Mandate of Heaven

The Mandate of Heaven (Chinese天命, Pinyin Tianming ) was a traditional concept of Chinese philosophy for domination legitimacy of the Zhou Dynasty and later the Emperors of China. The sky would protect the authority of a just ruler, while he would be unhappy with a foolish ruler and would continue to give the mandate to someone else.

The mandate has no time limit, if it is well fulfilled.

History

According to the Book of History - Department documents from the Zhou Dynasty (周 书): The Big Speech (大 诰) - explained the Duke of Zhou (周公 旦, Zhou Gong Dan ), the younger brother of the recently deceased King Wu, as Regent of the kingdom and in the name of the young King Cheng (成) the people of Shang that their king had lost his seat only because he had abused his power. This meant that a legitimate rulers are not to be of high birth. At the same time this incident also served as an argument to legitimize the rule of the founder of the Han and Ming Dynasty, who were both persons of humble origin.

For Xunzi, the term was a mere metaphor for legitimacy.

During the development of China's political concepts, the mandate eventually became associated with the notion of dynastic cycle.

The concept has been in the course of acquisition of various concepts of Chinese philosophy to Japan also there from the celestial mandate ( in Japanese: Tenmei or temmei ) used to justify the legitimacy of political rule. In Nihonshoki so that the campaign of Jimmu - tennō is justified by its subjugation ultimately guarantee peace in his kingdom. With unique acquisitions and paraphrases from Confucian literature the heavenly rulers and claimants to the throne of Japan were awarded virtues in the following hagiographic historiography, which correspond to the respective historical circumstances in accordance with the principle of the heavenly mandate. In Japanese philosophy is rekuriert in the sequence over again from state theoretical perspective on this concept, such as in the 17- Article Constitution. However, it was decided not to take on the Chinese concept of the just ruler, according to which it is lawful to overthrow an unjust ruler.

Mandate of Heaven and divine

The mandate of heaven is significantly different from the European concept of divine right, which legitimized also unwise authority, rather than to overthrow it. Conversely, a successful coup was taken as evidence for the end of the mandate. This meant a riot was wrong, as long as he was not successful. The philosophical difference had little practical impact.

" Mandate of Heaven " was also the first era name of the Qing founder Nurhaci, who wanted to assert his claim to the imperial throne of the Ming asserted.

• Chinese History
• Chinese Philosophy
• Political Philosophy
• Politics and Religion
• Policy ( China)