Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No.12, 2020

The Evolution of the Concept of Destiny in the Spring and Autumn Period

(Abstract)

Luo Xinhui

From the late Western Zhou period on, the traditional concepts of Heaven and the Mandate of Heaven were frequently questioned, but these attacks fundamentally failed to impinge on the sublimity of Heaven. The chaos of the Spring and Autumn Period made people wonder whether the mandate was indeed held by the Zhou. Although they could see that the Zhou ruler was not worthy of it, no one was clear about where the mandate would land. Inscriptions from the Spring and Autumn Period show that a throng of vassal states declared they had received it, thereby producing a major change in the Mandate of Heaven concept. The Mandate of Heaven thus belonged simultaneously to the rulers of vassal states and to the Zhou royal house and operated under both, a very peculiar phenomenon. If one looks at the state of the Mandate of Heaven as a whole, it can be seen that the Western Zhou tradition of revering the Mandate of Heaven with the protection of human affairs was still current in the Spring and Autumn Period and that the Warring States concept of rule by virtue was a continuation of this tradition and a direct source of the ideology of subsequent centralized and unified dynasties.