Why is China called the Celestial Empire? Why is China called the Celestial Country? China is called the Celestial Empire

24.01.2015

When the name “Celestial Empire” comes up in any conversation on historical or political topics, everyone immediately understands that we are talking about China. But why is this name firmly attached to the state? Not everyone knows the answer to this question. Meanwhile, the answer will be obvious if you dig a little deeper into the centuries and remember what China was like in ancient times.

Even before the advent of Confucianism, China led an isolated life, but not because its inhabitants considered themselves some kind of special chosen people of God. Everything was simpler: China was territorially separated from other states and tribes. It was as if nature itself took care of its isolation: it was washed by 4 seas from the east, and inaccessible mountains protected it from the west. In such a situation, it is difficult not to feel separated from the rest of the world.

Only from the north could representatives of other peoples come to China, but these were the semi-wild tribes of the Manchus and other peoples who have now disappeared from the face of the earth. It is not surprising that the Chinese have developed a clear idea that they are representatives of the only civilized society in the whole world. A little later, when Confucianism developed, this idea was reinforced by Confucian ideology: the Chinese emperor was now seen as the representative of Heaven on Earth.

China itself was in the center under Heaven. And Heaven is a sacred principle, without it life is impossible. The emperor did not just own some part of the territory: the whole world was subject to him, as a being with a connection with higher, heavenly powers. The main sanctuary - the Temple of Heaven, through which it was possible to maintain contact with the gods, was (by the way, still is) in Beijing.

So gradually China turned into the Celestial Empire. He was still in relative isolation, and all wars and world economic crises passed him by. China developed separately. Until the beginning of the 20th century. solemn ceremonies took place in the Temple of Heaven, when the emperor retired to conduct meditation procedures, with the help of which he communicated with the Sacred Heaven and asked for prosperity for the Chinese people.

Today, the term “Celestial Empire” is used by representatives of other states, but not by the Chinese themselves. The isolation of the country was a thing of the past, the world turned out to be incomparably wider and it turned out that it is inhabited by many more peoples than the ancestors of the modern Celestial Country imagined. But the term stuck and has not yet gone out of use. Now this is simply a tribute to an ancient tradition, and not a statement of the fact that China is the only powerful state in the world.

There are a huge number of countries in the world with centuries-old culture and history, but it is China that is called the “Celestial Empire”. Many people think that this name is associated with Tibet, but this is far from true. This concept has a deeper philosophical meaning, which has determined the worldview of the Chinese people since the birth of statehood. Why is China the “Celestial Empire”? Where did this concept come from? What does it mean? It is necessary to trace the history of this name from the period of the emergence of Chinese statehood, to plunge into the events of that time in order to understand exactly how the Celestial Empire was born.

Brief culture of China and its history

About five thousand years ago, ancient tribes living in the Yellow River basin were engaged in agriculture and pig breeding. In the Bronze Age, they turned into artisans and founded their own state - Shang, which was superior to its neighbors in military power and crafts.

It developed a cult of ancestors, often accompanied by bloody sacrifices. For the ancestors, according to beliefs, went to heaven, and in response to sacrifices they helped people.

Centuries passed, the state grew stronger and prospered. Emperor Zhuoi-Gong preserved the cult of ancestors and put forward the concept of the Messenger of Heaven, the essence of which was that emperors and their heirs are messengers of heaven, which represents the spirits of ancestors merged into a single space. And emperors are recognized as the most worthy and they can rule until they lose their heavenly virtue and become carried away by debauchery and obscene deeds. Since heaven is one, it gives power to one ruler of a single state - the Celestial Empire. Such a Universal State was presented not as a master over others, but as a spiritual center.

Definition of the concept

So, "The Celestial Empire" is a Chinese term that means the whole world, but later it came to be used to name the territory over which the emperor ruled.

During the reign of Emperor Zhuoi-Gong, Confucianism regarded him as a representative of Heaven, and the territory subject to the most worthy was called the Celestial World, the main temple of which was the Temple of Heaven.

The center of the world, according to Confucianism, was the imperial court. The Chinese emperor, as Chinese classical political thought maintained, was the ruler of the world, and foreign countries were his vassals.

Confucianism as a philosophy of the people

In the universal state, religion and philosophy were formed - Confucianism, which became the basis of the worldview and worldview of the people. Here are some of this philosophy:

The Emperor is the messenger of Heaven.
The emperor's court is the center of the universe.
The Celestial Empire is a special place for the Chinese people in the world, it is the people’s idea of the structure of the state.
The main sanctuary of the state is the Temple of Heaven.
Improvement must begin with yourself, and then demand it from others.
The people are divided into leaders and executors.
The Celestial Empire is a family, and in order to successfully manage it, you must follow certain rules of behavior.
Each person has his own purpose, a son must be a son, a father must be a father.
The main goal of the teaching is justice and harmony.

