Historical Studies (Chinese Edition)

No.2, 2013

 

The Debate on the Oracle Bone Inscriptions at Zhouyuan and King Wen's Mandate of Heaven

(Abstract)

 

Li Guimin

 

The nature of the oracle bones unearthed at Zhouyuan and their relationship to the political changes of the later years of the Shang dynasty remains an unsettled issue among pre-Qin historians. Many factors indicate that the oracle bone inscriptions were made at the time of King Wen of Zhou. The king built an Ancestral Temple to the Yin (Shang) in the Zhouyuan area, sacrificing to the former kings and reporting to them. These acts were one of the forms the Zhou used to demonstrate that the mandate of Heaven had been transferred to them, because "the Shang were degenerate so they were succeeded by the Zhou". To find evidence for this view, the Zhou not only "convinced the people through oneiromancy," but also made sacrifices and reported to Heaven and the ancestral kings of the Shang dynasty through divination, shamanism and other means, in order to legitimate the notion of "the transfer of the mandate of Heaven". The oracle bone inscriptions from Zhouyuan are important material evidence for King Wen’s use of divination to prove he had the mandate of Heaven to "replace the king of Yin".