Analysis Of The Mandate Of Heaven

One interesting subject from the lecture presented on the sixteenth of September, was the Mandate of Heaven. The Mandate of Heaven is an ancient belief or theory of the Chinese that heaven sends the emperors of China with virtue and propriety. The emperor or ruler was considered to be the son of heaven and expected to be good and responsible. A ruler, however, can lose the mandate if he is unable to or does not live up to his responsibilities. Natural disasters were interpreted as signs from heaven of its opposition toward the ruler like famine or flooding. Also, if the peasants would revolt against the ruler that meant that the ruler had lost his support from heaven. There were no particular rules about who the ruler may be and it did not