The Mountain Was An Important Dwelling Place Of The Deities In The Pre-qin Period

During the pre-qin period,deities were believed to live on high mountains.After the formation and integrity of the concept of "heaven",the dwelling place of the deities changed.This thesis is mainly based on the records of deities living in the mountains handed down from ancient literature,trying to prove that the mountains were once an important residence of deities in the pre-qin dynasty,and the concept of deities living in the mountains also had a profound impact on the Chinese culture in the later generations.The idea that the mountain was the dwelling place of the deities in the pre-qin period underwent a relatively long evolution.In the Neolithic age,the ancestors lived in the mountains,and the sacrifices were mainly made to the mountain deities.Theocratic tribal leaders sacrificed in the mountains and were buried in the mountains.These tribal leaders were deified into mountain deities,evolving from tribal heroes to mountain deities.Then the idea that the mountain is the dwelling place of the deities came into being.After that,the concept of "heaven" was gradually perfected.In the shang dynasty,the writing of "heaven" appeared,and the zhou dynasty regarded "heaven" as a god.However,the concept of "paradise" in the later generations had not yet been formed.After that,the concept of "heaven" was gradually perfected.Until the warring states period,with the worship of stars,the binary opposition between "ghost" and "god" and the emergence of early religious thoughts,the dwelling place of deities changed from mountains to heaven.In this way,the historical evidence that the deities lived in the mountains should be left in the ancient books.First,the mountain is the dwelling place of "fang" deity.The sacrifice to the "fang" deity,the "fang" sacrifice,is the so-called "fang wang" ceremony.According to ancient records of the pre-qin period,the ritual of "fang wang" was to offer sacrifices to the mountains or in the mountains.At the same time,there are records of the deities of the four directions living in the mountains.It can be seen that the "fang" deity was thought to live in the mountains.Secondly,the natural deities are also said to have lived in the mountains.The ancestors believed that the mountains were places where clouds and rain came from,and that the sun and the moon lived among them.All these indicated that the mountain was an important dwelling place of the natural deities.Thirdly,the mountain was also an important dwelling place of the ancestral deities.These ancestral deities were born in the mountains.And in the legend,the struggle and alliance between these ancestral deities also took place in the mountains.Even in the records of famous mountains such as kunlun mountains,there are the "hundred deities" in these sacred mountains.Finally,the mountain was also an important residence of "di".The term "fangdi" appeared in the oracle bone inscriptions,and the system of "zhu di",which evolved from a single "di" in the shang dynasty,was also thought to have lived in the mountains.All these indicate that the mountain should also be an important residence of "di".The idea that the mountain was an important dwelling place of the deities also had many effects.First of all,the idea of "the country is dominated by the mountains and rivers" came into being.In the concept of the ancestors,the deities who lived in the mountains and rivers controlled the destiny of the country.If the mountains collapsed,the country would be destroyed.Secondly,it also affects the agricultural sacrifice.Because the deities in the mountains can produce clouds and rain to ensure the agricultural harvest,there are often records of "fang" and "she" combined in the sacrifice.Finally,for the later generations,it also influenced the burial system of "the mountain is the tomb",the fengshan sacrifice and the ecological view of protecting the forest.At the same time,such effects reflect the idea that the mountain was regarded as an important residence of deities in the pre-qin period.