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The second royal regime of China, the Shang dynasty (c. 1600 - 1046 BCE), developed a polytheistic religion that focused on worshipping spiritual beings. The dynasty developed a bureaucracy specialized in practicing rituals, divided into several positions tasked with performing different aspects of the religion. Usually, the head practitioners were the Shang king and other members of the royal family. Their activities, taking place at the Shang dynasty's capital city Yin were recorded on oracle bones.

The involvement of shamanism in the Shang religion is under debate. Researchers such as K.C.Chang support the view of active shamans in the court, while others claim that the dynasty did not actually adopted shamanism in ceremonies.

Chief priests

The deities worshipped by the Shang, aside supernatural beings, were spirits of deceased ancestors. The reigning Shang king would be responsible for communicating with all the spirits for the state's welfare and successes. He communicated through means of divination, written on oracle bones. The Shang kings usually gave the final prognostications about upcoming events, by interpreting the patterns on heated bones (ox scapulae, turtle plastrons, etc.). Predicted events were intended to last a full Shang week of ten days (xún). In many cases, divinations made by the kings (indicated by bone inscribers) predicted ominous and unfortunate situations.

The Shang monarchs also acted as organizers of ceremonies. When a king died, his successor would be responsible for giving him a proper burial ritual. An example is Wu Ding (r. 1250 - 1192 BCE), who was the organizer of the burial of his father Xiǎo Yǐ. His role in this aspect was not restricted to deceased predecessors, as he also directed burials and rituals for relatives who died during his reign.

The Shang king's level of involvement strongly relates to his influence and gain sovereignty over remote polities. Over time, the Shang dynasty gradually expanded and increased interaction with tribes and chiefdoms. Its religion possibly adopted gods worshipped by those polities into its own pantheon, and could also have associated the polities themselves with Shang gods. Tǔfāng, a long-term opponent of the Shang dynasty, was assigned with Tǔ (earth), which strongly exemplifies outside influence. By worshipping both his own and others' gods, the king would be able to maintain suzerainty over the regions.

Within the royal palaces at Yin, several royal members apart from the ruler featured themselves as head priests. The most active of them was Fu Hao, the secondary queen. She was among the most frequently mentioned names in Shang divinatory texts.

Participants of divination

On divinatory ceremonies, the Shang king was assisted by a number of diviners (多卜), possibly directed by a supervisor (官占).. They were tasked with heating the oracle bones which contain questions to Shang ancestors, and interpreting the cracks made by the heat to obtain the response. The divination process typically included cleaning meat out of bones, scraping and polishing the surfaces, drilling holes through the bones, applying heat and inscribing characters. Often, divinatory inscriptions would include various kinds of information, and in many examples the diviner's name was written down.

Throughout the interval from c. 1250 BCE to 1046 BCE, several distinct scribal groups existed and often intermingled. Their style, calligraphy and inscriptional contents are comparably different. The 20th century classification method by Chinese scholars describes the diviners as two groups, referred to as the "Old School" and the "New School". According to this theory, since the religious reforms commissioned by Zu Jia during the 12th century BCE, the groups had experienced periods of high activity along with times in which they were not favored. Shang kings such as Geng Ding employed diviners and scribes of the type who worked under Wu Ding, while others like Wu Yi and Wen Ding favored those of the type working for Zu Jia. Diviners therefore were interpreted as interchanging groups. In modern studies of oracle bone inscriptions, various findings have challenged the hypothesis; a new classification is established. Diviners are classified into groups named after the most active diviner among them.

Using divinations written by diviner groups Huáng (黄) and Chū (出), which detail the religious calendar, scholars have been able to create a reconstruction of the Late Shang liturgical schedule.

Shamans

It is unknown whether shamanism was an important practice to the Shang dynasty or not. Robert Eno argued that communication with the deified spirits was done via sacrifices and technical manipulation of bones, and therefore could not be shamanism since it did not involve direct encounter with the spirits. Against Eno's suggestion, Kwang-chih Chang claimed that the absence of shamanism would make understandings of Shang religion incomplete.

