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75-641: The religious background of the White Lotus Sect goes back to the founding of the first White Lotus Society ( 白蓮社 ) in the Donglin Temple at Mount Lu by Lushan Huiyuan (334–416). During the Northern Song period (960–1126), White Lotus Societies were founded throughout southern China , spreading Pure Land teachings and meditation methods with them. Between 9th and 14th centuries, Chinese Manichaeans increasingly involved themselves with

150-654: A secret society , the White Lotus became an instrument of quasi-national resistance and religious organisation. This fear of secret societies carried on in the law; the Great Qing Legal Code , which was in effect until 1912, contained the following section: [A]ll societies calling themselves at random White Lotus, communities of the Buddha Maitreya, or the Mingtsung religion (Manichaeans), or

225-841: A clear transmission of the Mandate from the Tang through to the Song. The scholar-official Xue Juzheng compiled the Old History of the Five Dynasties (五代史) during the 960s and 970s, after the Song dynasty had taken northern China from the last of the Five Dynasties , the Later Zhou . A major purpose of the book was to establish justification for the transference of the Mandate of Heaven through these five dynasties and thus to

300-523: A considerable time during which 31 kings ruled over an extended period of 17 generations. The rule of the Shang kings has been described as hegemonic. Royal authority flowed from the person of the king, enforced by his military. Neighbouring clans were allied through marriage and adopted into the Shang ancestral temple. A poem about the last years of the Shang dynasty reads "Heaven sends down death and disorder; famine comes repeatedly." Paleoclimatic data show

375-707: A justification for rule by divine political legitimacy. In Korea , the kingdom of Goguryeo , one of the Three Kingdoms of Korea , adopted the Chinese concept of tianxia which was based on Mandate of Heaven, however in Goguryeo it was changed to be based on divine ancestry. In the Goguryeo story, Jumong was born to Hye Moss, the son of the Emperor, and Yu Hwa, the daughter of Habaek, the god of water. When Yuhwa

450-528: A large role. The court prognosticator Xu Zhi ( 許芝 ) enumerated in a lengthy memorandum the signs he had located in divinatory and historical texts showing that Cao Pi's Wei should succeed the Han. A sequence of written statements by various officials followed, culminating in Emperor Xian of Han 's formal announcement of abdication and Cao Pi's accession. The announcement of abdication explicitly mentioned that

525-466: A legitimate ruler to be of noble birth, depending instead on how well that person can rule. Chinese dynasties such as the Han and Ming were founded by men of common origins, but they were seen as having succeeded because they had gained the Mandate of Heaven. Retaining the mandate is contingent on the just and able performance of the rulers and their heirs. Corollary to the concept of the Mandate of Heaven

600-454: A long-term period of cooling in the northern hemisphere, which reached its maximum right around the fall of the Shang. In 1059 BCE, two unusual celestial phenomena took place: in May, the densest clustering in five hundred years' time of the five planets visible to the naked eye could be seen in the constellation of Cancer, and a few seasons later Halley's Comet appeared. One or more of these

675-510: A number of years. When the crisis resolved, the royal house retained only a tiny amount of land and no real military power. This marked the beginning of the Eastern Zhou . During the decline of the royal house, although real power was wrested from their grasp, their divine legitimacy was not brought into question, and even with the king reduced to something of a figurehead, his prestige remained supreme as Heaven's eldest son. However, there

750-537: A serious concern for the government. A systematic program of pacification followed in which the populace was resettled in hundreds of stockaded villages and organized into militia. In its last stage, the Qing suppression policy combined pursuit and extermination of rebel guerrilla bands with a program of amnesty for deserters. The rebellion came to an end in 1804. A decree from the Daoguang Emperor admitted, "it

825-402: A sort of victor's justice , best characterized in the popular Chinese saying "The winner becomes king, the loser becomes outlaw" (Chinese: “ 成者爲王，敗者爲寇 ”). Due to this, it is considered that Chinese historical accounts of the fall of a dynasty and the rise of a new one must be handled with caution. Chinese traditional historical compilation methods produce accounts that tend to fit their account to

