What is "power"? In the Marxist philosophy of history, the raison d'être and the most basic determinant of power reside in the economy: power is considered the result of the control of the means and forces of production (instruments and labor), and thus ultimately manifests itself as "a concrete possession, like a commodity which can be dominated, transferred, mastered or transferred" Among the many critics of this theory, Michel Foucault has argued most forcefully against the idea that power is inherently passive and repressed: "Power is not something that can be acquired, controlled, or shared, nor is it something that can be held or detached from." In the interplay of non-egalitarian and variable (social) relationships, power is actually the joint operation of countless factors. The former emphasizes the political relations between opposing groups or classes, while the latter sees power as a comprehensive force (not necessarily "political" in the strict sense) that exists within the social continuum. Since the two theories look at different situations and do not interpret power on the same level, they are not completely opposed, and each theory may reveal some important problems in ancient society.
Strict control of bronze resources and production naturally involves mechanisms of repression and forcing. When a foreign race or foreign state is conquered, they may be forced to hand over their bronze (such as "far away" offering their bronze to Xia to cast jiuding). In each of the three dynasties, this control led to and guaranteed stratification in society. However, it is also clear that in order to give social value to the purely bronze material—an alloy of copper and tin—the material must be transformed into a "work." The exercise of power is thus closely linked to certain specific bronze forms, which in turn most powerfully reflect the different aspects of the exercise of power.
Zhang Guangzhi once mentioned that a famous saying in ancient China - "the great affairs of the country, in the worship and rong" - illustrate that bronze is specially used to make ceremonial instruments and weapons. We may be able to further develop this view: sacrifice and military, ceremonial instruments and weapons— this dichotomy reflects the two types of power, M. Benton. Benton calls this power to power and power over. The concept of implanted power means that power is "an integral part of all interactions in society, an internal link in all social practices." This power harnesses and creates resources. At perhaps the most abstract level, this power can be seen as a dispositional capability that is neither possessive nor exercisable, nor controlled by any particular intermediary or group. It is a structural component of the social system, manifested only by the influence it exerts in individuals, groups or organizations". The imposition of power implies repression and control in social domination – it refers to forms of asymmetry, including "the dialectical relationship between the 'holder' of power and the enforced power". If understood in this way, the two aspects of power proposed by Marxism and Foucault's doctrine can be linked.
The connection between the concept of exerting power and weapons is clear. The entire history of the three generations is based on the conquest of other tribes and regional groups by three tribes. The ultimate and effective form of political domination was military conquest, which was also the main source of wealth and slavery. War is often directly associated with the rise and fall of ruling power or a culture. There are many such examples, such as the sudden rise of the Shang civilization during the Wuding period, which was associated with endless battles against foreign nations and foreign states. Reasons for the fall of the Shang Dynasty also included the defeat of the Shang Dynasty in such battles and the rebellion of racial slaves. According to records, in the face of the Zhou army's attack, the desperate Shang king had to replenish his army with slaves and arm them with bronze weapons, which then became tools for "defecting" and attacking himself. Therefore, the defeat of Lu can be said to be the result of his loss of the means of political rule.
Ritual vessels, on the other hand, play a very different role in society. As mentioned above, ritual instruments concretize "rituals," which encompass all nonviolent social behaviors and norms—including rituals and their specific methods of implementation, legal and moral norms, personal manners and behaviors, and so on. No one can create a ritual or "possess" it, but everyone must act according to it. It is in the practice of this omnipresent ritual that social order is established. Therefore, the power of etiquette does not arise from confrontation or control, but from the state of coexistence and restraint of people. Such a state is at the same time characteristic of all kinds of liturgical behavior; conversely, all individuals and groups exercising the power of propriety are subordinate to the exercise of this power.
In line with this, the power of the ceremonial vessel does not exist in material possession. Although a person can take a ceremonial vessel from someone else through violence, such access can only prove that he has violated basic social norms if there is no necessary reason to conform to the etiquette. Ceremonial vessels have neither a practical function nor a static symbol of social identity; they become "powerful" only when they are made and used by the right people, at the right time and in the right place, in the right way, for the right purpose. The sum of this large pile of "propriety" is the ritual, and in this way, the ritual instrument can achieve the role of "Tibetan ritual".
