Читать «Древний Китай. Том 2: Период Чуньцю (VIII-V вв. до н.э.)» онлайн - страница 491

Everything started from the appearance of new ideas. The matter concerns an ideologeme about the wise ancient rulers. As it was mentioned before, the Shang people knew or reported nothing in their numerous inscriptions on bones and turtle plastrons (they are called "fortune-telling inscriptions") about their past, even the recent one. Specialists know from authentic sources only the names of predecessors of the ruling wang, to whom sacrifices were made, including human sacrifices (from the captives of barbarian tribes that surrounded Shang). These are the only names to be found in fortune-telling inscriptions. But it is worth repeating that as far as events or legends are concerned, especially the epos glorified by the descendants or the mythology preserved in their memory, no names of gods, etc., or any information of that sort can be found in Shang inscriptions. At the same time in the reign of Chou-kung, who should be considered the founder of historical thinking and the corresponding tradition in China, an ideologeme about the Three Dynasties was created. These dynasties interchanged cyclically according to the principle of an ethic determinant, i.e. presence or absence of the sacral grace te. But at that time this was only a bare scheme. It was high time to fill it with live historic material borrowed from legends of different tribes that once had joined the Chou T'ien-hsia. That was done exactly in the chapters of the second layer of Shou-king, which was most probably created by historiographers who lived at wang's court in the 7th-6th centuries ВС. They were more than others concerned-together with their master-about glorifying the Son of Heaven and his role as the real ruler over T'ien-hsia.

The essence of the content of the newly written chapters was that once there lived the great and wise Emperor Yao, who possessed the sacred te and brought harmony first to his close relatives, then his countrymen, and later on the whole world which resulted in an epoch of prosperity. Yao did not give the power to his son, whom he did not consider suitable for that but chose the worthiest among the worthy, Shun, who became famous for the ability to observe the norms of family way of life in unfavourable conditions (a weak father, a quarrelsome stepmother, a nasty stepbrother). Yao gave two of his daughters as wives to Shun in order to check him once again. Shun stood this test honorably: his family was according to the norms. Then Yao, while he was still alive, gave Shun reins of government in T'ien-hsia. Shun managed to become a worthy successor of Yao. He divided T'ien-hsia into 12 parts and appointed governors to rule them, ordering that wise and capable should be promoted. Shun improved his relationships with vassals by formulating the Code of punishment and personally controlled the activity of administrators by rewarding or punishing them according to the results of their work. After Shun, who also did not dare to pass over the power to his son, whom he did not consider worthy and wise enough for that, the power was granted to one of his best assistants, Yu. It was from him, who passed the throne over to his son at the request of the people, that a faceless dynasty Hsia obviously invented by Chou-kung long before that, began.