Abstract
People living in the Near East, in Greece and in Italy sometimes discover archaeological records and remains by digging in the ground or by throwing stones into caves. And our knowledge of the religions of antiquity in these areas has especially been enriched and revolutionised by the archaeological research done by scholars during recent centuries. For example, the Dead Sea Scrolls shed light on Hebrew religion and early Christianity, while the Nag Hammadi manuscripts in Egypt illuminated Christian Gnosticism. China is also an ancient country, and offers a very fruitful field for scholars interested in remote antiquity.
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Notes
Jao Tsung-i, ‘Foreword: Speaking of “Sages”: The Bronze Figures of San-hsing-tui’, in Julia Ching and R. W. L. Guisso, Sages and Filial Sons (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1991), pp. xiv–xx.
Consult Herbert Spencer, Principles of Sociology (first published, 1877–78. Westport, Ct.: Greenwood Press, 1974–75), vol. 1. See his chapter on ancestral worship.
Consult Maurice Freedman’s Editorial Preface in Marcel Granet, The Religion of the Chinese People. Translated by Maurice Freedman (New York: Harper & Row, 1977), p. 19. In ancient China, the ancestral cult was practised only by the nobility. With time, it spread also among the common people.
Hans Küng and Julia Ching, Christianity and Chinese Religions (New York: Doubleday, 1989), p. 37.
Arthur Waley, trans., The Book of Songs (New York: Grove Press, 1960), pp. 209–10. The Book of Poetry is sometimes called the Book of Songs, and sometimes the Odes.
Adamson E. Hoebel, Anthropology: The Study of Man (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1972), p. 376.
Consult Hsü Chün-yüan, et al., Chung-kuo jen te hsing-shih (Chinese clan names and surnames) (Hong Kong: South China Press, 1988), chs 1–2.
See quotations from original texts in Derk Bodde, ‘Myths of Ancient China’, in Charles LeBlanc and Dorothy Borei, eds, Essays on Chinese Civilization (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981), pp. 62–65.
For this entire subject, consult Kwang-Chih Chang, Shang Civilization (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1980), pp. 31–35.
Kwang-chih Chang, Art, Myth and Ritual: The Path to Political Authority in Ancient China (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1983, p. 54.
David E. Aune, Prophecy in Early Christianity and the Ancient Mediterranean World (Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans, 1983), p. 86.
Consult Derek Walters, Chinese Astrology: Interpreting the Messages of the Celestial Messengers (Wellingsborough, Northants: The Aquarian Press, 1987).
Roberto K. Ong, The Interpretation of Dreams in Ancient China (Bochum: Brockmeyer, 1985), pp. 18, 144–49.
David Hawkes, Ch’u Tz’u: the Songs of the South (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1959), p. 89.
Consult Alfred Guillaume, Prophecy and Divination among the Hebrews and Other Semites (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1938), pp. 107–10.
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© 1993 Julia Ching
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Ching, J. (1993). The Ancestral Cult and Divination: The Dawn of Ancient Religion. In: Chinese Religions. Themes in Comparative Religion. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-22904-8_2
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