河神在殷商卜辞中的地位及人格化因由

The Status of River God in Oracle Inscriptions of the Yin-Shang Dynasty and the Origin of Its Personification

随着粗放原始农业的出现,生活在黄河流域的先民与黄河建立了更强的依赖关系。随着原始农业经济的发展,人类的社会群体逐渐增大,社会关系变得复杂,社会群体部落之间的依赖性进一步增强。作为维系所有部落命脉的黄河,有着非同一般的意义,河神的地位比一般自然神灵高。在殷商卜辞中,殷人所祭祀的河神兼具自然神和祖先神的身份,河神因而又有人格化的特征。

As the appearance of rough primary agriculture, the Chinese ancestors established an even more intimate relationship with the Yellow River that they lived along. With the development of primary agriculture, the bigger the human community, the more complex the social relations, the more the social tribes depended on one another. As a link with all the tribes, the Yellow River had its significance, thus its river god possessed higher status than other natural gods. In oracle inscriptions of the Yin - Shang Dynasty, the river god that Xin people prayed had the identi- fication of the natural god as well as the ancestry one, it thus contained its personification.