The Elusive Mandate of Heaven: Changing Views of Tianming 天命 in the Eastern Zhou Period

Abstract

The concept of tianming 天命 (Mandate of Heaven/Heaven’s Mandate) is often viewed as a foundational principle of Chinese political culture. However, as paleographic and textual evidence marshalled in our article suggests, during the formative age of this culture—the Eastern Zhou period (eighth through third centuries BCE)—this concept underwent profound changes and lost much of its original appeal. With the de facto collapse of Zhou authority in 771 BCE, tianming became dissociated from the idea of singular and universal rule. Henceforth it could refer to a regional lord’s hegemonic power, or the right to rule one’s state, or just to an opportune moment or individual destiny. The very idea of Heaven as an activist deity that guaranteed political order was questioned by many, further eroding the appeal of tianming. However, the Western Zhou notion of tianming did not perish altogether. It remained “an ideology in reserve,” part of a broad toolkit of political ideas, to be rediscovered and redeployed by Han dynasty imperial ideologues.