Event

A light luncheon will be served. Please rsvp to lmgreene@sas.upenn.edu

The concept of the Mandate of Heaven was created by the Western Zhou when the dynasty was established, and from the beginning it was associated with kingship. The Mandate of Heaven was considered to be the supreme source of kingship, and its transmission indicated that the king now had absolute authority to reign. This was the first ancient Chinese theory expounding the transmission of kingship, and this core ideology was widely accepted. However, with the decline of kingship in the late Western Zhou period, the Mandate of Heaven also appears to have lost its significance; people even cursed and dishonored the concept of heaven, something that never happened before. As a result, the Mandate of Heaven and the concept of kingship collapsed. In later periods, such as in the Warring States, the notion of the Mandate of Heaven was rarely mentioned by philosophers. Therefore, it is reasonable to claim that The Mandate of Heaven became obsolete. In the late Western Han period and in the Eastern Han period, the concept of the Mandate of Heaven was endorsed once again, and worshipping Heaven became a national ritual. With this in mind, perhaps the extent of the Mandate of Heaven in the Spring and Autumn Period should be reconsidered.