The Shang dynasty had a court position called "wu" (巫, rendered as the shape of a "plus" sign in oracle bone inscriptions). The word has been generally translated as "shaman". Some scholars however questioned about its true meaning, and whether it actually referred to a shaman or another kind of practitioner. Some pointed out that "wu" during the Shang dynasty could be deciphered in other ways apart from the commonly used speculation. Victor H. Mair, researching into the connection between early Chinese civilization and Inner Asia, theorized a possible meaning of "wu" by looking at linguistic evidence. According to his theory, "wu" during the Shang dynasty had the pronunciation "myag", related to the term "magus" in Old Persian (he further claimed that "magician" is also a related term). In Zoroastrianism, "magi" (plural form of "magus") denotes priests. Therefore, there is a possibility that the "wu" during the Shang dynasty were originally people migrating from Inner Asia, and that they were non-shamanic priests. Mair supposed that the "wu" are better understood as people able to communicate with the spiritual world through art and sacrifices rather than shaman's practices like stance and mediation.

However, various oracle bone examples point out the presence of rituals involving the Shang king which were related to "invocation". In some ceremonies, the deities would be present as "guests", and the Shang king was the person who acted as "host". Hosting rituals took place at numerous temples, each housing a single or a group of spirits. Some scholars understand the "guest" rituals to have featured the kings as ceremonial hosts uniquely equipped to "hear" the spiritual messages in religious events.

Oracle bone inscriptions record instances in which the king played the major role, as demonstrated by the two examples below:

At divination on the gēngzǐ day Xi tested the proposition: As for meat cut with the yue it should be the king who carries out invocation.

— Fu yin 6

At divination on the gēngchén day: The king will carry out the rite of invocation to Father Xīn with sheep, pigs you-buckets of millet wine.

— Jinbun 3014

The invocation ritual (zhù 祝) is interpreted to be semantically similar to a Shang ritual which involved the king calling out the spirits. Because this ritual was shown to be a prerogative of the Shang king, Childs-Johnson believed that he acted as a shaman-priest.

Other court religious positions

The role of astronomers / astrologers in the religion is incompletely understood but was possibly important. The shape of Shang characters for religious figures imply a complex comprehension and interpretation of the North Pole. Shang cosmology concentrated on the squared area defined by the Pole's surrounding stars at the time of the Shang, probably using Thuban as the reference celestial object. They may have participated in making the Shang calendar, organizing a year into smaller periodical units.

The Shang rituals featured and necessitated the use of music. Divination was conducted to determine the kind of music going to be performed, usually dance. A number of dancers ("wu" 舞) were chosen to handle the task uder the command of a music director (gu 瞽)

Practitioners not belonging to the royal court

Aside from the central government at Yin, the Shang religion was also practiced in other areas of the state. Over 1000 oracle bones, many of which bear divinatory inscriptions, were excavated at Huayuanzhuang, near the historical site of Yin. The initial owner was a royal relative, a close kin of Wu Ding who was authorized to conduct his own religious activities. According to interpretations of oracle bone inscriptions, the prince led his own entourage of diviners, as well as relatives who were entrusted to conduct religious activities during his absence. His divinations, numbered up to 537 written texts, seemed to address only some individuals worshipped by the royal family at the capital city. In particular, the divinations concern extensively on Grandmother Gēng, who was mentioned in Wu Ding's divinations as the king's mother. Divination concerning this deceased ancestor are plentiful, and can be demonstrated through examples:

己亥卜：子于(戎)宿，夙殺牢妣庚。用 Divined on jǐhài: Our lord, staying overnight in Rong, at dawn will kill some pen-raised cattle (for) Ancestress Gēng. Used.

— HYZ 267

戊申卜：其將妣庚于(戎)東官(館)。用。

Divined on wùshēn: Should carry in offerings (to) Ancestress Gēng in Rong’s eastern guesthouse. Used. 癸丑，將妣庚，其歲妣庚牢。在(戎)。一二三

On guǐchǒu, carrying in offerings (to) Ancestress Gēng, should sacrifice (to) Ancestress Geng some pen-raised cattle. At Rong.

