Shen (Chinese religion)
Shen is the Chinese word for "god", "deity", "spirit" or . This single Chinese term expresses a range of similar, yet differing, meanings. The first meaning may refer to spirits or gods that are intimately involved in the affairs of the world. Spirits generate entities like rivers, mountains, thunder and stars. A second meaning of shen refers to the human spirit or psyche; it is the basic power or agency within humans that accounts for life, and in order to further life to its fullest potential the spirit must be grown and cultivated. A third understanding of shen describes an entity as spiritual in the sense of inspiring awe or wonder because it combines categories usually kept separate, or it cannot be comprehended through normal concepts.
A starting point for an understanding of shen is the meeting place of Heaven and Earth, which is mankind. Heaven is the origin of the spiritual aspect of humanity and provides ongoing spiritual influences, while Earth is the origin of the physical aspect of humankind. The ongoing harmonious interaction of Heaven and Earth in man is essential to maintaining life. In Chinese religious tradition, balancing yin and yang is important to provide organization of life and prevent harm to body and spirit.
Pronunciation
Shén is the Modern Standard Chinese pronunciation of 神 "god, deity; spirit, spiritual, supernatural; awareness, consciousness etc". Reconstructions of shén in Middle Chinese include dź'jěn, źiɪn, ʑin, and zyin. Reconstructions of shén in Old Chinese include *djěn, *zdjien, *djin, *Ljin, and *m-lin.Although the etymological origin of shen is uncertain, Schuessler notes a possible Sino-Tibetan etymology; compare Chepang gliŋh "spirit of humans".
The Chinese shen 神 "spirit; etc." is also in other East Asian languages. The Japanese Kanji 神 is pronounced shin or jin in On'yomi, and kami, kō, or tamashii in Kun'yomi. The Korean Hanja 神 is pronounced sin.
The Zihui dictionary notes that 神 had a special pronunciation shēn in the name Shen Shu 神荼, one of two "gods of the Eastern Sea", along with Yu Lu 鬱壘.
In the Vietnamese language, it is pronounced as thần.
Semantics
Shen's polysemous meanings developed diachronically over three millennia. The Hanyu dazidian, an authoritative historical dictionary, distinguishes one meaning for shēn and eleven meanings for shén 神 translated below:- Celestial god/spirit of stories/legends, namely, the creator of the myriad things in heaven and earth and the supreme being.
- Spirit; mind, mental faculties; consciousness. Like: concentrated attention; tire the mind; concentrate one's energy and attention.
- Expression, demeanor; consciousness, state of mind.
- Portrait, portraiture.
- Magical, supernatural, miraculous; mysterious, abstruse. Like: ability to divine the unknown, amazing foresight; highly skilled doctor; genius, masterpiece.
- Esteem, respect; valuable, precious.
- Rule, govern, administer.
- Cautious, careful, circumspect.
- Display, arrange, exhibit.
- Dialect. 1. Dignity, distinction. 2. Entrancement, ecstasy. 3. Clever, intelligent.
- Surname, family name.
The Chinese language has many compounds of shen. For instance, it is compounded with tian 天 "sky; heaven; nature; god" in tianshen 天神 "celestial spirits; heavenly gods; deities; deva", with shan 山 "mountain" in shanshen 山神 "mountain spirit", and hua 話 "speech; talk; saying; story" in shenhua 神話 "mythology; myth; fairy tale". Several shen "spirit; god" compounds use names for other supernatural beings, for example, ling 靈 "spirit; soul" in shenling 神靈 "gods; spirits, various deities", qi 祇 "earth spirit" in shenqi 神祇 "celestial and terrestrial spirits", xian 仙 "Xian, transcendent" in shenxian 神仙 "spirits and immortals; divine immortal", guai 怪 "spirit; devil; monster" in shenguai 神怪 "spirits and demons; gods and spirits", and gui 鬼 "ghost, goblin; demon, devil" in guishen 鬼神 "ghosts and spirits; supernatural beings". The earliest discovered character form for shen suggests two components. The right side of the character gives the basic meaning and pronunciation, as well as providing a graphic representation of flashing lightning from the clouds. This visual displays ancient people’s belief that lightning was the manifestation of god.1 The left side displays a modified character shi which pertains to ritual ceremonies, worship, or prayer. This concept originally referred to stone table used for offering ceremonial sacrifices to the gods.
Wing-Tsit Chan distinguishes four philosophical meanings of this guishen: "spiritual beings", "ancestors", "gods and demons", and "positive and negative spiritual forces".
The primary meaning of shen is translatable as English "spirit, spirits, Spirit, spiritual beings; celestial spirits; ancestral spirits" or "god, gods, God; deity, deities, supernatural beings", etc. Shen is sometimes loosely translated as "soul", but Chinese hun and po distinguishes hun 魂 "spiritual soul" and po 魄 "physical soul". Instead of struggling to translate shen 神, it can be transliterated as a loanword. The Oxford English Dictionary defines shen, "In Chinese philosophy: a god, person of supernatural power, or the spirit of a dead person."
In acupuncture, shen is a pure spiritual energy devoid of memory and personality traits, whereas hun is the spiritual energy associated with the personality and po the energy tied to the sustenance of the physical body. In this system, shen resides in the heart and departs first at death, hun resides in the liver and departs second, and po resides in the lungs and departs last.
Shen plays a central role in Christian translational disputes over Chinese terms for God. Among the early Chinese "god; God" names, shangdi 上帝 or di was the Shang term, tian 天 was the Zhou term, and shen was a later usage. Modern terms for "God" include shangdi, zhu 主, tianzhu 天主, and shen 神.
Graphics
The character 神 for shen exemplifies the most common class in Chinese character classification: xíngshēngzì 形聲字 "pictophonetic compounds, semantic-phonetic compounds", which combine a radical that roughly indicates meaning and a phonetic that roughly indicates pronunciation. In this case, 神 combines the "altar/worship radical" 礻or 示 and a phonetic of shēn 申 "9th Earthly Branch; extend, stretch; prolong, repeat". Compare this phonetic element differentiated with the "person radical" in shen 伸 "stretch", the "silk radical" in shen 紳 "official's sash", the "mouth radical" in shen 呻 "chant, drone", the "stone radical" in shen 砷 "arsenic", the "earth radical" in kun 坤 "soil", and the "big radical" in yan 奄 "cover".Chinese shen 申 "extend" was anciently a phonetic loan character for shen 神 "spirit". The Mawangdui Silk Texts include two copies of the Dao De Jing and the "A Text" writes shen interchangeably as 申 and 神: "If one oversees all under heaven in accord with the Way, demons have no spirit. It is not that the demons have no spirit, but that their spirits do not harm people.". The Shuowen Jiezi defines shen 申 as shen 神 and says that in the 7th lunar month when yin forces increase, bodies shenshu 申束 "bind up".
The earliest written forms of shen 神 "spirit; god" occur in Zhou dynasty bronzeware script and Qin dynasty seal script characters. Although 神 has not been identified in Shang dynasty oracle bone script records, the phonetic shen 申 has. Paleographers interpret the Oracle script of 申 as a pictograph of a "lightning bolt". This was graphically differentiated between dian 電 "lightning; electricity" with the "cloud radical" and shen 神 with the "worship radical", semantically suggesting both "lightning" and "spirits" coming down from the heavens.