The Superstitious Customs In The Spring And Autumn Period And Zuozhuan Writing

The superstitious customs have profound impacts on Chinese culture.The customs of Central Plains have prevailed in the three generations of the ancient times.The superstitious customs,which as social customs,still have a great influence in the Spring and Autumn period.The prosperity of the customs in the Spring and Autumn period affected the classic writing at that time,so the contents of Zuozhuan can show these aspects.And the reflex and manifestation of the superstitious customs,presented features of its prevalence.The contents of Zuozhuan,such as the fear of natural laws and stars,the persistence of the sacrifice,the appreciate of supernatural beings,the devotion of divination,all came from the superstitious customs of three generations of the ancient times.These are the direct aspects of superstitious customs in the Spring and Autumn period,but the writer has been in such a certain condition,the social consciousness would affect his writing.When he wrote other contents,he was also directed by superstitious consciousness unconsciously.The other contents of Zuozhuan,such as the superstitious customs with the writing of the five—elements theory,practice physiognomy,predictions,also show these aspects,which can be seen the indirect writing of the superstitious customs.The five—elements theory stressed that the symmetric part of nature and human beings should have mysterious connection,which have been strong associated with the superstitious customs.The theory formed in Zuozhuan,and was concerned with virtue.Then Zouyan put forward “Wu De Zhong Shi” theory,which was followed by QinShihuang who established a political system.QinShihuang first introduced “Wu De Zhi Chuan”.This was the system which first utilized the “Wu De Zhong Shi”.Besides,mutual generation and restriction of five phases inZuozhuan also have great impacts on Zouyan.There are 11 aspects of physiognomy in Zuozhuan.They are five appearance and six behaviors.Visiting appearance mainly depict by the feature of animals to portray the characters;and through it,the rulers who had taken the power used the identity of superstitious customs,to support his rule.Visiting behaviors mainly review survival and downfall of families by means of the behaviors and wearing whether according with the ritual.The predictions in the Spring and Autumn period are more complete than that in Shang and Zhou dynasties,and the results of predictions are more precise than before.Although many questions have been put up in the lager ages,the predictions in Zuozhuan also reflect the spirits of the Spring and Autumn period.Due to the prevailing superstitious customs,the writer,who combined the objective historical facts with the historical imagination perfectly,recorded the strange things and great invents,so as to meet the writing layout needs.Because predictions in Zuozhuan is numerous and wide,and the last chapter chooses the predictions caused by the word “begin” in Zuozhuan,mainly to interpret it and analyze its influence on later writing.