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900-477: Is a Buddhist temple approximately 20 kilometres (12 mi) from Jiujiang , in the north of Jiangxi province, China. Built in 386 CE at the foot of Mount Lu by Huiyuan , founder of the Pure Land Buddhism , it is well known for how long it has stood without collapsing. In the Tang dynasty, Jianzhen made several trips to Japan for the mission of preaching Buddhism. As a result, Huiyuan and

975-521: Is a Chinese political ideology that was used in Ancient China and Imperial China to legitimize the rule of the king or emperor of China . According to this doctrine , Heaven ( 天 , Tian ) bestows its mandate on a virtuous ruler. This ruler, the Son of Heaven , was the supreme universal monarch , who ruled Tianxia ( 天下 ; "all under heaven", the world). If a ruler was overthrown, this

1050-453: Is correct, the steady rise in the number of White Lotus rebellions in imperial histories during the Ming and Qing does not necessarily reflect the increasing strength of a unified organization. Instead, this trend reflects a growing concern by imperial bureaucrats with any form of Buddhism practiced outside of the sanctioned frameworks of the monasteries. The White Lotus sect may have been one of

1125-539: Is epigraphic evidence that, in private, the rulers of the state of Qin (which would go on to conquer everyone else and become the first dynasty of the imperial era) held that their ancestors had received Heaven's mandate. As early as the 600s BCE, multiple inscriptions attest to this idea. It is unclear whether the Qin rulers meant they believed they had celestial approval to replace the Zhou kings, whether they believed themselves

1200-471: Is not coded into any official law. Rather, rebellion is always outlawed and severely punished; but is still a positive right grounded in the Chinese moral system. Often, it is used as a justification for actions to overthrow a previous dynasty after a rebellion has been successful and a new dynastic rule has been established. Since the winner is the one who determines who has obtained the Mandate of Heaven and who has lost it, some Chinese scholars consider it to be

1275-416: The 2014 and 2019 Hong Kong protests . In imperial times , Chinese emperors invoked de by striving to be good influences and performing rituals to benefit their status and keep the Mandate of Heaven. Also, the Mandate could not be given to several emperors or rulers at once. Because of China's influence in medieval times, the concept of the Mandate of Heaven spread to other East Asian countries as

1350-527: The Green Standard Army . An account of Wang Lun's death was given to Qing authorities by a captured rebel. Wang Lun remained sitting in his headquarters wearing a purple robe and two silver bracelets while he burned to death with his dagger and double-bladed sword beside him. Wang Lun likely failed because he did not make any attempts to raise wide public support. He did not distribute captured wealth or food supplies, nor did he promise to lessen

1425-639: The Ming dynasty , whose name echoes the religious sentiment of the White Lotus. Despite their involvement in overthrowing the Yuan dynasty and therefore in the founding of Ming dynasty , the White Lotus did not cease its political activities against Chinese authorities; consequently, it remained prohibited during the Ming dynasty . Since they were prohibited from establishing a central authority, no doctrinal orthodoxy could be enforced, allowing their teachings and practices to increasingly diversify. While Maitreya remained

1500-689: The Pure Land school . Through this close interaction Manichaeism had profound influence on Chinese Maitreyan Buddhist sects within the Pure Land tradition, practicing together so closely alongside the Buddhists that the two traditions became indistinguishable. During the 12th century a Buddhist monk, Mao Ziyuan ( 茅子元 ) ( c.  1096–1166 ; Dharma name : Cizhao ( 慈照 )), developed the White Lotus School ( 白蓮宗 ) in order to connect

1575-449: The Qing dynasty . The Mandate of Heaven has been called the Zhou dynasty's most important contribution to Chinese political thought, but it coexisted and interfaced with other theories of sovereign legitimacy, including abdication to the worthy and five phases theory. The prosperous Shang dynasty saw its rule filled with multiple outstanding accomplishments. Notably, the dynasty lasted for

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1650-775: The Tang dynasty (618–907), and it had more than one thousand monks and was 120,000-square-metre (1,300,000 sq ft) in size, with 310 halls and rooms. Jianzhen , an exceptional Buddhist monk, lectured the sutras and precepts in the temple before going to Japan . In 753, in the 12th year of Tianbao period, Zhi'en ( 智恩 ), a monk in Donglin Temple, arrived in Japan with Jianzhen. Guest houses are provided free of charge for tourists for living there up to three days. Like monastic living, they are sex segregated and rooms have to be shared. After decades long donation campaign,

