1. The term “political theology” is borrowed from Kantorowicz, Ernst H., The King's Two Bodies: A Study in Medieval Political Theology (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957)Google Scholar.

2. The “Chou-sung” 周頌 and “Ta-ya” 大雅 sections of the Shih-ching are the mainstays of our literary sources. The “Chou-sung” contains the earliest odes, probably originating sometime between the turn of the twelfth and middle of the eleventh centuries B.C.; see Ssu-nien, Fu 傅思年, “Shih-ching chiang-yi kao” 詩經講義稿, in Fu Meng-chen hsien-sheng 傅孟眞先生集 (Taipei: n.p., 1951), vol. 2, part b, 18–33 and 46–51 Google Scholar; also see Wang, C.H., “The Countenance of the Chou: Shih-ching 266–293,” Chung-kuo wen-hua yen-chiu-so hsüeh-pao 中國文化硏究所學報 7.2 (1974), 427 Google Scholar, and Wan-li, Ch׳ü 屈萬里, Shih-ching shih-i 詩經釋義 (Taipei: Hua-kang, 1974), 261 Google Scholar. However, the “Chou-sung” and the remainder of the Shih-ching underwent continual modification as they were transmitted. There was no fixed text until the Shih-ching took its final form sometime between the seventh and sixth centuries B.C. Wang, C.H., The Bell and the Drum (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974), 95–96 Google Scholar, speaks of a “formative age” of the Shih-ching that extended from the dawn of the empire through the time of Confucius. Originating in the early Western Chou, these odes certainly preserve ideas representative of their source. However, since they were not fixed in their present form until the seventh to sixth centuries B.C., I limit their application to the latter half of the Western Chou.

An equally problematic source is the Shu-ching 書經, a collection of announcements or proclamations reportedly documenting important events of the early Western Chou. I take the “Ta-kao” 大誥, “K'ang-kao” 康誥, “Chiu-kao” ׳酒誥, “Lo-kao” 洛誥, “To-shih” 多士, “Chün-shih” 君奭, “To-fang” 多方, “Shao-kao” 召誥, “Ku-ming” 顧命,and “Wen-hou chih ming” 文侯之命 chapters of the Shu-ching as Western Chou sources. Dubs, H.H., “The Archaic Royal Chou Religion,” T'oung Pao 46.5 (1958), 224 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, reduces his sources to the first seven. Creel, H.G., The Origins of Statecraft in China (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970), 447–463 Google Scholar, would add the “Tzu-ts'ai” 梓材 and “Pi-shih” 費誓 chapters. The “Tzu-ts'ai” chapter seems to be fragments in the style of a later Western Chou bronze inscription garbled through Eastern Chou moralism. Wan-li, Ch'ü, Shang-shu shih-i 尙書轉義 (Taipei: Hua-kang, 1956), 134 Google Scholar, has shown that the “Pi-shih” is a product of the Eastern Chou.

Like the early strata of the Shih-ching, these chapters originated in the early years of the Western Chou and contain an important core of early Western Chou elements. But a number of other themes also suggest a late Western Chou hand. In particular, the idealization of the king's loyal servant is a clear indication of their lateness. As I will show below, this idealization originated in the mid-Western Chou. Consequently, I have employed these chapters of the Shu-ching as representative of thought current during the latter half of the Western Chou.

3. See “Shan-hsi Fu-feng Chuang-pai i-hao Hsi-Chou ch'ing-t'ung-ch'i chiao-ts'ang fa-chüeh chien-pao” ׳陝西扶風莊白一號靑銅器窖藏發掘簡報, Wen-wu 1978.3, 14–15 Google Scholar. Lan, T'ang 唐蘭 transcribes and discusses the inscription in “Lüeh-lun Hsi-Chou Wei-shih chia-tsu chiao-ts'ang t'ung-ch'i-ch'ün ti chung-yao i-i” 略論西周微史 家族窖藏銅器群的重要意義, Wen-wu 1978.3, 19–24 Google Scholar.

