Observations on the Chinese idea of fate

• Main Author: Gunnar Sjöholm
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Donner Institute 1967-01-01
• Series: Scripta Instituti Donneriani Aboensis
• Subjects: Fate and fatalism; China > Religion; Archaeology; Kings and rulers > Religious aspects > Chinese religion; Philosophy, Chinese; Confucianism
• Online Access: https://journal.fi/scripta/article/view/67012

Throughout the history of Chinese religion, ideas of fate are present. The earliest forms of Chinese writing occur on thousands of tortoise shells found 65 years ago in the province of Honan. At that time inscriptions on bronze vessels from the first millennium B.C. were already known. But the new material was more difficult to interpret. The amount of material has grown since then: there are now about 100 000 inscribed shells and bones, some hundreds of whole tortoise shields with inscriptions as well as other archaeological material. One third of the signs has been deciphered. The inscriptions are mostly quite brief and contain oracle formulas. The people of the Shang-Yin dynasty (1500-1028 B.C.) knew the useful and the beautiful. What did the oracle stand for? Did it represent something necessary? An oracular technique had been developed, "which consisted in touching shells or bones on one side with a little red-hot rod and interpreting according to certain patterns the cracks that arose on the other side as the answers of the ancestral spirits to the questions of the kings. After the consultation of the oracle the questions and often the answers were inscribed beside the cracks. Often also pure memoranda concerning weather, war expeditions etc. were inscribed.