Page 176 - A Dictionary of Chinese Symbols BIG Book

A-Z 169
the Beginnings’ in the Lü-shi chun-qiu (‘Spring and Autumn Annals of Lü Bu-wei’), the
first Chinese encyclopaedia. This definition ties up with one of the oldest creation myths,
in which heaven and earth are thought of as a conjugal pair engaged in never-ending
intercourse. As more and more children were born from this union, they ran out of room
so they had to lift heaven further up, thus forming a space between their parents on which
they could live. In other legends, heaven is represented as a personal god who controls
human life. ‘Luck comes from heaven’ ran an inscription which often used to be seen
over house gateways, and Chinese is full of proverbial sayings and wise saws about the
good and bad luck heaven sends us according to our deserts.

Square carpet (earth) with a round black field in the centre (heaven)

The word tian is also used in the sense of ‘fate, fortune, lot’. A mother who loses a child
says ‘Heaven’ meaning that it is heaven that has taken her child away. One of the terms
that Christian missionaries settled on in their search for an apt translation of the Christian

‘God’ was tian-zhu = Lord of Heaven.
Other deities also live in heaven, and later mythology has arranged these in various
‘ministries’ on an analogy with the Emperor and his administrative hierarchy on
earth. Some gods live on the earth where their duties lie; a few days before New
Year they pay an official visit to the ‘Emperor Above’ (shang-di) – e.g. the hearth-
god – to report on how people have been behaving throughout the year. In one of the
best-known novels, a rain-god dares to depart from a commandment given him by the
supreme god and is therefore severely punished. One can get some idea of the deep
veneration in which heaven was held in early times from a passage in the work of Qu-
yuan (4th century BC): heaven is father and mother of mankind: therefore whoever is in
tribulation and sore distressed should call on heaven, just as anyone who is sick or
sorrowful should cling to his parents.
‘What is below heaven’ (tian-xia) is a long-established term meaning (a) the Chinese
Empire, and (b) the civilised world.