Cosmology and the transformation of political culture in early China

This dissertation investigates how cosmology was constructed in the historical transition between two political ages--from the hegemonic states of the Bronze Age to the unified empire of the Iron Age--that occurred in the last four centuries B.C. The first chapter challenges the traditional view of cosmology as a homogeneous entity distinct from society. It calls for an historical anthropology that examines cosmology in light of ideology and power, in order to demystify its 'essence' and unveil the political contest it embodies.;Chapters two and three analyze the changing link between cosmology and power. Chapter two demonstrates that the ruling clan of the Shang state (c.1,700-1,100 B,C.) conceived of the universe in terms of four quarters (Sifang) surrounding a center, the center being the king's body and his ancestral line. This centrality was the key to the political domination and divine authority of the kings. Yet when this domination gave way to wars among many states during the fifth to third centuries B.C., as chapter three shows, Wuxing cosmology emerged to replace the notion of an eternal center with dynamic interactions of five cosmic phases and to replace the royal clan's monopolized link to the divine world with direct correlations between the human world and the cosmos.;Chapters four and five investigate the mutual construction of cosmology and empire. Chapter four reveals that during the formation of the Qin and Han empires, the political contest over imperial sovereignty was manifested in the ideological competition between the conquest cycle of Wuxing in a mechanical cosmology and a generation cycle in a moralized cosmology. Chapter five demonstrates that the political struggles between rival factions were carried out through the emperor, who was thus configured as the pivot of power interactions. The thesis concludes that cosmology and political power were produced through one dynamic political process. Sifang and Wuxing cosmologies functioned to define power relations and prescribe political norms. Likewise, the power contests in the Shang state and later in the Han empire forged the cosmologies, repeatedly defining and redefining their meaning and structure.