The Deification by the Sacred King: The Order and Mentality of the Beliefs of Hierarchy Determined by Virtues

Public-private relationship is the carrier of allocation of power and sacred relationship in traditional China. It can present super-social sacred worships and natural god worships as sacred king- private god order with different characteristics, leading to a total sacred construction in which the public controls the private and the sacred king entitles the gods. The process of entitling the ancestor gods in Chinese history is actually the process of dual deification of the king with the religion establishment and the ancestor gods. On the one hand, the local natural ancestor gods which belong to the private sphere and their believers gain the orthodox qualification and become dependent on as well as included into the sacred construction. On the other hand, on the basis of maintaining its power to entitle the ancestor gods in folk society, the super-social worship, the imperial power obtains its presentation in the folk society, justifies itself as the orthodox and establishes its domination over ancestor gods’ order. In this process, the dual construction of “the sacred king’s entitling the gods” and “the belief of hierarchy determined by virtues” formed the belief of virtue determined hierarchy and rank of sacred gods, thus forming the mind set of “gods’ dependence on the divinity” with its derivative mechanisms.