4. See Lan, T'ang, “Ho-tsun ming-wen chieh-shih” 舸尊銘文解釋, Wen-wu 1976.1, 60–63 Google Scholar. Additional remarks by Ma Ch'eng-yüan 馬承源 and Chang Cheng-lang張政浪 appear in the same issue, pp. 64–66. Also see K'uan, Yang 楊寬, “Shih Ho-tsun ming-wen chien-lun Chou k׳ai-kuo nien-tai” 釋河尊銘文兼論周開國年代, Wen-wu 1983.6, 53–57 Google Scholar, and Carson, Michael, “Some Grammatical and Graphic Problems in the Ho-tsun Inscription,” Early China 5 (1979–1980), 41–44 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5. “Shao Kao” 誥, Shu-ching (chu-shu, Shih-san-ching ed.), 1.221 Google Scholar. Extensive evidence for the centrality of the king and royal residence in early China is presented in Wheatley, Paul, The Pivot of the Four Quarters (Chicago: Aldine, 1972), passimGoogle Scholar. Similar patterns of centrality occur in the ancient Near East; see Lundquist, John M., “Studies on the Temple in the Ancient Near East” (Ph.D. dissertation: University of Michigan, 1983), 84–147 Google Scholar.

6. The ancient Near Eastern tradition provides many parallels: for example, see Wilson, John A., The Culture of Ancient Egypt (Chicago: Phoenix Books, 1951), 48 Google Scholar; Frankfort, Henri, Kingship and the Gods (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948), 231–238 Google Scholar, and Ross, Frank Moore, “The Priestly Tabernacle in the Light of Recent Research,” in Temples and High Places in Biblical Times, ed., Biran, Avraham (Jerusalem: The Nelson Glueck School of Biblical Archaeology, 1981), 174 Google Scholar.

7. See Mo-jo, Kuo 郭沬若, Liang-Chou chin-wen tz'u ta-hsi k'ao-shih 兩周金文辭大系考釋 (1935; rev. second ed., Peking: K'o-hsüeh ch'u-pan she, 1957), 3.33–34 Google Scholar; hereafter, Ta-hsi.

8. The Chün-shih 君奭 chapter of the Shu-ching (1.249) emphasizes this universality.

Together, we shall complete the work of Wen Wang without falling into idleness. It shall grandly cover to the corners of the sea and to where the sun rises. There shall be none who do not follow and obey.

9. Similar conceptions are found in other so-called “primitive” societies. For the Luapula people in Africa, only the king possesses a complete recorded genealogy. The genealogies of status groups beneath him are compressed into a few generations preserved in the memories of the living. See Cunnison, Ian, “History and Genealogies in a Conquest State,” American Anthropologist 59.1 (1957), 20–31 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. This characterization of the Western Chou emphasis on the past is derived from a similar view of archaic civilizations found in Eliade, Mircea, The Sacred and the Profane, trans. Trask, Willard R. (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World Inc., 1959), 85 Google Scholar. For a similar view of ancient Egypt, Babylonia and Mesopotamia, see Covensky, Milton, The Ancient Near Eastern Tradition (New York: Harper and Row, 1966)Google Scholar.

10. Kuo Mo-jo took notice of the importance of model emulation in the bronze inscriptions, but never went beyond mentioning it; see Mo-jo, Kuo, Chin-wen ts'ung-k'ao 金文叢考 (Peking: Jen-min ch'u-pan-she, 1954), 11–14 Google Scholar. The extension of Western Chou model emulation into the philosophical thought of the Eastern Chou has received extensive treatment in Munro, Donald J., The Concept of Man in Early China, (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1969), 96–116 Google Scholar.