1725-563: The 300s, and was universally accepted by the much later Song dynasty . The last Wei emperor abdicated in turn to the Western Jin . This dynasty soon lost control of northern China to non-Han ethnic groups, and in the literature of the southern dynasties that followed there began to appear an object called the State-Transmitting Seal . This magical talisman was the physical manifestation of Heaven's mandate, tied up in

1800-694: The Five Dynasties, and thus onto the Song Dynasty when it conquered the last of those dynasties. The Mandate of Heaven was thought to emanate from the Dao, especially in the Song dynasty . The Qing dynasty was established by the Manchus who conquered the China proper . Nurhaci , who was regarded the founding father of the Qing dynasty, was originally a vassalage to the Ming dynasty and later rebelled against

1875-468: The Han house to power, the Mandate of Heaven stood on uncertain grounds. Some theorists decoupled judgements of virtue from the mandate, seeing it primarily as inherited through ancestry, while others abandoned the concept altogether in favour of five phases theories. The final Han emperor abdicated to the powerful minister Cao Pi in CE 220, and in this transfer of power the idea of Heaven's mandate played

1950-437: The Han rulers could neither deny their own history as being birthed in rebellion nor embrace the idea that they should themselves be overthrown. The right of rebellion against an unjust ruler has been a part of Chinese political philosophy ever since the Zhou dynasty, and the successful rebellion was interpreted by Chinese historians as evidence that divine approval had passed on to the successive dynasty. The Right of Rebellion

2025-819: The Heaven Earth Society which formed at the Shaolin Monastery from Ming loyalists. The Five Branches, known by some as the "Five Ancestors", were the Black, Red, White, Yellow and Green Lodges. After there was no longer any need for the triads on the battlefield, some high-level military leaders resorted to criminal activity in order to find means of survival. Donglin Temple (Jiujiang) Donglin Temple ( simplified Chinese : 东 林 寺 ; traditional Chinese : 東 林 寺 ; pinyin : Dōnglín sì ; lit. 'Eastern Forest Temple')

2100-553: The Mandate of Heaven, a ruler's performance had to be just and effective and not excessively expand and maintain power outside the nation's borders. The people retained a right to rebel. Of the political philosophers of the Warring States period , Mencius was perhaps the most radically revolutionary, deliberately eliding any distinction between overthrowing a wicked ruler and punishing a common criminal. The more conservative Xunzi , writing not much later, regarded rebellion as

2175-403: The Ming and Qing dynasties as all related to the White Lotus, there are reasons to doubt that such connections existed. B. J. Ter Haar has argued that the term "White Lotus" became a label applied by late Ming and Qing imperial bureaucrats to any number of different popular uprisings, millenarian societies or "magical" practices such as mantra recitation and divination. If this interpretation

2250-487: The Ming with the Seven Grievances . But according to the Qing rulers it was the peasant rebels led by Li Zicheng who overthrew the Ming, and so the Qing were not responsible for the destruction of the Ming dynasty. Instead, the Qing argued, they had obtained the Mandate of Heaven by defeating the many rebels and bandits that the Ming had failed to control and restoring stability to the empire. Just as stability

2325-475: The Shang. The Zhou believed that the Shang ruling house had become morally corrupt and that the Shang leaders' loss of virtue entitled their own house to take over. The overthrow of the Shang Dynasty, they said, was in accordance with the mandate given by Heaven. Even at the time of the inauguration ritual of third-generation King Kang of Zhou , the royal command read out to the new king explicitly stated

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2400-438: The Song dynasty. He argued that these dynasties met certain vital criteria to be considered as having attained the Mandate of Heaven despite never having ruled all of China. One is that they all ruled the traditional Chinese heartland. However, there were certain other areas where these dynasties all clearly fell short. The brutal behavior of Zhu Wen and his Later Liang was a source of considerable embarrassment, and thus there

