The Many Faces of the Kingdom of Shu | Hacker News Reader

The Many Faces of the Kingdom of Shu

archaeology.org

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Some aspects of Shu in chronological order for those who aren't familiar with:

- invented silk (and Shu brocade)

- birthplace of Taoism

- invented Baijiu (aka Kaoliang liquor, strong distilled from great millet)

- invented banknotes

- home of the Giant Pandas

What's the connection with taoism - are we talking early inner cultivation type stuff?

taoism as a religion were founded by the first Tianshi (prophet) Zhang Daoling somewhere near Chengdu during late East Han, then the doctrine spread to poor people and formed a movement called Wudoumi in Sichuan and ultimately its variant Taiping-Tao shook the foundation of the Han empire and began the "Three Kingdoms" period.

Is it? As far as I understand it is a philosophy. Like many ideologies, it got turn into a religion afterwards

Or the opposite.

You're right, don't know why you got down voted

Taoism originally developed by Laozi(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laozi) as one of many ideologies in Warring States period(~4 BC)

It became into a religion starting from Han Dynasty(~1 AC)

It is a typical HN behaviour to downvote you when they don't like your comment regardless of whether the comment is right or not even though you are not supposed to downvote for those reasons

Because they're not: the distinction between "Religious Taoism" and "Philosophical Taoism" is generally recognized as an Orientalist[0] conception i.e. an excuse to talk about the parts they liked or could think of as Western (Philosophical) and ignore the parts they didn't like or couldn't (Religious). It's viewed as emerging from a collection of oral master-student based traditions that have always included spiritual components, such astral-project/"far walking" and mystic unity with the Dao. There wasn't a distrinction between philosophy and religion like there is today, hence why a lot of Chinese philosophy relies on concepts like Tien ("heaven", though more in a process sense) even if it seems otherwise secular/philosophical.

[0] I think you still see this mix-up today due to a lot of people reading the TTC or the Zhuangzi from Gutenberg or some other free online translation, not realizing that all those translations are from the 1800s and not a reflection of modern scholarship. For example, Laozi hasn't been considered a historical figure for a while now.

It's more like a semantics issue. In Chinese there's taoism can either mean 道教 the religion or 道家 the pre-Qin school of philosophy

But isn't Zhang Daoling (AD 34-156) born too late to have brough Taoism into Shu (1046BC-316BC)? That's why I am asking about inner cultivation - like are we talking precursor practices that would become relevant to taoism arising in Shu, or do you just mean Shu fits the general area in which Taoism would later show up?

I see, the Shu is often called as either name of the state (1046BC-316BC) and/or the region of SiChuan basin

Ah, that makes sense - thank you for clarifying!

>“Destroying deities perceived as ineffective and then creating new ones to replace them is a well-documented practice in ancient China,”

If kings fear losing the "mandate of heaven", should deities fear losing the 仁命?

[I wonder —not entirely seriously— what position the stars may have been in during these circulations of deities?]

They definitely should!

Also, like but also unlike the Greeks (or generally PIEs), at least equal numbers of chthonic -> terrestrial deities? (I suspect the Shu, like some CJKV (if not the majority of EastAsia) today, instinctively understand that local deities are subject to local influence..)

Then one of the Herbert's further abstracted people/deities => prescience

Does "millennia-long" really mean "multi-millenia"?

In "China’s millenia-long history"? Yes, Chinese written history goes back about three thousand years, so it seems apt to say it is at least some/multiple millenia long.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_historiography

The accurate written King List dates back to > 3000 years but the archaeological history dates back long before that

Millennia is already plural, so the multi is redundant.

Milennia is the plural form of millennium. So multi-millennia is redundant

Since the first time I saw a exhibition on Shu and Shang artifacts, I have been convinced they were related to the Mayas.

And I dont really get why transatlantic contacts would have been absolutely impossible.

I did a lot of research but it's really a fringe theory. I found stuff with regards to dna repartition, etc. But nothing important.

And it's not a common meme around conspiracy theorists.

So I am mostly alone there :D

Does anyone see the point too?

Or am I really alone to see something of a relation between Shu and Maya outside of the dominant paradigm :)

What exactly do you mean by "related to the Mayas"? We are all related to each to a certain degree

>Or am I really alone to see something of a relation between Shu and Maya outside of the dominant paradigm :)

I don't know how to answer you because you don't really provide any evidence, nor is there anything in the general Internet about this. Care to elaborate?

Is it a similar artistic style? I had the same feeling when looking at the person-on-a-horse statue, it is very mayan-esque to my naive eyes.

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