Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No. 1, 2024

The Evolution of Religion and Social Power in Prehistoric China

(Abstract)

Li Yujie

Social power in prehistoric China originated from primitive religion’s public service functions, including sacrifice, divination, astronomy and agriculture. These functions, combining as they did sacrifice, knowledge and the economy, included both ignorant and rational elements and gave birth to the germ of social power symbolized by the “authority” of the shamans. Gradually, the belief in nature gods transformed into ancestor worship. This led to the expansion of secular power, with elements of explicit military and political power gradually emerging in the development of public power. Power eventually took the form of a trinity of divine power, clan power and military power, with a composite social structure based on clan kinship that combined cohesion and exclusivity with openness and inclusiveness, accompanied by institutional models and values which enabled prehistoric China to enter the early state stage without going through the stage of obvious wealth differentiation, thus forming a “precocious” state based on the system of patriarchal law, with secular power at its heart and with ancestor worship as its special feature.