The emergence of such a doctrine is quite logical, because the state was absolutely isolated from the world, on the one hand - by the sea, on the other - by mountain ranges, and on the third hand - by nomadic tribes who periodically attacked the country.

Is the Celestial Empire Japan or China?

The cultures of these two countries have much in common, first of all - submission to Heaven, secondly - Confucianism, thirdly - a specific worldview. Therefore, the term was applied to both Japan and China. But this is not entirely correct, because Japan in Western culture is perceived as the Land of the Rising Sun.

Cult of Heaven in China

In China, even today they worship Heaven, but at the same time, the people do not think about the afterlife and, therefore, do not prepare for it; their main national tradition is to live with dignity on earth. There are no myths in Chinese religion; instead, there are tales about the justice and wisdom of emperors who were sent by Heaven to manage affairs on earth.

Modern understanding of the term in the country

Nowadays, when a Chinese says the term “Celestial Empire,” he means “the whole world,” but all other peoples mean only China by this term. What is the unique exclusivity of this people?

The Chinese are bearers of ancient knowledge and wisdom; they are distinguished by their hard work, obedience, and high organization. Many people consider China to be a separate planet, the way of life and worldview of the people is so unusual. Antiquity and modernity, wisdom and prudence are intertwined here. The Chinese managed to preserve their traditions. Even communism did not break their worldview and worship of Heaven; one of the most significant evidence is the Temple of Heaven, which amazes with its beauty and grandeur and is the national pride of the people.

China is a unique country with a rich, unique history and traditions dating back several thousand years. With the name of the country that we have long called China, not everything is so simple and unambiguous. The main nonsense is that there is officially no state called China at all. In order to understand why is China called the Celestial Empire? , it is necessary to return to its history.

China is located in central and eastern Asia. The country is the third largest in the world by area. From the east, China is washed by four seas. From the west, China is closed by inaccessible mountains. This location of the country implied the deep isolation of Chinese civilization from the rest of the world. The isolation of ancient China was also reinforced by the fact that wild nomadic peoples lived in the north at that time - the Manchus, Jurchens, and KIDAN.

From the nomads, Chinese civilization experienced a lot of raids, robberies and territorial encroachments. They destroyed the Chinese kingdoms and destroyed the emperors. Conquerors often placed their own people on the imperial throne. The new proteges themselves found themselves surrounded by Chinese traditions, gradually assimilated and eventually became the same as everyone else around them.
For a long time, China did not know other wars except wars with nomadic tribes.

For more than one and a half thousand years, China had no contacts with other powerful and developed civilizations. The civilization of China developed outside the historical processes by which European states lived. The development of China has passed through a change of eras, geographical discoveries, conquests, and decline. This is where the ancient Chinese formed the idea that Chinese civilization was the central civilization on earth. Only wild barbarians live outside the country.

It was believed that there were five cardinal directions in the world - north, south, west, east and center (Zhong). The center is located directly below the entrance to the sky.
Based on the lack of contact with other civilizations, the ancient Chinese believed that their country was in the middle of the world. For this reason, the Chinese themselves called their country the Middle State (Zhong Guo). 中国 is the name for China. The first character 中 "zhong" means middle, or center. The second character 国 “go” denotes the concept of country, or state. Name Zhong Guo not used continuously throughout China's development. The cultural and political meaning of its meaning has changed.

The middle state, Celestial China, was located directly below the entrance to heaven. Even before the birth of Confucius, the Great Heaven was especially revered and symbolized the Divine, pure, sacred principle on which faith, rituals and traditions are based. The country, located in the center of the earth at the entrance to heaven, had a direct spiritual and physical connection with heaven. In the 3rd century BC, a unified empire was created.

The sky was of enormous importance in the spiritual and cultural life of China. The Temple of Heaven has been preserved in Beijing. In exceptionally difficult political state situations, a ceremony of council of the emperor with heaven took place. The ceremony lasted two weeks. In the temple, the emperor conducted a ceremony in which more than one hundred thousand people took part - officials, military leaders, and priests.

During the ceremony, the army took part in full combat gear and with the presence of horses and war elephants. The emperor himself of the great united country was considered the son of heaven and the ruler of the Celestial Empire - an empire led by heaven. The sky was shaped like a circle. The earth is under the sky and has the shape of a square. Where the circle is projected onto the square (at the center of the square), there located in China. It was believed that the sky, which governs the empire, has only the Middle Country under its care. The barbarians surrounding China had no sky.

