Culture Of Shi In Legendary About Mountains And Seas

The age-old literature, Legendary about,Mountains and Seas, had been called as"mysterious book" over past thousands years. And it had become the magnum opusamong ancient literatures on fantasticality. In fact, it contained a lot of informationabout ancient culture and provided us many vivid pictures of life in far ancient tribes.The important concept of shi was the key to comprehend its contents and nature. Andthe reason for this point was that the Chinese pictograph "shi" had six pieces ofmeanings in ancient books: first, the posture of sitting person with his hands on knees;second, the name for ancient tribes in the east of China; third, a person sitting behindthe altar of memorial ceremony, acting as the deceased during the performance ofsacrificial rites; fourth, a Chinese cult image or idol; fifth, display; last, the corpse. Ahalf of these meanings had a close connection with person acting as the deceased insacrifice, which presented itself many times in the Legendary about Mountains andSeas and was found in other classics of Confucianism. Thus, there existed a clew of shiculture in the Legendary about Mountains and Seas, which was a guide for us tounderstand this mysterious book.This thesis has four chapters to discuss it further. The first one summarizesprevious research on the "shi" of Legendary about Mountains and Seas. Some ancientscholars annotated it as religious dissection, which meant the separation of soul frombody and the dead became celestial being; and others quoted copiously from manysources to get to the bottom of "shi" while left this Chinese character unexplained.Modern experts are apt to restitute the historical appearance of events, probe into thecultural meaning for the sake of mythos and view the "shi" as appellation of divinityand ghost. In short, both ancient and modern scholars always left out the content byignorance or got confined in explaining the single word "shi". All of them failed to comprehend comprehensively the connection between "shi" and person acting as thedeceased in sacrifice, deity and death, and it was a pity for them to say nothing of"shi"culture. Following the brief review, the thesis puts forward the concept of"shi" culturein Legendary about Mountains and Seas. As the result of worshiping divinity and ghost,the culture was composed of fete, death, apparition and each roll play in performanceof sacrificial rites including "shi", wizard, companion and guest. The mentality stateexhibited in sacrificial ceremony generated a series of cultural conception, which camedown in one continuous line to subsequent cultural themes. It is on this basis ofanalysis that the following text goes in depth.The second chapter classifies the "shi" in Legendary about Mountains and Seasand makes them fall into six categories as mentioned above, most of which wererelevant with fete. Chapter three mainly discourses upon the person acting as thedeceased in sacrifice, from which we can found it was important and prevalent for theancients to participate in fete. At the same time, the procedure of ceremony is lined out,and the peculiar role of wizard gets emphasized. The last chapter casts exposure to thecultural meaning of "shi" and the actor personating his ancestors, shows clearly thereason for emergence of "shi" deity and points out the national cultural spirit in "shi"culture and its influence on philosophy about nature-human being and on ceremonialrites and regulations of aftertime. To sum up the whole thesis, we'd like to reaffirm theexistence of "shi" culture, which runs through Legendary about Mountains and Seasand embodies the ancient spirit of submitting to the divinity while standing on ownfeet.