Editing Oracle bone (section)

=== Changes in the nature of divination ===
The targets and purposes of divination changed over time. During the reign of [[Wu Ding]], diviners were likely to ask the powers or ancestors about things like the weather, success in battle, or building settlements. Offerings were promised if they would help with earthly affairs.

''Crack-making on jiazi (day 1) Zheng divined "In praying for harvest to the sun, (we) will cleave ten dappled cows, and pledge one hundred dappled cows."''<br>(''Heji'' 10116; Y530.2)

Keightley explains that this divination is unique in being addressed to the sun, but typical in that 10 cattle are being offered, with 100 more to follow if the harvest is good. 
<ref>David N. Keightley "The Making of the Ancestors: Late Shang Religion and its Legacy" in Keightley, David N. These Bones Shall Rise Again: Selected Writings on Early China.. Albany, NY: State Univ of New York Pr, 2014. p.161</ref>
Later divinations were more likely to be perfunctory, optimistic, made by the king himself, addressed to his ancestors, on a regular cycle, and unlikely to ask the ancestors to do anything. Keightley suggests that this reflects a change in ideas about what the powers and ancestors could do, and the extent to which the living could influence them. 
<ref>David N. Keightley  "Late Shang Divination: The Magico-Religious Legacy" in Keightley, David N. These Bones Shall Rise Again: Selected Writings on Early China.. Albany, NY: State Univ of New York Pr, 2014 p.108,
David N. Keightley  "The Shang: China’s First Historical Dynasty" in Loewe, Michael, and Edward L. Shaughnessy. The Cambridge History of Ancient China: From the Origins of Civilization to 221 BC. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. p.243-5</ref>