The name of the country is the Celestial Empire ( Tian-Xia- 天下) - emphasized the majesty of the state and the enormous size of the territory - the entire earth located under the sky. The expression TIAN meant day, sky. Xia - bottom, foot of something. Tian-Xia is the foot of the sky.
Why is China called the Celestial Empire?? Celestial Country - Chinese name. It meant the territory under the rule of the Chinese Emperor. In China, the concept of a celestial country has fallen out of use and is used throughout the world. Currently, the name Celestial Empire has been preserved in poetry. The use of such a name emphasizes an outside view of the culture and traditions of China, which have a deep and original thousand-year history.

The Celestial Empire has changed many names throughout its existence. In addition to “The Celestial Empire”, the Chinese called their state “Syhai” - a country lying between the four seas. "Zhonghua" - Middle Blooming, "Huaxia" - Blooming Xia (dynasty ruling in the 16th century BC). The name of the state was chosen based on the name of the ancient kingdom, taken as a model. The name Sunn was given in honor of one of the most cultured kingdoms. The names used were Yuan - Main, QIN - pure.

Since the 7th century AD, the Chinese have called themselves Han. The name has survived to this day. The Chinese language is called "Han Yu" 汉语.
Residents of China call themselves “Zhongozhen” - citizens of the middle state, or Hanzhen (Russian consonant with Han Chinese) - a population called by the name of the most famous ancient dynasty of China. The name of the middle state was used in China throughout the entire period of its history. The name of the middle empire was reflected in the name of the country given when Mao Zedong came to power in 1949.

The literal translation of the name sounded like “middle flourishing people's republic.”
But the name China was never used by the Chinese themselves. The names of China among other nations were formed for various historical reasons, often associated with literary errors, typos, and difficulties in understanding the Chinese language. For example, the name of the capital of China - Beijing among the Chinese themselves - sounds like Beijing - the northern capital.

The name China came to the Russian language after transforming its sound through the transmission of the word from various nationalities. In different languages, the word China sounded like Khitai, Hetai. In the 10th century, in the north of China there was a state of Liao, founded by the Chinese tribe, they were also called Khitans. Other nations, encountering this tribe, began to call the land where the Kidans lived in the same way. The tribes living in southern China called it "Hina".

The path of this name until it came into the Russian language goes back several hundred years. The Mongols began using the word "China" in the early 13th century. By this time, the Liao state no longer existed.
In Europe, the name China, derived from the name of the Qing dynasty, stuck. After Europeans began to explore China in the mid-19th century, this name was firmly established.
The name China in Russia was first used by Afanasy Nikitin in “Walking across the Three Seas” in 1470. Moreover, the name of the country China was derived from the name of China’s most massive export product – porcelain. The name porcelain is written in Latin letters as China.

The middle state (Zhong Guo) suggests that the Chinese still consider themselves the center of the earth and are very proud of it. They feel this fact of pride in their country for a reason. China owns the most significant inventions - paper, book printing, compass, gunpowder. Since ancient times, deep knowledge has been accumulated in medicine, mathematics, astronomy and much more. The beginnings of the civilizations of Korea and Japan are copied from China. Currently, the growth of China's power is observed in all sectors of the economy. Chinese products enter and dominate many global markets. And China has very little to go to reach the status of the middle state in the world.

天下, pal. : stretch) is a Chinese term that was used to designate the entire world, and later the territory over which the power of the Chinese emperor extended.

According to such ideas, the center of the world is the court of the Chinese emperor, who is successively surrounded by concentric circles: high officials, low officials, ordinary citizens and, finally, vassal kingdoms and “barbarians.” Classical Chinese political thought held that the Chinese emperor was the ruler of the entire world, and all known foreign kingdoms were merely his vassals. In classical Chinese philosophy, the term “Celestial Empire” is used as a synonym for civilization and order in the Chinese sense, and denotes the place of the Chinese people in the world.

Similar ideas of a local monarch as the ruler of "all that is under heaven" existed in Japan, and also for some periods of history in Korea and Vietnam, as the proximity of strong Chinese states allowed episodical control of these countries, asserting at least the symbolic supremacy of the Chinese emperors .

Currently, this term is used in China to mean “the whole world,” but in Russia it refers specifically to China.

Development of the term

The term first appears during the Shang Dynasty, but only takes on a complete form during the Zhou Dynasty. In documents of this time, the expressions “Four Quarters” and “Ten Thousand Kingdoms” begin to appear, denoting both the territory controlled by the dynasty and the lands of non-Chinese “barbarians”.

In the subsequent periods of Chunqiu (“spring and autumn”) and Zhanguo (“

The famous Chinese economic miracle became one of the top news stories of the late 20th century. The event acquired sensational proportions also because the Chinese, the authors and performers of this phenomenon, are the largest nation. It makes up one fifth of the inhabitants of the entire planet.

