TIAN. A term of basic importance in the worldview and religious life of the Chinese from the remote past to the present, tian has two principal senses: as the supreme god of the universe, and as impersonal nature. Often it is not clear in a particular instance which of these meanings is intended, and it may well be that the distinction is vague to the user.

Tian as God

The root meaning of tian is sky or the heavens, the abode of numinous beings. When used without qualifiers the term may denote the supreme deity. The earliest known use of the graph for tian occurs in ancient texts of the Zhou period (c. 1111–256 BCE), where it refers to the supreme deity of the Zhou people. In early Zhou times Tian was conceived as the all-powerful, purposeful, apparently anthropomorphic god who sent down blessings or disasters according to whether...