I was investigating the terra cotta army, and whether or not their was any mystical belief that rendering the sculptures accurately on an individual level would result in a real guard in the afterlife... similar to the AE belief that saying it was so would make it so...

I ran across this cliff notes read on the Ancient Chinese;

“The worship of the "ancestors" at home, was the main practice of religion: They pray and honor them, because the dead can help them in this life; and they can help the dead in the afterworld.
The concept of "balanced cosmos", means that opposing forces of creation an destruction, positive and negative, always finally strike a state of balanced harmony in the world... These ideas were taking by Tao, to promote the concept of "balanced society". Humanity had to obtain the balance of both forces to live in harmonic happiness.
The Chinese had many gods, especially the ancestors of royalty. For the practical purpose of life, every Emperor was a god.
They would present gifts to the shines of the deities, with ritualistic prayers, and seek good fortune in magical charms and rites, observing the proper times as dictated by the stars for planting crops, arranged marriages, building homes."

This sounds very similar to the AE world view.
Now I'm NOT saying the two societies in any way exchanged beliefs or knowledge. he earliest traces of any silk road are circa 500 bce, which is a good 25 centuries after AE society began to blossom.

But I am pointing out similarities and would like to open a discussion on these. And where you see major differences as well as similar.

Jammer

(Note to Moderators; I felt this should be posted this under AE, if it belongs under AH please move for me.)







Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/18/2007 01:09PM by Jammer.