CHINESE CIVILIZATION: The Transformation of Shangdi/Tian Central Sovereignty into Bureaucratic Cosmology

This study aims to test the five-stage model of Retrodictive Structural Hermeneutics (RSH) — Absolute Center → Delegation of Authority → Functional Representation → Localization → Structural Inflation — on Chinese civilization. The Chinese case represents one of the most systematic examples of "bureaucratic pluralization" organized by a central authority over a three-thousand-year continuous historical process. The central question of this study is: How did the central sovereignty of Shangdi/Tian transform into a bureaucratic cosmology over time? This question seeks to provide an RSH perspective answer to the external observer's question: "Does the process from Shangdi to thousands of deities represent a transition from monotheism to polytheism?"This study has been prepared in light of contemporary sinological literature and primary texts. Each chapter is directly correlated with the relevant stage of the RSH model, and in accordance with the principle of academic rigor, an evidence-based and methodologically defensible narrative has been adopted, avoiding definitive judgments.This third volume of the RSH Comparative Civilizational Series presents one of the most critical empirical tests of the series. Chinese cosmology systematically demonstrates the five stages of RSH and adds the "Bureaucratic Pluralization" variant to the "Structural Inflation" stage. Series NoteThis work is part of the RSH Comparative Civilizations Series, a collection of independent scholarly studies applying the Retrodictive Structural Hermeneutics (RSH) framework to the comparative structural analysis of major civilizations. Although the studies share a common methodological foundation, each paper constitutes a standalone research contribution with its own DOI and may be cited independently. Collectively, the series explores how different civilizations developed distinctive patterns of cosmological organization and structural transformation through a unified methodological framework.