Religions of Ancient China | Page 7

There is no spirit to whom I have not sacrificed; There is no victim that I have grudged; Our sacrificial symbols are all used up;-- How is it that I am not heard?
The Confucian Criterion.--The keystone of the Confucian philosophy, that man is born good, will be found in the following lines:--
How mighty is God! How clothed in majesty is God, And how unsearchable are His judgments! God gives birth to the people, But their natures are not constant; All have the same beginning, But few have the same end.
God, however, is not held responsible for the sufferings of mankind. King Wen, in an address to the last tyrant of the House of Shang, says plainly,
It is not God who has caused this evil time, But it is you who have strayed from the old paths.
The Associate of God.--Worshipped on certain occasions as the Associate of God, and often summoned to aid in hours of distress or danger, was a personage known as Hou Chi, said to have been the original ancestor of the House of Chou. His story, sufficiently told in the /Odes/, is curious for several reasons, and especially for an instance in Chinese literature, which, in the absence of any known husband, comes near suggesting the much-vexed question of parthenogenesis:--
She who first gave birth to our people Was the lady Chiang Yuan. How did she give birth to them? She offered up a sacrifice That she might not be childless; Then she trod in a footprint of God's, and conceived, The great and blessed one, Pregnant with a new birth to be, And brought forth and nourished Him who was Hou Chi.
When she had fulfilled her months, Her firstborn came forth like a lamb. There was no bursting, no rending, No injury, no hurt, In order to emphasise his divinity. Did not God give her comfort? Had He not accepted her sacrifice, So that thus easily she brought forth her son?
He was exposed in a narrow lane, But sheep and oxen protected and suckled him; He was exposed in a wide forest, But woodcutters found him; He was exposed on cold ice, But birds covered him with their wings.
Apotheosis of Hou Chi.--And so he grew to man's estate, and taught the people husbandry, with a success that has never been rivalled. Consequently, he was deified, and during several centuries of the Chou dynasty was united in worship with God:--
O wise Hou Chi, Fit Associate of our God, Founder of our race, There is none greater than thou! Thou gavest us wheat and barley, Which God appointed for our nourishment, And without distinction of territory, Didst inculcate the virtues over our vast dominions.
Other Deities.--During the long period covered by the Chou dynasty, various other deities, of more or less importance, were called into existence.
The patriarchal Emperor Shen Nung, B.C. 2838-2698, who had taught his people to till the ground and eat of the fruits of their labour, was deified as the tutelary genius of agriculture:--
That my fields are in such good condition Is matter of joy to my husbandmen. With lutes, and with drums beating, We will invoke the Father of Husbandry, And pray for sweet rain, To increase the produce of our millet fields, And to bless my men and their wives.
There were also sacrifices to the Father of War, whoever he may have been; to the Spirits of Wind, Rain, and Fire; and even to a deity who watched over the welfare of silkworms. Since those days, the number of spiritual beings who receive worship from the Chinese, some in one part of the empire, some in another, has increased enormously. A single work, published in 1640, gives notices of no fewer than eight hundred divinities.
Superstitions.--During the period under consideration, all kinds of superstition prevailed; among others, that of referring to the rainbow. The rainbow was believed by the vulgar to be an emanation from an enormous oyster away in the great ocean which surrounded the world, i.e. China. Philosophers held it to be the result of undue proportions in the mixture of the two cosmogonical principles which when properly blended produce the harmony of nature. By both parties it was considered to be an inauspicious manifestation, and merely to point at it would produce a sore on the hand.
Supernatural Manifestations.--Several events of a supernatural character are recorded as having taken place under the Chou dynasty. In B.C. 756, one of the feudal Dukes saw a vision of a yellow serpent which descended from heaven and laid its head on the slope of a mountain. The Duke spoke of this to his astrologer, who said, "It is a manifestation of God; sacrifice to it."
In B.C. 747, another Duke found on a mountain a being in the semblance of a stone. Sacrifices were at once offered, and