11. These aspirations of the Chou aristocracy are similar to themes present in Clifford Geertz's analysis of the nineteenth century Balinese state, where the court and capital are portrayed as the microscopic image of the cosmic order and the model for the political order existing within the state. Behind the ruling elite's self perception, which Geertz calls the “doctrine of the exemplary center,” lies the central political idea that “… by the mere act of providing a model, a paragon, a faultless image of civilized existence — the court shapes the world around it to at least a rough approximation of its own excellence”; Geertz, Clifford, Negara: The Theatre State in Nineteenth-Century Bali (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980), 13 Google Scholar. Also see Heine-Geldern, Robert, “Conceptions of State and Kingship in Southeast Asia,” Far Eastern Quarterly 2 (1942), 15–30 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12. The Shuo-wen defines wen as “drawn lines, design or pattern” comprised of intersecting lines: 文錯畫也; Shen, Hsü 許慎 Shuo-wen chieh-tzu 說文解字 (Taipei: Yi-wen, 1976 ed.), 429 Google Scholar. The same idea of pattern or lines occurs in the “Ku-ming” 鱸命 section of the Shu-ching where wen is used in the compound wen-pei 文貝, “striped cowries”; Shu-ching (1.278). And in the Shih-ching, “Liu yueh” 六月 (Mao 177), wen appears in a compound referring to woven patterns in battle flags. This emphasis on pattern and design is also present in another early dictionary. The Shih-ming glosses wen as a combination of variegated colors to make ornamented silk; Shih-ming 釋名 (chi-ch'eng, Ts'ung-shu ed.), 4.51 Google Scholar. Bernhard Karlgren explains wen as “drawn lines, design, ornaments or ornamented”; Grammata Serica Recensa, Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities 29 (1957), #475 a–gGoogle Scholar. Hence, the early dictionaries and later scholars provide a group of words: pattern, design, drawn lines or stripes as the most substantive or concrete definition of wen. It is interesting that Katō Jōken力藤常賢 interprets wen as a picture of braided rope used to make patterns or designs on pottery; Bu no kanji bun no kanji 武の漢字文の漢字 (Tokyo: Kakukawa shoten, 1978), 141 Google Scholar. In spite of the inherent weaknesses of pictographic interpretation, this view of the root meaning of the graph is preferable to the traditional interpretation and a recent “metaphysical” interpretation. The traditional explanation of the graph is that it depicts a full frontal view of a man with a tattoo on his chest and designated the shih 尸, the impersonator of the dead. The extended meaning of Ihe term was “deceased” and referred to the ancestors; see Ch'i-ch'ang, Wu 吳其昌, Yin-hsü shu-ch'i chieh-ku 殷墟書契解詁, Wen-che chi-k'an 文哲季刊 3–6 (1934–1937); (rpt., Taipei: Yi-wen, 1964), 226–227 Google Scholar; also see Fang-p'u, Chu 朱芳圃, Yin Chou wen-tzu shih-ts'ung 殷周文字釋叢 (Peking: Chung-hua, 1962), 66–68 Google Scholar. However, support for this theory only appears in late texts like the Li-chi 禮記 (“Wang-chih” 王 [ Shih-san-ching chu-shu ed.], 5.247), where tattooing is described as a barbarian custom. Tse-tsung, Chow, “Ancient Chinese Views on Literature, the Tao, and Their Relationship,” Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews 1.1 (1979), 5–12 Google Scholar, argues that the graph for wen pictographically represents the joining of Heaven and Earth. However, his argument fails to take into account that the pairing of Heaven and Earth as metaphysical polarities does not appear in our sources until the Eastern Chou.

13. The “Shao-kao” chapter of the Shu-ching presents another good example of model presentation. I follow the reading of Wan-li, Ch'ü, Shang-shu shih-i, 94 Google Scholar.

14. The Shih Tsai ting 師執將, dated to the reign of Kung Wang, states:

Avail yourself of the model of your wise ancestor who was brilliant and faithful

as he served the previous king; serve me the one man!

The inscription is reproduced in “Shan-hsi-sheng Fu-feng-hsien Ch'iang-chia-ts'un ch'u-t'u ti Hsi-Chou t'ung-ch'i” 陝西省扶風縣强家村出土的西周銅器, Wen-wu 1975.8, 57–62 Google Scholar.

15. The role of “apprentice ancestors” in reserving a part of history for the clan is analyzed in Feeley-Harnik, Gillian, “Divine Kingship and the Meaning of History among the Sakalava of Madagascar,” Man 13.3 (1978), 407 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16. For similar late Western Chou inscriptions see: Wang, Shih ting 師聖鼎, Ta-hsi, 3.80 Google Scholar; Shu Hsiang-fu kuei 叔向父簋, ibid., 3.132; Tan-po chung 叔向父簋, ibid., 3.118; Kuo-shu Lü chung 虢叔旅鐘, ibid., 3.127; Ching-jen X chung 井人安鐘, ibid., 3.150; chung, Liang-ch'i 梁其鐘, in Shang Chou chin-wen lu-i 商周金文錄遺, ed. Hsing-wu, Yü 于省吾 (Peking: K'o-hsüeh ch'u-pan-she, 1957), 3 Google Scholar.

17. The term wen is rarely applied to the living. When it is, it carries a sense of confirming and celebrating the order among men. For example, the inscription on the Ling kuei 令甚 (Ta-hsi, 3.3) records the queen's gift of cowries, servants or managers, and slaves to a noble, presumably as an indication that he was being awarded additional rank or official recognition of his service. A member of the queen's court carried out the bestowal of these gifts. When he received these gifts, the recipient cast a vessel extolling the queen's grace and the “elegant(?) favors,” wen-pao 文報, of the noble who transported them.

18. kuei, Po Tung 伯或簋, Ta-hsi, 3.64 Google Scholar. Also see the Shan ting 善鼎, ibid., 3.65. Both vessels are dated to the reign of Mu Wang.

