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The former is the imperial worship; the emperor alone is competent to attend to it. The latter is the official worship of minor states. Nor are the two sets of deities wrought into a homogeneous system; we hear that the spirits, while subordinate to Shang-ti, are not his messengers.
It is not a separable spirit, not a power behind, that is worshipped, but heaven itself, the living heaven of that early thought, which has not yet come to distinguish between matter and spirit, the living heaven which is over all, knows all, orders and governs all. To this heaven other names are given, even in the oldest writings Ti, Ruler; or Shang-ti, Supreme Ruler.
The spirits are, of course, fed and furnished by men in the usual symbolical way. Nothing shows or hints that Shang-ti is merely an imaginary idealised first ancestor. Spencer's system, why, in so many places, the first ancestor is the Maker, if not the Creator of the world, Master of life and death, and possessor of divine powers, not held by any of his descendants.
The spirits are all good; there are scarcely any bad spirits in Chinese belief. Ancestors. The worship of ancestors is that which is assigned to the private individual. He does not approach Shang-ti any more than he would address the emperor on earth; his working religion is directed to his ancestors.
In China, Shang-ti is less definite than God and it does not appear that he is thought of as the creator of the world and of human souls. Even the greater Hindu deities are not really God, for those who follow the higher life can neglect and almost despise them, without, however, denying their existence.
Was Heaven, or Shang-ti or the Lord the visible heaven, the expanse above, clothed with the attribute of personality? This has been, and still is, the prevailing opinion of missionaries and scholars. Dr. Legge, however, holds that Tien is the lord of the heavens, a power above the visible firmament; and thus finds monotheism as the basis of the Chinese religious creed.
Yü Huang means 'the Jade Emperor, or 'the Pure August One, jade symbolizing purity. He is also known by the name Yü-huang Shang-ti, 'the Pure August Emperor on High.
It was not limited by anything in its teaching to the soil of India, nor to the territory of any particular set of gods. So wide indeed is its toleration, that a man may embrace it without giving up the faith in which he lived before. One can add it without incongruity to one's former beliefs and practices. The believer in Shang-ti can be a Buddhist as well as the believer in Brahma.
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