Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- About the Cover
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Prologue: The Prehistory of Power: Souls Spirits, Deities
- Part One Kings and Emperors
- 1 Divine Kingship in Mesopotamia
- 2 Pharaohs among the Indestructibles
- 3 Kingship among the Hebrews
- 4 The Deification of Roman Emperors
- 5 The Deva-Rajas in India and Southeast Asia
- 6 The Chinese Mandate from Heaven
- 7 The Japanese Imperial Cult
- Part Two Empires before the Common Era
- 8 The Legendary Empire of the Sumerians
- 9 Legendary Empires of Preclassical Greece
- 10 Patriarchs, Exodus, and the Epic of Israel
- 11 Legendary Empires of Ancient India
- 12 The Legendary Founding of Rome
- Part Three Founders
- 13 Moses: The Israelite Lawgiver
- 14 Buddha and Legends of Previous Buddhas
- 15 The Savior Narratives
- 16 Muhammad, the Qur’an, and Islam
- 17 The Virgin Mary through the Centuries
- 18 Tonantzin and Our Lady of Guadalupe
- Part Four Empires of the Common Era
- 19 Narrative Inventions of the Holy Roman Empire
- 20 The Epic of Kings, Alexander the Great, and the Malacca Sultinate
- 21 The Franks, Charlemagne, and the Chansons de Geste
- 22 The Legendary Kingdom of King Arthur
- 23 Ethiopian Kings and the Ark of the Covenant
- 24 Narratives of the Virgin Queen
- Part Five Ideologies
- 25 Discovery: The European Narrative of Power
- 26 Epics of the Portuguese Seaborne Empire
- 27 Dekanawida and the Iroquois League
- 28 The New England Canaan of the Puritans
- 29 The Marxist Classless Society
- 30 Adolph Hitler: Narratives of Aryans and Jews
- Epilogue: A Clash of Narratives
- Bibliography
- Index
- About the Author
6 - The Chinese Mandate from Heaven
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 December 2020
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- About the Cover
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Prologue: The Prehistory of Power: Souls Spirits, Deities
- Part One Kings and Emperors
- 1 Divine Kingship in Mesopotamia
- 2 Pharaohs among the Indestructibles
- 3 Kingship among the Hebrews
- 4 The Deification of Roman Emperors
- 5 The Deva-Rajas in India and Southeast Asia
- 6 The Chinese Mandate from Heaven
- 7 The Japanese Imperial Cult
- Part Two Empires before the Common Era
- 8 The Legendary Empire of the Sumerians
- 9 Legendary Empires of Preclassical Greece
- 10 Patriarchs, Exodus, and the Epic of Israel
- 11 Legendary Empires of Ancient India
- 12 The Legendary Founding of Rome
- Part Three Founders
- 13 Moses: The Israelite Lawgiver
- 14 Buddha and Legends of Previous Buddhas
- 15 The Savior Narratives
- 16 Muhammad, the Qur’an, and Islam
- 17 The Virgin Mary through the Centuries
- 18 Tonantzin and Our Lady of Guadalupe
- Part Four Empires of the Common Era
- 19 Narrative Inventions of the Holy Roman Empire
- 20 The Epic of Kings, Alexander the Great, and the Malacca Sultinate
- 21 The Franks, Charlemagne, and the Chansons de Geste
- 22 The Legendary Kingdom of King Arthur
- 23 Ethiopian Kings and the Ark of the Covenant
- 24 Narratives of the Virgin Queen
- Part Five Ideologies
- 25 Discovery: The European Narrative of Power
- 26 Epics of the Portuguese Seaborne Empire
- 27 Dekanawida and the Iroquois League
- 28 The New England Canaan of the Puritans
- 29 The Marxist Classless Society
- 30 Adolph Hitler: Narratives of Aryans and Jews
- Epilogue: A Clash of Narratives
- Bibliography
- Index
- About the Author
Summary
At the same time as the Fertile Crescent region was shifting from nomadic to settled tribal life headed by chieftains, a similar process was occurring 3,500 miles to the east in the lower Yangtze River Valley. Around 10,000 BCE, the Paleolithic culture shifted to Neolithic, marked by the development of ceramics and the beginnings of agriculture (Hucker 1995, 25–26). By 8000 BCE, foxtail millet and bottle gourd cultivation had spread through the Yellow River Valley in Northern China; within a millennium water chestnut, common millet, mulberry, and rice cultivation had spread to the north (Christian 2004, 219).
Grain cultivation laid the foundation for a widespread village culture with its predictable population increase and the subsequent emergence of powerful cities. Distinctive round houses mark the village of Pan-p’o outside Xian. Here, a distinctive black-pottery culture emerged, reaching its peak about 2000 BCE; by the second millennium BCE, a mile square settlement at Cheng-chou had fortified its position with a surrounding pounded earth wall more than 30-feet high, a clear indication of centralized power capable of organizing a substantial workforce (Pfeiffer 1977, 220–23). During this period, chieftain leadership evolved into rule by kings.
Most of our knowledge of early Chinese history derives from writings during the later Zhou Dynasty (1045–227 BCE). But Zhou writings begin with kings who are alleged to have lived more than a millennium earlier. Inevitably, this means that “history” is a misnomer; we are moving into a boundary region of mythic history, or perhaps literary fabrication. The earliest king according to the Zhou writers was the emperor Yu (c. 2150–2106 BCE). Legends and apocryphal stories attached to him make it difficult to assess his service to ancient China and suggest that many surviving stories have been enhanced through the centuries. Yu is alleged to have been called to deal with flooding after several water-control programs had failed. He is said to have traveled through the empire for more than a decade working out plans for dredging and draining the waters. His mythical dimension is indicated in an apocryphal story that he was assisted by a yellow dragon and black turtle (Lewis 2006, 104–105, 191–92). Such legends appear to have originated up to a millennium later as part of the Zhou Dynasty's reworking of China's past.
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- Invented History, Fabricated PowerThe Narratives Shaping Civilization and Culture, pp. 65 - 78Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2020