2475-517: The White Lotus and ended up organizing a rebellion in the 1330s. Although the rebellion was put down, Peng survived and hid in Anhui , then reappeared back in South China where he led another unsuccessful rebellion in which he was killed. This second rebellion changed its colours from white to red and its soldiers were known as the "Red Turbans" for their red bandanas. Another revolution inspired by

2550-443: The White Lotus society took shape in 1352 around Guangzhou . A Buddhist monk and former boy-beggar, the future Ming dynasty founder Zhu Yuanzhang , joined the rebellion. His exceptional intelligence took him to the head of a rebel army; he won people to his side by forbidding his soldiers to pillage in observance of White Lotus religious beliefs. By 1355 the rebellion had spread through much of China. In 1356, Zhu Yuanzhang captured

2625-491: The White Lotus that promoted underground meditation teachings in Shandong province, not far from Beijing near the city of Linqing. The sect led an uprising that captured three small cities and laid siege to the larger city of Linqing , a strategic location on the north–south Grand Canal transportation route. After initial success, he was outnumbered and defeated by Qing troops, including local armies of Chinese soldiers known as

2700-404: The apical manifestation of an unfit ruler's ineptitude, only justified if already inevitable. Meanwhile, the authoritarian Han Feizi rejected entirely the concept of a just rebellion, going as far as denouncing such culture heroes as Tang of Shang and Wu of Zhou , rebels who founded successful empires. By the time of the Han dynasty, the right to rebellion was a politically sensitive topic, as

2775-490: The appointed heirs of the Zhou should the royal line come to an end, or whether their receipt of Heaven's mandate was construed as issuing through the Zhou king to give them legitimate authority over their own lands. When the Zhou dynasty did come to an end, Qin absorbed the remainder of their lands, as well as those of all their competitors . The Mandate of Heaven did not play a direct part in their public relations, going unmentioned in all surviving material. The Qin dynasty

2850-468: The area around the capital city of Beijing. Lin Qing, another member of the Eight Trigrams sect within the White Lotus, united several of these sects and with them build an organization that he would later lead in the Eight Trigrams uprising of 1813. Administrators also seized and destroyed sectarian scriptures used by the religious groups. One such official was Huang Yupian ( 黃育楩 ), who refuted

2925-459: The belief that Heaven had changed its mandate. In the political theory of the Zhou, legitimate authority flowed directly from Heaven to their founding dynast , King Wen . Although he did not live to see the Zhou conquest of Shang , his legitimacy passed to his heirs. Early on in the dynasty, there was some debate as to whether Heaven's mandate had fallen to the senior sons of King Wen's line, or to

3000-619: The central figure for most White Lotus sects, during the reign of the Zhengde Emperor (1506–1521) a new deity began to grow in popularity among White Lotus adherents, namely Queen Mother of the West (or the "Birthless Old Mother" 無生老母 ). Originating from the Daoist Chinese folk religion , she was identified as the transcendent Buddha who never incarnated but exists without coming into being or transforming into non-being, but

3075-435: The confidence of the multitudinous people will be Emperor... When a local lord endangers the altars of soil and grain, he should be replaced. When the sacrificial animals are sleek, the offerings are clean and the sacrifices are observed at due times, and yet floods and droughts come [by the agency of heaven], then the altars should be replaced. Thus, the Mandate of Heaven does not confer an unconditional right to rule. To retain

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3150-569: The doctrine of Donglin Temple began to spread in Japan. Donglin Temple made contributions to improve cultural exchanges and friendly visits between China and Nepal , India , Japan. The monastery reached its peak of influence during the Tang dynasty (618–907 CE), but was severely damaged during the Taiping Rebellion and was almost destroyed during the Republican period (1912–1949) of Chinese history. Donglin Temple

3225-446: The fortunes of ruling families, allowing the exiled southern aristocracy to retain their sense of cultural superiority and maintain the validity of Heaven's mandate in the face of counterfactual political reality. During the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period, there was no dominant Chinese dynasty that ruled all of China. This created a problem for the Song dynasty that followed, as they wanted to legitimize their rule by establishing