The rapid economic and demographic growth of the People's Republic of China still surprises the whole world and makes us increasingly interested in this mysterious country. Its unique culture has very deep roots and occupies a very special place even among East Asian countries.

Where did the name “Celestial Empire” come from?

Exclusive right to heaven

Experts believe that the prerequisite for this is the country’s somewhat isolated geographical location: on the one hand, China is separated from the whole world by mountain ranges, and on the other, by the Yellow, East China and South China Seas. For a long time, the inhabitants of this territory did not feel significant influence from outside. Perhaps only in the form of raids by nomads from the north.

It is not surprising that the ancient Chinese once considered themselves the center, the “navel” of the Earth, the only territory that is under the sky. They imagined the sky in the form of a round disk located exclusively above their place of residence. According to their beliefs, other people, strangers and barbarians, were deprived of this blessed miracle. Therefore, they called their lands the Celestial Country.

The name "Celestial Empire" in Chinese sounds like "TianXia". The word consists of two hieroglyphs - “Tian” (translated as “sky”, “day”, “light”) and “Xia” (translated as “bottom”, “foot”).

The very idea of the cult of heaven was born during the Bronze Age and belongs to the most ancient people of China - the Han. The state founded by the Han was called “Shang” and was quite developed.

It revered ancestors and believed that the most worthy of them settled in heaven after death. From there they supervise life on earth and help their descendants. The Zhou tribe, which conquered these lands later, preserved the basic tradition of heaven worship, making only some adjustments.

Confucianism and the "Mandate of Heaven"

The very popular ancient Chinese philosophy of Confucianism, which is now very popular, relied on the same postulate of the chosenness and guiding role of heaven. The ruler was endowed with exclusive rights thanks to the so-called “mandate of heaven.”

The mandate belonged to the imperial family by right of inheritance and was supported by the ideas of virtue and justice. The ruler had to be guided by them in his decisions.

It is noteworthy that, according to this teaching, the ruling dynasty could lose power precisely because of the loss of virtue. For example, literary works of that period strongly emphasize the positive features of the clans that seized power, portraying them as heroes. Representatives of the overthrown dynasties were portrayed as individuals mired in immorality.

According to this idea of celestial supervision, state building was organized in concentric circles, as on the disk of the sky. The center of the world and the entrance to heaven was located directly above the emperor's palace. Next were the circles of close nobles, then lower officials, then commoners.

The farthest from the center were all the other countries known to the ancient Chinese, the lands of strangers and savages. They were considered vassals of the ruler of the Celestial Empire.

Temple of Heaven in Beijing

The veneration of the sky as the highest abstract governing force carried over into the new era. Even the Temple of Heaven was built by the Ming Dynasty in the early 15th century. It is located on the territory of modern Beijing. The temple has a round shape, the tiles on its roof are covered with blue glaze, matching the color of the sky.

Architectural forms and their arrangement are full of symbolism: the number of columns, pillars and tiers correspond to the seasons, months, and the number of hours in a day. At the initiative of UNESCO, this temple is included in the list of World Heritage Sites.

Why is China often called China in the modern world?

Today, almost the entire Western world uses the name China to refer to this country. European languages inherited this toponym from Latin.

There are several versions of its origin:

China was called Cina (in English - China, in Greek - Sinai) after the name of the ruling Qin dynasty (221-206 BC). The period of her dominance saw the flourishing of China's trade with ancient states. Presumably, Chinese merchants, since the times of the Great Silk Road, called themselves “Qin people.” In the records of that time they were recorded as representatives of Cina.

According to another theory, the name comes from what existed in this territory in 481-221 BC. e. kingdom of Jing.
There is also an opinion that in the 16th century AD this name was brought by the Russian traveler Afanasy Nikitin, who discovered porcelain of the highest quality in China. Porcelain also had the name China.

What other names does China have?

China is called the Celestial Country by poets and writers. Europeans and Americans call China, Slavic peoples call it China. How many other names does this state have and what do the Chinese call themselves?

The Russian name “China” comes from the name of the nomadic tribes “Khitan”. They inhabited the northern part of China. It was these that the conquerors of Siberia and the Far East were the first to encounter in the 17th and 18th centuries.

Such an unofficial name as Huaxia is also very rare. It is also depicted in two hieroglyphs. Hua means “lush”, “flourishing”, and “Xia” in this context is deciphered as the name of the ancient Chinese ruling dynasty, Xia.

By analogy with the “Celestial Empire,” the name “Zhong Guo” was born. It means "Midland". All the territories that did not have the highest patronage of heaven were located around Tian Xia. Accordingly, the favor of heaven concerned only the central, middle lands.

The modern official name of the state combines several historical options and sounds like this: the People's Republic of China (PRC), in English - People's Republic of China (PRC). The name "China" is used in everyday life, read as "zhong guo" , which means “middle state”.