— HYZ 248

Other ancestral deities revered by the Huayuanzhuang entourage include Ancestor Yǐ, Ancestor Jiă, along with approximately 20 other spirits. Wu Ding and Fu Hao were two living relatives mentioned in the Huayuanzhuang inscriptions, appearing to be in regular contact with the prince through meetings.

Other than divinations, this royal patron also participated in sacrificial rituals and establishing religious centers in his assigned estate. Mentions of sacrifice in his inscriptions suggest the presence of staff entrusted to conduct sacrifice on his behalf. In some occasions, he directly made sacrifices to the spirits, as one text indicates:

乙卯卜：歲祖乙牢，子其自，弜(勿)速。用。 Divined on yǐmăo: In sacrificing (to) Ancestor Yǐ some pen-raised cattle, our lord should do it himself; (he) ought not invite (anyone else). Used.

— HYZ 294

Many inscriptions excavated at Huayuanzhuang were made in Rong, a conquered place. According to interpretations, the prince began to settle there, organized ancestral spirit tablets in new worshipping places, and conducted offerings. He also commissioned additional constructions serving for this purpose, including an ancestral temple, a tower, and a guesthouse intended to store sacrifices. Wu Ding seemed to have played a role in these activities, as texts reveal that the king distributed to the patron materials like prisoners and special grains for ancestor worship.

Further than Huayuanzhuang, texts from Daxinzhuang, 250 kilometers apart from Yin, have also been found.

It is believed that common people during this period may have taken part in popular religion. There are possibilities that the populace might have participated in seasonal festivals and sacrificial offerings. Commoners might as well have been involved in religious activities carried out by regional lords.

Training of practitioners at Yin

Literacy training for scribes

Oracle bone script, the writing system developed by the Shang dynasty, is thoroughly complex. Literacy among scribes was considered very important, for the purpose of divination and record rituals. Robert Bagley articulated saying that Shang literacy was tied to a maximal extreme, but he also noted that the process of acquiring full literacy for Shang scribes is not understood.

The Shang character for "learn" (學, "xue") has been identified. Two plastrons inscribed during Wu Ding's regnal era, HJ: 8304 and HJ: 16406, are interpreted and indicate that "xue" could be written as both a verb and a noun. Some inscriptions reveal that when the word is used in collocation with "大", the resulting phrase "大學" could refer to an alternative place for performing an unknown ritual. Xué (學) could possibly be a noun in HD: 181 (wǎngxué 往學 ‘to go to the xué’) and in HD: 450 (rùxué 入學 ‘to enter the xué’), but these examples could equally be verbs (i.e., ‘to go to learn,’ ‘to go in and learn’). Generally, it has been argued that the use of this word in oracle bone inscriptions definitely refers to a kind of scribal training.

Scholars have interpreted a large number of oracle bone inscriptions and suggested that a method of training scribes through repetitive practice of imitating model texts. In a 1937 annotated catalog, Guo Moruo examined the piece CB: 1468=HJ: 18946 which contains the information of sexagenary days and noticed such "learning" pattern. In the fourth line of the texts, the characters were written finely in thorough order, as if made by a teacher who had mastered the writing techniques. Meanwhile, the rest were much more crooked, probably due to unsuccessful attempts to copy the model texts. Guo Moruo also noted that among the badly written words on the same piece, there were several isolated characters with a fine style, namely those denoting the stems jia, "ji", "xin" and the branches mao, chen, wu. In such cases, he speculated that the supposed teacher carved those words to correct mistakes. In a work by Matsumaru Michio, 156 occurrences of Shang date tables were studied and classified into three groups according to the degree of writing competence. The most finely texts of one group were proposed to be models for learning, while those from the other two categories were student copies. However, the author did not make any claims about whether the students in that case were acquiring literacy or learning engraving skills.