3300-451: The house of Zhou as a group, as exemplified by an exchange surviving in the classic Book of Documents . The Zhou dynasty was marked by early success and expansion until the death on campaign of King Kang's successor, King Zhao of Zhou . During the ensuing centuries, central authority waned overall, driven by socioeconomic pressures. This culminated in a succession crisis which saw the aristocracy split between two competing candidates for

3375-729: The ideas found in the scriptures with orthodox Confucian and Buddhist views in A Detailed Refutation of Heresy ( 破邪詳辯 Pōxié Xiángbiàn ), which was written in 1838. This book has since become an invaluable source in understanding the beliefs of these groups. White Lotus adherents who collaborated with the Japanese during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) were fought against by the Muslim General Ma Biao . While traditional historiography has linked many Maitreyist and millenarian uprisings during

3450-568: The important city of Nanjing (then called Jiqing ) and made it his capital, renaming it Yingtian ( 應天 ). It was here that he began to discard his heterodox beliefs and so won the help of Confucian scholars who issued pronouncements for him and performed rituals in his claim of the Mandate of Heaven , the first step toward establishing a new dynastic rule. Meanwhile, the Mongols were fighting among themselves, inhibiting their ability to suppress

3525-449: The incumbent ruler unjust and thus in need of replacement. The concept of the Mandate of Heaven also extends to the ruler's family having divine rights and was first used to support the rule of the kings of the Zhou dynasty to legitimize their overthrow of the earlier Shang dynasty . It was used throughout the history of China to legitimize the successful overthrow and installation of new emperors, including by non- Han dynasties such as

3600-513: The main ancestors of the Chinese organizations known as the Triads . The Triads were originally members and soldiers of the Tiandihui or "Heaven and Earth Society" during the period of the war between the Ming and Qing dynasties. The Triads' formation was not for criminal purposes, but to overthrow the Qing and restore the Ming to power. The White Lotus Society may have been one of five branches of

3675-427: The mandate of Heaven was not permanent, and no one argued that the virtue of the house of Han had not been in decline for some time. In the eyes of these authors, Heaven's mandate followed virtue. While the idea that Cao Wei was Heaven's legitimate successor predominated for several centuries, the alternate theory that Heaven's mandate instead fell to the rival state of Shu Han was first articulated by Xi Zuochi in

3750-401: The mountainous region that separates Sichuan from Hubei and Shaanxi in central China as tax protests. Here, the White Lotus led impoverished settlers into rebellion, promising personal salvation in return for their loyalty. Beginning as tax protests, the eventual rebellion gained growing support and sympathy from many ordinary people. The rebellion grew in number and power and eventually, into

3825-515: The only way to hold the mandate was to rule well in the eyes of Heaven. They also stated that the Shang came into power because the Xia had lost their mandate, which had then been bestowed upon the Shang, leading to the fall of the Xia and the rise of the Shang. The Xia gave precedent and legitimacy to the Zhou's own rebellion. No Western Zhou bronze inscriptions mention the Xia, or any other dynasty preceding

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3900-494: The preceding Qin in a deeply unfavourable light, emphasising tyrannical policies, the incompetence of the second emperor, and giving an account of illegitimate birth for the first emperor. In this portrayal, it is clear the Qin had lost the Mandate, if they had ever possessed it to begin with. It was an uncomfortable fact that Han founder Liu Bang rose to power from a background outside the aristocracy, and achieved victory through military accomplishments. To accommodate this, Liu Bang

3975-542: The present Silla. the earliest records are from Joseon Dynasty , which made the Mandate of Heaven an enduring state ideology. The ideology was also adopted in Vietnam, known in Vietnamese as Thiên mệnh ( Chữ Hán : 天命). A divine mandate gave the Vietnamese emperor the right to rule, based not on his lineage but on his competence to govern. The later and more centralized Vietnamese dynasties adopted Confucianism as

4050-468: The rebellion. In 1368, Zhu Yuanzhang extended his rule to Guangzhou, the same year that the Mongol ruler, Toghon Temür , fled to Karakorum . In 1368, Zhu Yuanzhang and his army entered the former capital of Beijing and in 1371 his army moved through Sichuan to the southwest. By 1387, after more than thirty years of war, Zhu Yuanzhang had liberated all of China. He took the title Hongwu Emperor and founded

