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TIAN. A term of basic importance in the worldview and
religious life of the Chinese from the remote past to the pres-
ent, tian has two principal senses: as the supreme god of the
universe, and as impersonal nature. Often it is not clear in
a particular instance which of these meanings is intended,
and it may well be that the distinction is vague to the user.
TIAN AS GOD. The root meaning of tian is sky or the heav-
ens, the abode of numinous beings. When used without
qualifiers the term may denote the supreme deity. The earli-
est known use of the graph for tian occurs in ancient texts
of the Zhou period (c. 1111–256 BCE), where it refers to the
supreme deity of the Zhou people. In early Zhou times Tian
was conceived as the all-powerful, purposeful, apparently an-
thropomorphic god who sent down blessings or disasters ac-
cording to whether he was pleased or displeased with human
behavior. Politically, Tian was the source of the legitimacy
of the king, conferring upon the most righteous man the
mandate of Heaven (tianming) or withdrawing this mandate
from corrupt or unworthy rulers. In this conception of divin-
ity the early Zhou rulers successfully assimilated the supreme
god of the preceding Shang dynasty (eighteenth century? to
1111 BCE), called Di, or Shangdi. This assimilation blurred
the historical and cultic distinction between the god of the
Shang and the god of the Zhou. Subsequently, the terms hao-
tian (“heaven of the vast-primal-vital-breath”), or huangtian
(“august heaven”), and shangdi (“supreme ruler”) were used
interchangeably to denote the greatest power of the universe.
As Tian and as Shangdi, this supreme power was conceived
of as the creator (zaowuzhu). In some texts, including the Yi
jing (Book of changes), tian and di (Heaven and Earth) are
at least figuratively anthropomorphized as the cosmic father
and mother, from whose sexual intercourse all beings are
produced.
Worship of Tian, as performed in the elaborate imperial
rituals, was forbidden to any but the ruler, as it was the most
impressive demonstration of his possession of the mandate
of Heaven. But it would hardly have been possible to prevent
the people from believing in and expressing their awe of
Tian. In the course of time, the notion evolved that the su-
pernatural dimension was an invisible counterpart to the
temporal world. Tian was then personified as the emperor
of that spirit world who, like the emperor in this world,
headed a heavenly bureaucracy of deities. In this role Tian
was called Yuhuang Shangdi (“supreme ruler of jadelike
augustness”). The common people invoked his aid when in
dire trouble, and there were temples in which he was the
chief deity. Many homes contained some representation of
communication with him, such as an incense brazier. Among
the people he was familiarly called Tiangong (“celestial
duke”) or Laotianye (“old celestial lord”).
The omnipresence and concern of Tian with the human
world are themes of many proverbs. In some of these, the
deity is obviously personified: “Tian’s eyes are everywhere,
they see all without anyone escaping”; “Man can be fooled,
but not Tian”; “Tian punishes the sinner”; “Blessings come
from Tian”; “Tian helps those who help themselves”; “Tian
knows the good and evil hidden in human hearts.” Other
sayings, however, are either ambiguous or definitely refer to
an impersonal power: “The cyclical revolutions of tian cause
things to be as they are”; “Tian is empty; earth is broad”; “In-
telligence is endowed by tian”; “There may not be two suns
in tian”; “It is difficult to go against the Way (dao) of tian.”
The arrival of Buddhism from India and Central Asia
at approximately the beginning of the common era intro-
duced new and complicated notions of celestial beings and
celestial realms. The Buddhist realms, for example, were di-
vided into the Realm of Desire (kama-dhatu), the Realm of
Form (rupadhatu), and the Realm of Formlessness (arupyad-
hatu). These and other Buddhist realms were called tian. In
the third and fourth centuries, as Daoism became a cohesive
religion, it too developed elaborate notions of supernal
realms and called them tian. In general, the tian of Daoism,
variously twenty-eight, thirty-two, or thirty-six in number,
were derived from Buddhism, although one novel idea held
that counterparts to tian existed in the subterranean world.
The Daoist tian are the abodes of gods and their subordi-
nates, the perfected immortals (xian), as well as of the souls
of the virtuous dead who will one day attain immortality as
perfected beings. The term tian also figures in Daoist cos-
mology, where xiantian (“pre-cosmic”) and houtian
(“cosmic,” that is, the phenomenal universe) denote stages
of evolution that are represented in the performance of litur-
gical rites.
TIAN AS IMPERSONAL NATURE. The word tian often appears
in writings of the classical period of philosophy (sixth to
third century BCE), where it is used with the connotation
“nature.” Daoist texts of the period frequently express the
idea of tian as an impersonal force that produces all natural
phenomena. In this usage were blended the ideas of the will
of a personal deity and a natural law. Thus, events, in partic-
ular, omens, commonly taken to signify the “decree” of tian,
were here interpreted simply as having occurred spontane-
ously or of themselves (tianming ji ziran). The most forceful
assertion of the impersonality of tian was made by the Ru
(Confucian) scholar Xunzi (fl. c. 298–238 BCE), who denied
that tian acted in response to human actions or pleas. In his
view, tian was simply the operation of the physical universe.
In another instance of the impersonal use of tian, the term9172 TIAN