The Mandate of Heaven in the Book of Songs

On one hand, the Shi jing makes it quite clear that the Mandate of Heaven is Heaven's to give as it will, and that fickle Heaven cannot be depended upon for an everlasting sanction of any particular rule. On the other hand, some of the songs imply, or state outright that Heaven's Mandate is something more than a simple 'God is with us,' and indeed that it is something in human hands. Rather than see these notions or qualities of the Mandate as opposed, one should seek to understand how they relate as branches, as two coequal ways of treating the same Mandate. Finding the common trunk will yield the greatest insight into the true nature of the Mandate as both bestowed from above, and as reciprocally maintained by Man below.

One need not look terribly hard to find passages in the Shi jing which unequivocally speak of Heaven's Mandate as something that belongs to, and is given solely by Heaven, independent of the strength of a human kingdom. Recalling the overthrow of the declining Shang by Zhou, Mao no. 235 admonishes:

The grandsons and songs of the Shang,
Shang's grandsons and sons,
Their hosts were innumerable.
But God on high gave His command,
And by Chou they were subdued.
By Chou they were subdued;
Heaven's charge is not for ever. (Waley p. 250-251)
The earthly might of the Shang is irrelevant; Shangdi need only say the word, and they are subdued, and the Mandate passed to Zhou. As Mao no. 236 succinctly states, "Heaven cannot be trusted; / Kingship is easily lost." (Waley p. 261) Mao no. 255 also agrees:

Mighty is God on high,
Ruler of His people below;
Swift and terrible is God on high,
His charge has many statutes.
Heaven gives birth to the multitudes of the people,
But it's charge cannot be counted upon.
To begin well is common;
To end well is rare indeed. (Waley p. 252)

A few lines later, the same song continues (in the voice of King Wen, speaking of the Shang), "Heaven has sent down to you an arrogant spirit," suggesting that Heaven itself is responsible for the degradation of the Shang, in a rather fatalistic manner reminiscent of God's hardening of the heart of Pharaoh or of Israel in the Old Testament.

Human responsibility seems practically absent in these passages, and indeed other songs emphasize the inscrutability of Heaven's all-encompassing control, and the impossibility of human avoidance of distress. In Mao no. 40, for example, the speaker bemoans his deep grief and many troubles, ending each stanza with his lamenting refrain: "No doubt it was Heaven's doing, / So what's the good of talking about it?" (Waley p. 305) In Mao no. 202, the speaker mourns his inability to repay his (presumably) dead parents' efforts to raise him: "Their good deeds I would requite. / It is Heaven, not I, that is bad." (Waley p. 317) Here again, ultimate responsibility is shifted away from men onto Heaven.

Other songs, however, have an intermediate message, suggesting that Heaven's actions may be in requital of earthly doings. Mao no. 165 admonishes "For the spirits are listening / Whether we are all friendly and at peace." (Waley p. 204) As the spirits may be construed as agents of Heaven, their listening, that is, their observation of human goings-on, implies an otherworldly concern with worldly affairs. Elsewhere, as in Mao no. 170, the requital of earthly conduct presumably observed by the spirits and Heaven is made explicit:

Things they have in plenty,
Only because their ways are blessed.
Things they have that are good,
Only because they are at peace with one another.
Things they have enough and to spare,
Only because their ways are lovely. (Waley p. 177)
In a word, according to this song, human conduct matters in the determination by Heaven of our fortunes. Furthermore, from yet other songs, one would think there is not the slightest bit of arbitrariness in Heaven's favor and disfavor, as in Mao no. 256:

Heaven is sending us calamities,
Is destroying the country.
You have not far to go for an example;
High Heaven does not chop and change.
By perverting your inner power,
You will reduce your people to great extremities. (Waley p. 303)
Here, Heaven's ire arises directly from the perversion of the ruler's "inner power" (de), twisted by his failure to rule well, according to "the ways of the ancients."