4125-399: The scattered White Lotus Societies. He erected a Lotus Repentance Temple ( 蓮懺堂 ) where he preached the teachings of the White Lotus School, which became the basis of the White Lotus religion ( 白莲敎 ). This White Lotus religion was a hybrid movement of Buddhism and Manichaeism that emphasised Maitreya teachings and strict vegetarianism ; its permission for men and women to interact freely

4200-523: The school of the White Cloud, etc., together with all who carry out deviant and heretical practices, or who in secret places have prints and images, gather the people by burning incense, meeting at night and dispersing by day, thus stirring up and misleading people under the pretext of cultivating virtue, shall be sentenced. Like other secret societies, they covered up their unusual or illicit activities as "incense burning ceremonies" . The White Lotus

4275-472: The son of God. Silla is similar to Goguryeo. According to Silla's founding story, there was no king in the area where Silla was located, but the sixth degree and its sixth degree held a meeting of painters and ruled. They wanted a monarchy in which a king existed rather than the current political system, but one day they found an egg near a well and one was born out of it. It is said that the village chiefs named him Park Hyuk-geose and appointed him king to create

4350-681: The state ideology, which led to the creation of a Vietnamese tributary system in Southeast Asia that was modeled after the Chinese Sinocentric system in East Asia. In Japan, the title "Son of Heaven" was interpreted literally where the monarch was referred to as a demigod , deity , or "living god", chosen by the gods and goddesses of heaven. Eventually, the Japanese government found the concept ideologically problematic, preferring not to have divine political legitimacy that

4425-417: The tax burden. Unable to build up a support base, he was forced to quickly flee all three cities that he attacked in order to evade government troops. Though he passed through an area inhabited by almost a million peasants, his army never measured more than four thousand soldiers, many of whom had been forced into service. Beginning in 1794, two decades after Wang Lun's failed uprising, a movement also arose in

4500-500: The temple built a 48-metre (157 ft) tall statue of the buddha Amitābha surrounded by an 80-metre (260 ft)-tall flame sculpture. Unlike many tourist sites in China, visitors are not required to buy any tickets in this temple. On the contrary, tourists can have free vegetarian meals together with monks (at 6:00–6:30, 11:00–11:30, 17:00–17:30) after joining their religious nianfo exercises. The current abbot of

4575-470: The temple, Master Da'an ( 大安 ), was a professor of Beijing University of International Business and Economics . Various other places are named for the temple, including Donglin Academy and Tōrin-in . Mandate of Heaven Philosophers Works The Mandate of Heaven ( Chinese : 天命 ; pinyin : Tiānmìng ; Wade–Giles : T'ien -ming ; lit. 'Heaven's command')

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4650-478: The theory, emphasizing aspects tending to prove that the old dynasty lost the Mandate of Heaven and the new one gained it, and de-emphasizing other aspects. In the 20th and 21st centuries, Confucianist elements of student rebellions often claimed the Mandate of Heaven has been forfeited, as demonstrated by their large-scale activism, with notable instances including the 2014 Sunflower Student Movement in Taiwan and

4725-579: Was a fertile ground for fomenting rebellion. The White Lotus doctrines and religious observances, particularly their "incense burning" ceremonies which in the popular mind came to typify them, merged with the doctrines and rituals of the Maitreyan sectarians; that produced a cohering ideology among rebel groups, uniting them in common purpose and supplying discipline with which to build a broad movement, recruit armies, and establish civil governing. A Buddhist monk from Jiangxi named Peng Yingyu began to study

4800-407: Was a sign of Heaven's favor, difficulties were a sign of Heaven's displeasure. Thus, emperors in the Qing and earlier dynasties often interpreted natural disasters during their reigns as reasons to reflect on their failures to act and govern correctly. Mencius stated that: The people are of supreme importance; the altars of soil and grain come next; last comes the ruler. That is why he who gains

4875-408: Was ascribed a magical birth, and later a divine ancestry. When Wang Mang took power at the end of the western Han , he used the acceptance of the theory of Heaven's Mandate to his advantage. Auspicious unusual events were said to portend Heaven's choosing a new heir, so Wang fabricated omens indicating that Heaven had changed its mandate, and that it had chosen him. Following the restoration of