Take the Western Zhou Dynasty Bronze Ware, for example, whose inscription records the ritual of the Book of Fortune, which was the reason for the production of the bronze, which in turn led to further ceremonial behavior. According to inscriptions and documents, the Zhou Dynasty decreed that the ceremony was held in the early morning in the ancestral temple of the royal family and presided over by the king himself. All the participants—the king, the ceremonial officer, and the ordained person—wore properly dressed in accordance with the liturgy, stood in the right position, acted in the right posture, and said the right words that were in accordance with the etiquette. The King of Zhou extolled his ancestors, as well as those who received the ordination. He reaffirmed the titles and privileges accorded to the families of the ordained by his predecessors, and thus gave them new graces. He would reward the ordained with a set of symbolic objects, who in his reply praised the current kings and kings of Zhou, as well as his ancestors. The bronze he made after the ceremony was not only the last link in the entire ordination process, but would also be used by "descendants and grandchildren"—a standard inscription that suggests that as the family continues, the artifact will be stored in the ordained family temple and used for sacrifice. The significance of this ceremony is therefore to confirm various social relations, including the King of Zhou and his ancestors, the ministers and their ancestors, the ancestors of the King of Zhou and the ancestors of the ministers, the kings and ministers of the Zhou, and the ministers and their descendants. The monumentality of bronze ceremonial vessels actually exists in the network that embodies and consolidates this social relationship.
The ordination ceremony is only one of a large number of ceremonial activities in social life, large and small. The six rites described in detail in ancient rites—crowning, mourning (marriage), bereavement, sacrifice, township (feasting), and seeing—encompass almost all activities in social life. Etiquette thus becomes social life itself. Seen as the "natural order" of human life, the power of ritual thus becomes the most basic, unchanging, innate thing. Unlike those coercive means, in these social activities, the rites constantly renew and adjust the various social relations between the upper and lower levels, between husband and wife, between the living and the dead, between ancestors and descendants, between masters and guests, and between rulers and the ruled. Although the two sides of each relationship are not equal, no two relationships can overlap, which means that a "ruler" cannot have absolute control: even a king must honor his ancestors, elders and guests. If there is one power that can override this system, it can only be the ritual itself, because all individuals and groups that wield the power of the ritual must submit to the use of the ritual.
But these two aspects of power — the exertion of power and the implantation of power — are in no way separated. What connects the two is the concept of monumentality. On the one hand, as early as three generations ago, the "jade soldier" had appeared as an important type of ceremonial vessel; the numerous large and inlaid qi, knives and spears of the Bronze Age were a continuation of this tradition. On the other hand, military conquests and victories led to the production of a large number of container-like ceremonial vessels – bronze inscriptions documenting such events have been quoted earlier. These examples lead us back to Jiuding again. This set of monumental bronzes reflects not a single function of power, but a dialectical relationship between the two functions; it was only in this way that Jiuding became the primary symbol of political power in China's Bronze Age. My discussion of Jiuding above shows that (1) Jiuding shows political dominance because the change of ownership of The Ding marks a change in the right to rule; (2) the Jiuding represents specific structural characteristics of society that give rise to and sustain the internal systems of society. In other words, Jiuding's "possession not only confers a special status on the possessors of the group or other groups" but also "plays the role of actually confirming the power they have acquired."
These two functions of Jiuding have been clearly reflected in the transition from Shang to Zhou. It is recorded that when King Wu of Zhou conquered the Shang, he immediately ordered the removal of the Jiuding and jade ceremonial vessels from the Shang capital – an act that marked the irretrievable collapse of the old dynasty. Jiuding was then transported to Zhou's headquarters. Importantly, however, the seizure of Jiuding's materiality does not automatically justify Zhou's ownership of it—the conversion of ownership must be ceremonially confirmed through the activity of "Dingding." The word "Dingding" means both "to settle down" and "to establish a new regime." In other words, Ding must change from negative physical evidence of the demise of the Shang Dynasty to positive physical evidence of Zhou Dynasty rule in order to become the legal property of the Zhou people. In proving the demise of the Shang, Ding is still seen as a symbol of the Shang; in order to prove the legitimacy of Zhou ownership, Ding must become an intrinsic factor of Zhou.
The I Ching says, "Revolution, go to the past, ding, take the new also." King Wu was given the title of "Wu" for conquering Shang and seizing Ding. The person who "took the new" by Dingding in the new capital was his son, known as "Cheng". A complete set of rituals was gradually realized in the process of fixing the Ding: the location of jiuding was determined by divination, and a new city was established; the jiuding was transported from the special "Dingmen" to its new home. These ceremonies provided a great opportunity for the new dynasty to demonstrate its power and legitimacy, and various social and political relationships were established and recognized in the process of settling down. It can be said that these ceremonial activities have made Jiuding truly a collective monument to the Zhou people.
Five hundred years later, the Zhou royal family had degenerated into a surviving puppet government, and when the Chu army approached the city, the Chu king's envoys asked about the importance of Jiuding, and his intention was considered to be to usurp the king's power. Wang Sunman's talk of Jiuding sought to prove the legitimacy of Zhou as the core of power. The resourceful minister found his evidence from King Cheng: "King Cheng ding ding ding, Bu Shi thirty, Bu Nian seven hundred." But he avoided the fact that King Wu had seized Jiuding from the Shang Dynasty—a historical event that was too easily exploited by the King of Chu to justify his ambitions.
