Cultural Background Fengshan Study

"FengShan" was one of the favorite royal ceremonies by emperors in every dynasty. However, the original, primitive form and shapes in early stages of "FengShan" were covered with the dense fog of legend. After researching entirely the activities of "FengShan" from Pre-Qin to Western Han Dynasty according to documents handed down for generations and materials of ancient writing and archeology, the author concludes some opinions as follows:Firstly, comparing with the meanings of "Feng" used in initial periods concluding from materials of ancient writing and the explanations of "Feng" by some records written in or after later period of the Warring States, it included mainly three essential factors, that is, boundary, altar and grave of ancestors. It was the primitive ceremony of "Feng" to report that the boundary was defined to Providence guiding by the ancestors who lived around God from building the altar. There are many archaeological relics on primitive ceremony of "Feng".Secondly, "Shan" meaned primarily a program of being to weed or to sweep playground before a ceremony. It might be in relation to the fashion on talking about the history of abdicating and giving the crown to a person of virtue in the middle and later period of the Warring States when the character of "Shan" turned up in the documents. The ceremony of reporting to the earth was called "Shan" depending on the factor of the character of "Shan" hasing the same form as "Shan" of "ShanRang" (abdicating and giving the crown to a person of virtue) and was offered the rite's meaning of giving the crown to another and accepting the mandate of heaven, which created the conditions for combination with cercmony of "Feng".Thirdly, the records on activities of "FengShan" of emperors in Pre-Qin in some documents such as "Guan Zi" can not be absolutely believed. The ceremony of "FengShan" was created by some necromancers in the areas of Yan and Qi who integrated the knowledge of Yin-Yang and the study of Huang and Lao in later period of the Warring States. It was the truth could be found out that many emperors in Pre-Qin held primitive ceremony of "Feng".Fourthly, the sentence of " Emperor offered sacrifices to gods on TianShi" in a bronze ware in Zhou Wu-wang Dynasty was a authentic record on Zhou Wu-wang crimbed the mountain of TaiShi to hold primitive ceremony of "Feng" after unifying the country. Zhou Wu-wang chose the mountain of TaiShi as the place of holding ceremony because the mountain of TaiShi was the deity of ancestor of Zhou nation's the maternal side.Fifthly, Han Wu Di's activities of "FengShan" were not "the rite of the Confucian school" affected by the Confucian school. His real motive was to pursue longevity and to become a celestial, which can be discovered by the places of "FengShan", specific programs of ceremony and the effects of necromancers in the areas of Yan and Qi, and so on. But the statement of climbing TaiShan to become a celestial might derive from a ceremony that ancient wizard communicated between Heaven and man's world by magical mountains.Sixthly, Han Wu Di's specific programs of "FengShan" can be restored basing on documents in Han Dynasty and consulting the relevant rites in Zhou Dynasty. There are twenty-three programs during the ceremony of "FengShan", which makes the first complete ceremony in history reappear.