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Oracle Bone EssayReligion in Shang Dynasty Religious practice has always been an of the essence(p) part of Chinese Culture. Even in the period of the Three Augusts and Five Kings, religious practices occurred. However, it is not until the Shang Dynasty when literally records of spiritual communication were founded. Oracle Bones were enter of communication among human and spirits. The ritual of cracking visionary bones told what ancient Chinese concerned the most the relationship between spirits and nature. The abstruse Oracle Bones not only reveal the religious aspect of the Shang Dynasty, but also relate the cultural and olitical system in ancient China. During the Shang Dynasty, Kings were granted the power to communicate with spirits. Mostly importantly, spirits informed kings about the unknowns. When Shang kings have questions regarding the future and their relationship with spirits, they assigned priests and shamans to become medium between human and spirits. When sh amans were asked to prefigure for the king, they drill hollows in shells and apply red- hot poker to these shells. They believed this ritual would attract spirits who were nearby to do kings questions asked by shamans.Shamans main task was to nterpret spirits reply through the different cracks on shells. These kinds of predictions were said to be legitimate the kings were the ultimate representative of the spirit. Most of the time, kings requested to perform oracle bones divination to mark off from spirits regarding the success of harvest, outcomes of battles, and schedule of gives to spirits. For example, the King asked Will Di order rain sufficient for harvest? (Eno 46). During earlier years of Shang Dynasty, the outcomes of harvests were more important to the hatful. Nevertheless, by the depot of theShang Dynasty, a large portion of divinations were performed to know the schedule and proper scarifications to spirits and ancestors. There were scarifications everyday for di fferent ancestors and spirits according the heads of divinations accumulated overtime. After oracle bone divinations were performed, kings would perform sacrifice to the assigned spirit at a limn time with appropriate goods. When an oracle divination indicated a negative answer from spirits, for instance defeat in battles, kings would then sacrifice to spirits hoping for spirits help to change the result.Shamans would slaughter animals and/or humans according to spirits preference. The result of appeasing spirits could lead spirits to provide extra helps for the people. On the some other hand, if the king sacrifice the perfect quality and quantity of goods to a specify spirit but the king did not get his preference kings could temporarily stop sacrificing to this spirit until the effect of previous scarifications were shown. Therefore, human scarification and spirits effectiveness created an saving between human and heaven. This economy applied more on the loyal level than the f amily level.During Shang Dynasty, family could only sacrifice to their own linage of ancestry. It was a crime to sacrifice to other linage of ancestries because only the king had this power. Family often sacrificed to hope ancestors would bless the family to have male children which bum extend the family-tree. Thus, only the kingly family had the Shang king can communicate and sacrifice to all linage of ancestries, which include Shen (natural deities), royal ancestors, and cultural heros. People in Shang Dynasty theology the greatest spirit Di (Tian). Yet Di do not receive any sacrifice ompare to other spirits.Tian, which is said to be equivalent to Di, was so powerful that other spirits could never match their power with D. Di was a significant factor of Shang peoples religious believe that was indicated in the oracle bones but Tian was not indicted in any evidences at all. On the other hand, Shang people viewed Shen as the power of nature, including power of earth, river, moun tains, rain, thunder, and the power of directions, etc. in the early stage of Shang Dynasty, oracle bones divinations were directly performed to communicate with Shen to foretell harvest esults.Shen, contradictory Di, did take sacrifice in order approve kings requests. For example, king asked, Shall we call upon Que to sacrifice a hound by fire to Cloud? (Eno 48). Thus, Shen was the second extremely respected power after D. Shang kings also sacrifice to spirits of their royal ancestors, including parents, grandparents, forebears of ruling king, relatives. These spirits were located inside the royal familys palace, and their tablets were put together with other ancestors of the same family. Kings worshiped his linage of ancestors to hope they would bring fortune to the royal amily and the countries.When the current king died, he became part of his linage. Oracle bones divinations were use to communicate with royal ancestor spirits Should we protect the kings eyes against Grandmoth er Ji? (Eno 49). Current kings Other families only sacrifice to their own linage as well. This ancestor worship ritual was established during the Shang Dynasty and is still performing in modern Chinese culture. Finally, kings also sacrificed to ancient cultural heroes, yet they were the less prominent group of spirits. Thus, faith practices in Shang Dynasty were an essential part of Chinese ultural before and in todays society.The use of oracle bones to predict future allowed reader to date the first actual evidence of Chinese religion. The written records left by Shang Dynasty created a clear picture of the cultural and politic aspects of ancient China as well. The relationship between human and spirits remains to be a significant part of Chinese peoples religious belief. I grew up practicing ancestor worship. Work Cited Eno, Robert. Deities and Ancestors in primal Oracle Inscriptions. Religions Of China In Practice. Donald S. Lopez Jr. New Jersey Princeton University press. 41 -51