4950-532: Was considered socially shocking. During the late thirteenth century, the Mongol Yuan dynasty 's rule over China prompted small yet popular demonstrations against its rule. As they grew into widespread dissent, adherents of White Lotus took part in some of these protests, leading the Yuan government to ban the White Lotus religion as a heterodox religious sect ( 宗教异端 ), forcing its members to go underground. Now

5025-403: Was extortion by local officials that goaded the people into rebellion". Using the arrest of sectarian members as a threat, local officials and police extorted money from people. Actual participation in sect activities had no impact on an arrest; whether or not monetary demands were met, however, did. In the first decade of the nineteenth century, there were also several White Lotus sects active in

5100-435: Was interpreted as an indication that the ruler was unworthy and had lost the mandate. It was also a common belief that natural disasters such as famine and flood were divine retributions bearing signs of Heaven's displeasure with the ruler, so there would often be revolts following major disasters as the people saw these calamities as signs that the Mandate of Heaven had been withdrawn. The Mandate of Heaven does not require

5175-492: Was interpreted by the powerful Lord of Zhou as a visible sign indicating supernatural approval. Early records, such as the inscription on the Da Yu ding , employ language more descriptive than theoretical: "the great command in the sky" ( 天有大令 ). Although both the Shang and Zhou claimed divine ancestry, the Zhou were the first to use the concept of the Mandate of Heaven to explain their right to assume rule and presumed that

5250-414: Was nevertheless foretold to come down upon earth to gather all her children at the millennium into one family and guide them safely back to Heaven , the "home of the true emptiness " ( 真空家鄉 ). The White Lotus reemerged in the late 18th century in the form of an inspired Chinese movement in many different forms and sects. In 1774, the herbalist and martial artist Wang Lun founded a derivative sect of

5325-475: Was not long-lived: after the death of first emperor Qin Shihuang , widespread revolts by prisoners, peasants, unhappy soldiers, ambitious minor officials, and remnants of the recently defeated aristocracy rapidly downfell the central government. The ensuing Chu–Han contention ended with the success of Liu Bang and establishment of the Han dynasty . Surviving historical documents from the Han dynasty paint

5400-777: Was originally built as "Longquan Jingshe" ( 龙泉精舍 ) in 386 by a prominent Buddhist monk named Huiyuan , founder of the Pure Land Sect of Buddhism, under the Eastern Jin dynasty (266–420). During his time as abbot, he disseminated Pure Land Buddhism for 30 years, and attracted large numbers of practitioners. He organized the White Lotus Society ( 白莲社 ), a community gathered 123 Chinese and foreign monks and scholars. Indian Buddhist monks Tanmoti ( 昙摩提 ) and Sengjia Tipo ( 僧加提婆 ) also delivered Buddhism at that time. The temple experienced unprecedented growth during

5475-437: Was pregnant, she entrusted her body to the king of Buyeo and laid an egg, and the person who came out of the egg was Jumong. When Jumong, who was born of eggs, grew up and performed various strange tricks, the sons of King Buyeo became jealous, and Jumong eventually fled Buyeo and built a country called Goguryeo. This is a case in which Goguryeo claimed the legitimacy of expelling Buyeo under the command of heaven by setting him as

5550-516: Was pressure to exclude them from the Mandate. The following three dynasties, the Later Tang , Later Jin , and Later Han were all non-Han Chinese dynasties with rulers from the Shatuo ethnic minority. Additionally, none of them were able to defeat the powerful states to the south and unify the entire Chinese realm. However, Xue Juzheng concluded that the Mandate had indeed passed through each of

5625-458: Was the right of rebellion against an unjust ruler. The Mandate of Heaven was often invoked by philosophers and scholars in China as a way to curtail the abuse of power by the ruler, in a system that had few other checks. Chinese historians interpreted a successful revolt as evidence that Heaven had withdrawn its mandate from the ruler. Throughout Chinese history , times of poverty and natural disasters were often taken as signs that heaven considered

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