This line of thinking is present in other songs as well, even Mao no. 255, cited above. Not long after the reminder that "[Heaven's] charge cannot be counted upon," King Wen upbraids the corrupt Shang:

King Wen said, "Come!
Come, you Yin and Shang!
It is not that God on high did not bless you;
It is that Yin does not follow the old ways.
Even if you have no old men ripe in judgment,
At least you have your statutes and laws.
Why is it that you do not listen,
But upset Heaven's great charge?" (Waley p. 253)

King Wen's accusations here cast a whole new light on the earlier statement that the Mandate cannot be counted upon. It is not that Heaven is fickle, but that a ruler cannot presume that because he has received Heaven's Mandate, he will keep it without qualification. King Wen makes it clear that the sound counsel of experienced ministers, or failing that, even the laws based upon the ancient ways of the sages should be sufficient to guide a ruler properly; but the failure of the Shang to take this guidance to heart results in the upset of Heaven's great charge. This understanding of the Mandate is presented perhaps even more clearly in Mao no. 235 (whose cautionary admonition that "Heaven's charge is not for ever" was also cited above):

May you never shame your ancestors,
But rather tend their inward power,
That for ever you may be linked to Heaven's charge
And bring yourself many blessings.
Before Yin lost its army
It was well linked to God above.
In Yin you should see as in a mirror
That Heaven's high charge is hard to keep. (Waley p. 251)
Heaven and Shangdi are far from fickle after all. On the contrary, Heaven stays with the good ruler, apparently so long as he tends to the goodness of his de, maintaining the virtuousness thereof as inherited from his ancestors.
When this goodness fails, the Mandate is indeed lost, but such loss is not in the least arbitrary. The best example of this is Mao no. 241, in which Shangdi gazes "down upon the four quarters, / examining the ills of the people" (Waley p. 255), and, displeased with the rule of the Xia and Shang, moves the mandate to the Zhou.

God on high examined them
And hated the laxity of their rule.
So he turned his gaze to the west
And here made his dwelling-place. ...

God shifted his bright power;
To fixed customs and rules he gave a path.
Heaven set up for itself a counterpart on earth;
Its charge was firmly awarded. (Waley p. 255-256)
Of even greater interest is part of Shangdi's conversation with King Wen later in the same song, in which "God said to King Wen, / 'I am moved by your bright power.'" (Waley p. 258) Shangdi goes on to praise King Wen for being humble and remaining virtuous despite his high station and renown. "'Your greatness has not made you change former ways, / You do not try to be clever or knowing, / But follow God's precepts.'" Heaven definitely seems to be influenced by the conduct of human rulers in bestowing its Mandate. Indeed, after examining all these passages one might almost be inclined to wonder if the apparently fatalistic phrases cited earlier are not purely rhetorical.

So it might seem; yet, even in the very same song considered above, in which Heaven so reasonably revokes its charge from Shang and awards it to Zhou, there remains suggestion that these affairs are hardly independent of Heaven's action. While Shangdi may be impressed with King Wen's virtuousness, one need only look a few stanzas earlier in the song to find that
God set right measure to [King Wen's] thoughts,
Spread abroad his fair fame;
His power was very bright,
Very bright and very good. ...
Having received God's blessing
He handed it down to grandsons and sons. (Waley p. 256-257)

King Wen receives his admirably virtuous de from Heaven itself; no wonder, then, that Shangdi is moved by it.
In sum, certain of the songs make clear that the Mandate of Heaven is not arbitrarily awarded, but rather bestowed upon the virtuous ruler, and kept by his descendants while they maintain the same virtue. At the same time, however, it is also apparent that Heaven does (or at least, may) harden the heart of, or instill an arrogant spirit in a king to ruin his rule, as well as provide the blessing of virtuousness to a new recipient of the Mandate. While humans themselves are responsible for the receipt or loss of Heaven's great charge, Heaven itself seems to hold the responsibility of moving men to be worthy or unworthy of it.

The apparent contradiction of responsibility in this arrangement stems from the parallelism of sovereignty between Heaven and Earth. Heaven is sovereign - giving and moving the Mandate as it will, and furthermore raising up and casting down dynasties to receive its charge. Man is sovereign as well, inasmuch as he can make an effort to cultivate the virtuousness necessary to keep the Mandate of Heaven. While Heaven indeed may bless a King Wen with bright power, this is no reason to presume God's help and rest upon one's laurels. And while Heaven may send down an arrogant spirit to a King Zhou of Shang, this is no reason to despair of perfecting one's rule. This two-branched message is what the Shi jing means to impart to the ruler, counselor, nobleman, or scholar who memorized these songs. Strictly speaking, there may be logical contradiction between the sovereignty of Heaven and that of Man, in that the actions of men are not independent of Heaven's influence. To the ancients to whom the songs belonged, however, this interdependent influence was not contradictory but subtle; not a perplexing knot, but the heart of political wisdom.