19. For other inscriptions with the phrase ch'ien-wen-jen, see: X chung 鐘, Wen-wu 1972. 8, 10 Google Scholar; chung, Hsiu-sheng 臭生鐘, Ta-hsi, 1.104 Google Scholar; kuei, Chui 追簋, San-tai chi-chin wen-ts'un 三代吉金文存, ed. Chen-yü, Lo 羅振玉 (np. nd.) 9.5 Google Scholar; Hsi-Chung chung 兮仲鐘, ibid., 1.12; kuei, Hu “Shan-hsi Fu-feng fa-hsien Hsi-Chou Li-wang Hu kuei” 陝西扶風發現西周厲王簋, Wen-wu 1979.4, 89–91 Google Scholar. This vessel was commissioned by Li Wang and contains the king's own references to the former exemplars.

20. See the quotation of the Ta Yü ting inscription above, p. 5.

21. Here we can add H.G. Creel's observations on the traditional preference for Wen Wang. References to Wen Wang in the Shih-ching surpass those to Wu Wang by a margin of three to one. In the Shu-ching, the ratio is about two to one. See Creel, , Statecraft, 64–65 Google Scholar.

22. Shih-ching, “Huang i” (Mao 241), verse 4, is another example of how Wen Wang's virtue explains receipt of the Mandate.

Now, this Wen Wang, Ti measured his resolve,

Widespread was word of his virtue,

He was capable of making clear-sighted his virtue,

Capable of being clear-sighted, of distinguishing kinds,

Capable of leading, of being lord.

He became king of this great state,

He achieved accommodation and concordance.

(Ti) concorded with Wen Wang,

His virtue caused no regret.

And having received the blessings of Ti,

He handed them down to his descendents.

For other functions of the narrative of origins, see Cohen, Percy S., “Theories of Myth,” Man 4.3 (1969), 337–353 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23. For this inscription, see Hsing-wu, Yü, Shang Chou chin-wen lu-yi, 3 Google Scholar.

24. Eliade, Mircea, Cosmos and History: The Myth of the Eternal Return, trans. Trask, Willard R. (New York: Harper and Row, 1954), 35 Google Scholar.

25. The constant struggle of the Spring and Autumn period is well described in Walker, Richard L., The Multi-State System of Ancient China, (Hamden, Conn: The Shoestring Press, 1953)Google Scholar. For the changing social structure of the period, see Choyun, Hsü, Ancient China in Transition: An Analysis of Social Mobility 722–222 B.C. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1965)Google Scholar, and Blakeley, Barry, “Regional Aspects of Chinese Socio-political Development in the Spring and Autumn Period (722–464 B.C.): Clan Power in a Segmentary State” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Michigan: 1970)Google Scholar.

26. The Spring and Autumn shift from ascribed to achieved status is discussed in Cho-yun, Hsü, Ancient China in Transition, 140–174 Google Scholar.

27. Tso-chuan 左傳, Chao 32, in Legge, James, trans., The Chinese Classics, vol. 5. The Ch'un Ts'ew with the Tso Chuen (1872; rpt. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1960), 739/741 Google Scholar. In this and the following citations, the first page number will refer to the Chinese text, the second to Legge's translation. The translations are my own.

28. For example, when Wei Hsien-tzu 魏獻子 gained control of the state of Chin, he appropriated the lands of several prominent clans and divided them among his own officers. He also gave a parcel of land to his son. Asking his advisor if this act would be seen as being partial, he received the following advice.

Formerly, when Wu Wang subdued the Shang, he broadly possessed the empire. Fifteen of his brothers received states, while forty men of the royal surname also had states. All who were raised up were their kin. Now, there were no distinctions for those who were raised up; only goodness was taken into account. Nearness and distance of relations were the same … What my lord has raised up approaches that of Wen Wang's virtue. What you have attained is far reaching indeed.

See Tso-chuan, Chao 28 (Legge, 725/727). In two other places in the Tso-chuan (Hsi 24 [Legge, 189/192] and Ting 4 [Legge, 750/754]), it is the Duke of Chou, not kings Wen or Wu, who enfeoffs the first lords of the Chou states to begin the Chou empire.

29. See, for example, Analects 1/14, 4/8, and 6/17.

30. Peter Bol's excellent study of wen in Sung China reiterates many themes discussed here. See Bol, Peter, “Culture and the Way in Eleventh Centuiy China” (Ph.D. dissertation: Princeton University, 1982), especially 12–73 and 104–109 Google Scholar.

31. Analects, 9/14 states,

The Master wished to dwell among the nine Eastern barbarian tribes. Someone said, “They are unrefined. How would you deal with that?” The Master said, “If a gentleman dwelled among them, there would be no question of their being unrefined.”