heavens to have a clear dialogue, and in ancient times, the communication tool of jade was used to communicate with the heavens, and sometimes there was a bad signal. The Shang Dynasty also used this kind of burning shaman to pray for rain, and gave it a proper term "burning witch(wāng)".
However, later generations also have different interpretations of "尪", believing that it is not the highest level of wizards, but the people who burn the long chicken breasts, some say that they are lame, and there is a saying that it is the most magical, saying that it refers to people with nostrils facing the sky, because this can receive rain and have an induction effect.
Later generations identified Shang Tang's practice of asking for rain and sacrificing his life for righteousness as the behavior of the Shengming monarch, and even named Shang Tang on a par with Emperor Yan, Emperor Huang, Yao, Shun, yu, and so on. However, from the actual situation, this kind of political show is also necessary, which is conducive to maintaining the image of Shang Tang calling the wind and rain to the great wizard. For example, the later Tianzi would vacate a piece of land in the palace and move a few hoes during spring ploughing, known as the "Ceremony of The Land", all in order to maintain the image of being close to the people.
In the middle and late Shang Dynasty, it became a common practice to burn wizards and ask for rain, but it was no longer possible to burn Tianzi, and to burn those full-time wizards. In the later excavations of The Oracle bones of the Shang Dynasty, many things were recorded about taking wizards to ask for rain.
In the Zhou Dynasty, the wizards had a detailed division of labor, not only from burning for rain, but also from writing records. And as more and more wizards burned, it didn't work much to find out. For example, one year there was a great drought in the country of Lu, and Lu Gong had planned to burn a few wizards to ask for rain, but his ministers advised that if they burned, they might not be able to pray for rain, so it was better for us to prepare more grain, and it was only right to survive this dry season.
On the eve of king Wu's cutting, King Wu of Zhou once asked people to calculate a trigram, and the result was fierce. Jiang Ziya rushed up, grabbed all the tools used for calculation and threw them on the ground, saying, "Who can know the auspiciousness of the dry grass and turtle shells", leave him alone, just fight. At this time, people were no longer so superstitious about the gods of heaven.
King Wu of Zhou believed that "people, food, mourning, sacrifice." The breadth is the multitude, and the faith is the people's will. Min is meritorious, Gongze says. "The gist is, the people, the food, the funerals, the sacrifices. Generosity can win the support of the people, honesty can be appointed by others, diligence can achieve merit, fairness and justice will satisfy the people, and at this time people have a further understanding of heaven.
People also slowly believed in the power of wizarding writing, such as the "Huainanzi" record: when Cangjie made characters, "the sky rains and millet, and the ghosts cry at night." It is the strange phenomenon of grain falling from the sky and ghosts crying in the night. When the text appears, why is it so earth-shattering and crying ghosts and gods? The power of writing lies in its connection with knowledge, and words contain the role of tools to communicate with heaven and earth. Wizards became the first historians to record history. According to research, the earliest historians also bear the status of wizards.
Bask in the sun and ask for rain
Burning wizards is too cruel, but the political show still has to be done, so later generations have come up with a workaround, that is, to expose themselves to the sun, although it is a little hard, but it will not hurt lives, and the most important thing is that there is no need for wizards to replace the king. One year, when there was a great drought in the country of Qi, Yan Zi said to Qi Jinggong, "This is a good time for you to share weal and woe with the people, take advantage of this opportunity to share hardships with the mountains and rivers, and if it rains, the people will be grateful to you." ”
So Qi Jinggong sunbathed outside for two days, and sure enough, it rained heavily. This way of not only not burning wizards, but also being able to buy people's hearts and minds, has been increasingly welcomed and imitated by local governments. As long as there is a drought in the local area, officials will lead the people to bask in the sun. During the Eastern Han Dynasty, during the Zhang Emperor period, there was a major drought, and the hundred officials of the imperial court all went to bask in the sun together, and soon after, it rained a little, so the hundred officials went back. However, The Lieutenant Zheng Hong felt that the sincerity was not enough, so he spent another day alone, and sure enough, it rained heavily.
The power of example is infinite, there is a precedent of Zheng Hong, and later many officials began to follow suit, and asking for rain became a means of expressing loyalty and rising and developing. During the Eastern Han Dynasty, there was a county drought, so Taishou basked in the sun as usual, but after two days of sunbathing, there was no effect, and there was a subordinate called Yufu to give Taishou advice, so why don't we learn Shang Tang, how about self-immolation? When the fire was about to start, it touched the heavens, and suddenly it rained heavily, making Taishou famous for a while.
In Dong Zhongshu's "Spring and Autumn Dew" recorded the details of asking for rain, when asking for rain in spring, you must first dry a few wizards, and then send a few wizards to sacrifice to ask for rain, if you have not yet prayed for rain, then you must choose a good day, build a big dragon, 7 small dragons, throw a few toads into the water, then kill two boars, find a few virgin boys to dance the rain dance... In the Western Han Dynasty, the rain prayer has a detailed operation process, and the ceremony is very complicated.
The official field asks for rain for political shows, but the common people ask for rain and play the real thing. They not only had to bask in the wizards, but also on the Dragon King, who was responsible for the rain. In some places where the people are fierce, not only is there no such red tape, but the Dragon King is also treated in a coercive and seductive way. For example, the people will limit the Dragon King to 10 days must rain, otherwise they will carry the Dragon King out of the temple for exposure, and if it does not rain, the Dragon King will be smashed with the temple.
The historical significance of wizards
In ancient times, the technology in witchcraft was not as simple as dancing and chanting words, and it was not the witch gods we see today who were responsible for witchcraft activities. These wizards were responsible for communicating with the gods and had many important missions, such as asking for rain in times of drought and treating someone when they were sick. In order to pray for rain, it is necessary to study the climate and the celestial phenomena; in order to cure diseases, it is necessary to study medicine. Over time, wizards also accumulated a wealth of knowledge, which became the soil for the early science.
Wizards have been observing the heavens for a long time and have a lot of knowledge about calendars and festivals, and zhou liturgy summarizes this knowledge and turns it into a ceremony such as the ceremony of welcoming spring and the ceremony of welcoming autumn. In addition to praying for good wind and rain and abundant grain, these ritual functions are actually to guide farmers, spring should be sown, autumn should be harvested. The rich knowledge of the priests did not become a systematic science in China, but into various practical rules.
The emotional side of witchcraft is transformed into emotions in our daily lives: love for parents, love for brothers, love for friends. If the etiquette formulated by Zhou Gong still retained a little mysticism, then by Confucius, this remnant of mysticism also disappeared. In ancient times, Chinese kowtowed to their parents to express filial piety to their parents; to make a gesture to a friend was to express respect for a friend, all of which was very natural. In this way, witchcraft in ancient times was completely transformed into the etiquette of daily life. As a result, China has not become a religious and scientific country, but a "state of ceremonies."