The Religious Belief Of Pre - Qin Dynasty Reflected In

Lv’s Commentaries of History blends the hundred schools of thought into one book, it is anencyclopaedia with a large system contains rich contents include three parts. Firstly, we shouldmake sure that the main content of Lv’s Commentaries of History is not the religious belief, andit is a book full of rational spirit on the basis of blends the thought of the hundred schools.However, it keeps a lot of historical records about ancient Chinese religions in pre-Qin periodunwittingly: the first part builds a religious system, the system contains12articles, theyenumerate all worship ceremonies of the year and classify them as12chapters according to themonths. In addition, the rest of the articles of Lv’s Commentaries of History also keep lots ofinformation about ancient Chinese religions in pre-Qin period. In consideration of thecomplexity of Lv’s Commentaries of History, therefore, the paper will analyze and expound theancient Chinese religions in pre-Qin period mentioned in Lv’s Commentaries of History on thebasis of classifying these information,The paper will expound by three parts: the first part is about the religions and worshipceremonies mentioned in the12articles, they were guided by two standards: the harmonybetween the earth and sky and Five Virtue’s cycle. The religions and worship ceremoniesmentioned in the12articles reflect the national religious belief in ancient China, so the secondpart will integrate and analyze them from four chapters detailedly: the worship for God, AncestryWorship, Natural Worship and the Worship for the Four Spiritual Creatures, and the AncientMinority’s Worship. The first chapter deals mainly with the worship for God, also the supremegod. The supreme god was called as “God” in Shang dynasty and was called as “Heaven” inZhou dynasty, the two names were combined together in Lv’s Commentaries of History. Thesecond chapter is about the ancestry worship reflected in Lv’s Commentaries of History. Itcontains the Worshipping to the Male Ancestor, to the Closing Ancestors of Clans and Familiesand to the Female Ancestors. The Male Ancestor consist mainly of Three Sovereigns, FiveEmperors and Five Heroes Affiliated to them. The Worshipping to the Closing Ancestors ofClans and Families pay more attention to the genetic connection than the former worship, andthe main form is the family’s temple sacrifice activity. The third chapter contains the NatureWorship and the Four Spiritual Creatures’ Worship. The objects of the Nature Worship containcelestial body, weather, soil and grain, animals and plants. Because the figures of the FourSpiritual Creatures originated in animals and the content is rare, so they are juxtaposed to theanimals. The forth chapter is the Ancient Minority’s Worship, it contains Diqiang’s Fire Worshipand Jingyue’s Ghost Worship. The last part will list the contradictions reflecting the religions’ feature and change of pre-Qin period to summarize the whole paper.