Ding: Chinese Cultural Artifact Embodying Thought of “Unity between Heaven and Man”

The relation between heaven and man has been the key issue of inquiries explored and studied by countless Chinese ancestors and scholars. During its long-lasting historical course, the Chinese nation developed the thought of “unity of heaven and man（天人合一）” as the answer to the relation between the two and never stopped to improve it. Unlike previous research, this article chose to unveil this great thought and shed some new lights on further research in this field, from a different angle of ding（鼎），an important type of cultural artifact embodying the thought from the very early times of the Chinese history. By analyzing the path of historical development of the thought, this article generalized the intrinsic connotation of the thought as threefold that man and heaven are identical in nature and analogous in composition, and they are mutually connected and responsive in terms of emotion and spirit, and consistent and corresponding in terms of morality and ethics. By enhancing the cognitive and practical levels of the above-mentioned three aspects, man can constantly improve, and finally reach the state of complete unity with heaven. Then this article introduced the historical changes of dings and analyzes the influence of the thought on their appearances and functions, claiming that it is due to the thought embodied in this type of vessels over all the historical periods that “ding” gradually developed into a kind of unique cultural symbol conveying the notions of authority, unity, solemnity and harmony in the hearts of Chinese people.