A Study On Oracle Used At Rituals

This dissertation focuses on the inscription on animal bones and tortoise shells which were used as names of ancient rituals and categorizes them according to their original meaning, in order to understand their implications and characteristics.The introduction discusses about the purpose of this research as well as the significance of rituals in Shang Dynasty, the importance of oracle materials to researches on oracle, the present researches, the range and means of categorization of this research. According to the limit of the materials and the knowledge of the writer, this research includes the 128 characters used as names of ancient rituals recorded in "the Dictionary of Oracle" , which are categorized in 8 kinds in this research according to the original meaning of each character.The 8 categories and the methods of research recommended in this dissertation has offered an convenient way of looking up all kinds of characters. Chapter 1 introduces 15 characters including "祭" .Chapter 2 introduces 10 characters about utensils used in rituals, including "鄉". Chapter 3 introduces 22 characters about sacrifice including "尞" . Chapter 4 introduces 5 characters about praying including "告" . Chapter5 introduces 8 characters about dances and songs including "龠" . Chapter6 introduces 14 loaned characters including "姬" . Chapter 7 introduces7 unknown- structured characters including " (?)" . Chapter 8 introduces 52 uncategorized characters including "競".The conclusion part of this dissertation explains the writer' s opinion on the complication and significance of rituals in Shang Dynasty, the close relationship between rituals and daily life at that time, as well as the primitive slavery society, human social development and other-characteristics. The meaning of this research does not only lie in obtaining the knowledge of these characters, but also lies in fact of having made the first step towards the final purpose of this research which is to find the cultural' messages out of these characters.