What was the importance of the Mandate of Heaven in the transition from the Shang to the Zhou period?
What will be an ideal response?
ANSWER:
The Zhou defeated the Shang around 1100 B.C.E. and built their empire on Shang cultural foundations. In order to legitimize and strengthen their claims to the Shang domain, Zhou kings devised a religious system in which the chief god was referred to as "Heaven," the king was the "Son of Heaven," and the king's rule was a product of the "Mandate of Heaven"?heaven's ultimate authority to choose the king. The Mandate of Heaven proclaimed that kings would have the backing of the gods, but only as long as they were wise and principled guardians of the people. Incompetent or otherwise unfit rulers?as the Shang had supposedly been?would have the Mandate withdrawn and would be replaced. Compared with that of the Shang, Zhou religion was more accessible to those outside the ruling elite. The result was a separation of religion from politics, which allowed for the development of important secular philosophies during the Zhou period. The most prominent of those philosophies was based on the ideas of Confucius.
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