Confucianism, Daoism and Buddhism are all mature religions; Confucianism is characterized by its stress on world harmony and interpersonal harmony as well as its stress on self-cultivation. Daoism is characterized by its valuation of life and its pursuit of peace, harmony and tranquility. Buddhism is characterized by its organic combination of the religious elements of love, hope, belief, saving, redeeming and solicitude for the ultimacy.
The ancient Chinese society stepped into civilization from the clan society. The totems could represent best the essential characteristics of the primitive religions. In the Chinese primitive religions, “Heaven” was an omnipresent mystic power. Looking around, the Chinese primitives could only see the heaven staying silently over their heads . Therefore to them , Heaven and Earth had the property of the highest deity . Some verses in the “Book of Poems”, such as the “Bright Heaven above” described their reverence to the Heaven ..
　　The concept of the Heaven , to a great extent , determined the orientation of the later Chinese secular philosophies . The concept of the “Heavenly deity” could be extended easily to the philosophical concepts of “Heavenly mandate” , “Heavenly destination” and “Heavenly way” . In the book “Analysis of Words” it was defined that the character “heaven” had a double meaning . One meaning was that of the character 颠 ( over the head ) , and the connotation of Heaven as “pinnacle” or “on the head” are similar to the highest . Another meaning was that of –and 大 (“one and great” ) . According to the Tortoise Shell Script and to the inscriptions on ancient bronze objects , the character for “heaven” signifies a man-like deity bigger than a man . In the Chinese language , there is a tendency of forming terms with double characters . There are many terms with double characters . For instance , the term “Heavenly Son” of legitimizing the succession of the Zhou Dynasty to the Shang Dynasty , Duke Zhou proclaimed that the succession was mandated by Heaven and that King of Zhou was the eldest son of the Heaven , which implied that all people on Earth were sons of Heaven .

　　Afterwards , “Son of Heaven” meant someone to whom sacredness and mystery adhered , someone sheltered by heaven and upheld by earth the “Son of Heaven”! “The Son of Heaven was the title used by the Kings”. “Kings can be virtuous or inferior . Why are they all titled Son of Heaven? It is because they are all mandated by Heaven to rule over the area within borders 5,000 li ( 1 li =2/1 km ) apart”. From the development of the meaning of the term “Heavenly Son” ,we can see that although is the Chinese philosophies the meaning of the character “heaven” might have originated from humanism or humanitarianism in Chinese philosophies , this meaning had been drowned in its primitive , religious meaning .
The “Book of Changes” contains the primitive religious meaning of “Heaven” . “Heaven” here gives an excellent explanation of “qian kun” (cosmos) . The divinatory symbol of “qian” symbolizes heaven , greatness , auspiciousness , harmony and firmness . The divinatory symbol of “first nine” ( the bottom line undivided) symbolizes a giant dragon lying in the deep , so it is not yet time for the virtuous and talented to act . The divinatory symbol of the “second nine” symbolized a giant dragon appearing in the field , so it is advantageous for the virtuous and talented to find the great person as his lord . The divinatory symbol of the “third nine” symbolizes that the gentleman is active but vigilant and careful , so that even if he encounters a danger , he can avoid the disaster . The divinatory symbol of the “fourth nine’ symbolizes a dragon looking for opportunities , sometimes leaping up and sometimes lying in the deep . The divinatory symbol of the “upper nine” symbolizes a dragon flying to the very top and going to encounter disasters inevitably . The in the sky , with none of them acting as the head . So it is very auspicious . By this explanation Heaven dictates all.