Abstract: Among a series of concepts of identification in ancient China,the concept of “Xiang” is the most representative. The development of the ancient thinking of the “Xiang” concept can be divided into three stages:the stage of pure “Xiang”,the stage of the combination of “Xiang” and rhetoric,and the stage of pure rhetoric. Natural revelations,the gadgets of “Xiang” made by the saints,and a sequence of written characters of “Xiang”,these three entities had become interconnected under the auspices of “Xiang”. The aforementioned three entities have coalesced to establish a unified intellectual framework centered on “Xiang”. With the goal of revealing,clarifying and utilizing the Dao,the early theory of “Xiang” took the emergence of systematic writing and the collapse of the Zhou dynasty's bureaucratic system as points of differentiation,and constructed a unique cosmological model of traditional China with the three-stage presentation form. Discussing the presentation of the “Xiang” thought in Shangshu (the Book of History) based on this three-stage theory enables us to deeply explore and three-dimensionally present the contents and levels of “Xiang” thought in Shangshu.

Key words: the “Xiang” thought, the “Xiang” thought in Shangshu, the theoretical framework for “Xiang”, the principles in the Spring and Autumn Annals, rhetoric “Xiang”, presentation of “Xiang” thought in the six classic Confucian works