Sunday, March 30, 2014

"He hath an unclean spirit" - Providence for the First Emperor of China




Cherry Blossoms this Rainy Evening around Tokyo


Providence for the First Emperor of China

In 219 BC, the First Emperor of China, namely the king of Qin, conducted a special ritual at the summit of Mt. Tai all alone in order to glorify his great success of unifying the whole China.
Mount Tai is one of the "Five Great Mountains". It is associated with sunrise, birth, and renewal, and is often regarded the foremost of the five. Mount Tai has been a place of worship for at least 3,000 years and served as one of the most important ceremonial centers of China[4] during large portions of this period. 
Religious worship of Mount Tai has a tradition dating back 3,000 years, from the time of the Shang (c. 1600–1046 bc) to the Qing Dynasty (1644–1912). Over time, this worship evolved into an official imperial rite and Mount Tai became one of the principal places where the emperor would pay homage to heaven (on the summit) and earth (at the foot of the mountain) in the Feng (Chinese: 封; pinyin: Fēng) and Shan (Chinese: 禪; pinyin: Shàn) sacrifices respectively.  
In 219 bc, Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of China, held a ceremony on the summit and proclaimed the unity of his empire in a well-known inscription.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Tai 
However at the time this ritual was to be conducted by the First Emperor for the first time in 500 years.  It was because China had been in the so-called Period of Warring States since the Zhou dynasty (c. 1046–256 BC) lost its ruling power and hegemony to exist only as a nominal court.  It is also said that before the First Emperor 72 kings had conducted the Feng Shan (Ho Zen in Japanese) ritual on the Mt. Tai.

As records and knowledge about how preceding kings had conducted Fen Shan were lost already, the Fist Emperor consulted Confucian scholars about what to do on the holy mountain.  But those scholars could not satisfy the Emperor.  So, it is said that he performed his own version of the holy ritual, praying to the heaven and the earth.  And what exactly he did was not recorded.

Anyway, his empire of Qin collapsed soon after his death.  The Emperor died in 210 BC and the Qin dynasty fell in 206 BC through fierce battles against insurgents.

Though kings and lords in China, including  the First Emperor, did not behave like a man of virtue who followed teaching of Confucius, Mencius, Lao-tze, and other ancient philosophers, they at least showed their respect for the great spirits of the heaven and the earth.    
 
According to Chinese myths, there ware the legendary Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors in the holy era of the past history before the first known kingdom was built.

Records of the Grand Historian by Sima Zhen described the Three Sovereigns were Heavenly Sovereign (天皇), Earthly Sovereign (地皇), Tai Sovereign (泰皇). The Chinese expression of emperor, huangdi (皇帝) was created by combining the word Sovereign (皇) and the word Great King (帝) by the First Emperor of Qin.  (This kanji expression of Emperor is pronounced Koutei in Japanese.)

And, Japan adopted the kanji expression of Heavenly Sovereign (天皇) to express the title of the Japanese emperor.  Nonetheless, it is pronounced Ten-no in Japanese but not Koutei.

Anyway the supreme political power both in China and Japan is originally linked to the concept of heaven and providence.  It might be akin to the God of Hebrews.






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Mar 3:28 Verily I say unto you, All sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme:
Mar 3:29 But he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation.
Mar 3:30 Because they said, He hath an unclean spirit.