We can't know if Wang Sunman really saw the Jiuding hidden deep in the Zhou Dynasty Sect Temple, but what he said about Jiuding is undoubtedly a historical fiction. Intriguingly, this fiction condenses and distills the entire liturgical art into a single image. As the most important monument of the Three Dynasties period, Jiuding had to combine all the stages of ceremonial art, as well as all the important aspects of the dominant monumentality that had developed over the millennia.
As mentioned above, the history of ceremonial vessels began at least in the fourth millennium BC, creating works of ceremonial art by imitating ordinary objects with precious materials. Subsequently, the shape of the ceremonial vessel was specialized, and symbolic decorations and emblems were created. This process is repeated in the development of bronze art: bronze was first used as a new precious material to imitate the early "fragile" pottery vessels. The emphasis on mutated images immediately led to major changes in style and subject matter. Then, monumental inscriptions appeared, and eventually turned the bronze into a kind of bearer of "text" for reading. From materials to shapes to decorations and inscriptions, the focus of change in this series of evolutions reveals the changing characteristics of liturgical art, from the most realistic to the most abstract, from natural elements to artificial markings.
All these layers and aspects of liturgical art are included in Wang Sunman's remarks on Jiuding. According to him, the materials of Jiuding came from different regions, so these ceremonial vessels can symbolize the unity of the regime. The same symbolism is expressed in the casting of regional things, most likely the emblems of local authorities, on the ding; we know, these emblems are also characteristic of jade ceremonial and early bronzes. Beliefs about the supernatural properties of the Ding—their ability to conform to destiny and move themselves—seem to be related to the vibrant, deformed images on late Shang bronzes. In addition, the number and arrangement of Ding reflects the concept of a Zhou Dynasty, that is, only the Son of Heaven can have nine Dings.
It has been pointed out that monuments of a political nature are often erected when a new regime is formed or an old regime declines. This statement is consistent with the situation in ancient China: when the dawn of Chinese dynastic history came, Xia cast Jiuding; when the three generations were coming to an end, Jiuding re-occupied people's minds. But as we have already seen, the Jiuding conceived in the 6th century BC is no longer a real instrument, but a memory of the history of the deceased ritual vessel. It is these memories, not the actual Ding, that pin on Zhou's destiny. Therefore, Wang Sunman's discussion of Jiuding is also a lament, lamenting not only the glory of the Zhou Dynasty, but also the entire ancient monument and the decline of the Chinese Bronze Age. During this period, the production of ceremonial vessels was largely replaced by the manufacture of luxury goods. Under the patronage of powerful local rulers, a lavish artistic style became fashionable. Monumental inscriptions were no longer popular; the text on the bronzes indicated that the utensils were dowries or "trickers". Ornaments devoid of religious significance pervade artifacts; intricate designs transform a solid bronze piece into a "hive"-like component. At the same time, the artifacts were also transformed into paintings depicting scenes of feasting, shooting, and killing.
Bronze disc. Eastern Zhou, 5th century BC. The height is 33.1 cm and the disc height is 24 cm. In 1978, Hubei Suixian Drum Dun was excavated. Collection of Hubei Provincial Museum.
Important aspects of ancient monumentality—monumental inscriptions, symbolic ornamentation, and form—were thus abandoned, and this development in the opposite direction eventually led to the demise of bronze ceremonial vessels. In 512 BC, about a hundred years after Wang Sun Man asked Chu Zi, a reformer of the Jin dynasty named Zhao Martin issued a "Book of Punishment". The act itself was a rebellion against the old social system based on etiquette, and the way he did it was like a deliberate satire of the traditional monumentality: he cast the legal document on a piece made of "evil gold" (iron). When Confucius, who revered the traditional Zhou rites, heard about this, he said, "Jin Qi's death is lost! "However, iron has not become a popular material for making containers. In contrast, exquisite mosaics made of a variety of materials met the need for luxury at the time. These works—sculptures, mirrors, hooks, musical instruments, eaters, and even drowning vessels—contradict solemn bronze ceremonial vessels in every respect. Colourful and designed, but monumental content is missing – they show an unbridled desire for luxury.
This is the end of ceremonial vessels and the Bronze Age in China. It was also at this time that the Main Representative of bronze Age monumentality, the Jiuding, also withdrew from the stage of history: they suddenly disappeared in 336 BC, and no one could get them anymore.
(This article is excerpted from "The "Monumentality" of Ancient Chinese Art and Architecture", by Wu Hong, produced by Century Wenjing.) Published with permission. The title of the article is prepared by the editor. ）