Literacy and engraving techniques are distinguished from one another; therefore, some have questioned Guo Moruo's interpretation of the bones. In replying to Guo's remarks on the training, Zhang Shichao commented that the former's theory was flawed since crooked writing was not enough to prove the action of learning written language. He claimed that the trainees might have been actually literate at that time, and the texts might be their attempts in learning writing techniques.

Training other ritual activities

The records belonging to the royal relative at Huayuanzhuang indicate a form of dance schooling. In five inscriptions, the word "learn" comes with "shang" (商) which coincides with the Shang dynasty's name but in the context has a different meaning. The character was speculated to denote a form of dance. There are inscriptions about continuing to perform shang, and there is an oracle bone anticipating Wu Ding's inspection of the dances.

Notes

1. Only the main periods of activity are shown here. The diviner groups often overlapped with adjoining reigns.
2. Japanese scholars used the designation Ib for a group of diviners (formerly called the Royal Family Group) that Dong had originally interpreted as a period-IVb revival of Wu Ding-era practices, but are now assigned to period I groups including Shī 師/Duī 𠂤.
3. Dong also included kings Pan Geng, Xiao Xin and Xiao Yi in his Period I, but no inscriptions can be reliably assigned to pre-Wu Ding reigns.
4. Authors differ on which of these modern characters should be used in reading the oracle bone glyph.

References

1. ^ Eno (2010a).
2. ^ Eno (2010b).
3. ^ Wang & Yang (1996).
4. ^ Chang (1983).
5. Mizoguchi & Uchida (2018).
6. ^ Didier (2009).
7. Chang (1994).
8. Xu, Yahui (許雅惠 Hsu Ya-huei) (2002). Ancient Chinese Writing, Oracle Bone Inscriptions from the Ruins of Yin. English translation by Mark Caltonhill and Jeff Moser. Taipei: National Palace Museum. p. 24. ISBN 978-957-562-420-0.
9. Keightley, David N. (1978a). Sources of Shang history : the oracle-bone inscriptions of Bronze Age China. Berkeley: University of California Press. p. 13-14. ISBN 0-520-02969-0.
10. Wang, Tao (2007). "Shang ritual animals: Colour and Meaning". Bulletin of SOAS. 70 (2).
11. Keightley (1978a), p. 32, n. 18.
12. Keightley (1999), p. 241. sfnp error: no target: CITEREFKeightley1999 (help)
13. Keightley (1978a), pp. 97–98, 203.
14. Li (2002), p. 330. sfnp error: no target: CITEREFLi2002 (help)
15. Shaughnessy (1983), p. 9, n. 1.
16. Smith, Adam (2010). The Chinese Sexagenary Cycle and the Ritual Foundations of the Calendar. doi:10.7916/D8891CDX.
17. ^ Mair.
18. Childs-Johnson (2008).
19. Childs-Johnson (1995), p. 87.
20. Childs-Johnson (1995).
21. Theobald (2018).
22. ^ Schwartz (2020).
23. Schwartz (2020), p. 44.
24. Wei Cide (魏慈德) (2006), 殷墟花園莊東地甲骨卜辭研究 (in Chinese), Taipei: Taiwan guji
25. Zhao Peng (趙鵬) (2007), 殷墟甲骨文人名與斷代的初步研究 (in Chinese), Beijing: Xianzhuang shuju
26. Lin, Yun (2007), 花東子卜辭所見人物研究, 古文字與古代史 (in Chinese)
27. Gu Yu'an (古育安) (2009). 殷墟花東H3甲骨刻辭所見人物研究 (MA thesis) (in Chinese). Furen daxue.
28. Schwartz (2020), p. 46.
29. Schwartz & 29020, p. 47. sfnp error: no target: CITEREFSchwartz29020 (help)
30. Schwartz (2020), p. 51.
31. Smith (2019).
32. Li, Liu; Chen, Xingcan (2012). The Archaeology of China: From the Late Paleolithic to the Early Bronze Age. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-64310-8.
33. Bagley (2004).
34. ^ Smith (2011a).
35. Michio (2003).
36. Zhang (2002).
37. Song.

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• Shang dynasty