The Research Into Rui Yu Culture Of Zhou Dynasty

This dissertation, based on the pre-Qin literature, aims at analyzing jade articles inZhou Dynasty. Through the archaeological perspective on the related jade objects, "jade(yu)" or "utensil (qi)" is a general term. However, "Rui" has its specific meaning referringto Jade articles that only used on occasions of sociality, and plays a faithful role. Rui yu,the main functions of it are to deliver orders or meet each other among nobles, which bearthe obvious property of social hierarchy and morality. By analyzing prehistoric jadeculture, it is believed that there used to be a "Jade Age" in China. There are many reasonsfor the rapid development of rui yu in Zhou Dynasty. These reasons are radical changes inpolitics and in thoughts, and the close relation to the governing by morality in ZhouDynasty.On the further research into the literary archives of Zhou Dynasty, the paper firstlyclassifies jade features by connotative meanings of rui yu and dissertate many kinds of thesystems of rui yu, which include characters of the management system, tribute amassingsystem and using rui yu system. Then, this paper focuses on analyzing the relationshipbetween rui yu system and politics of ceremonial rites system. Rui yu is not only closelyrelated to the politics in Zhou dynasty, which conducts guideline for the management ofstate affairs, it also plays major roles in morality construction which represents the moralconcept of "honesty", shapes the image of "man of honor", and plays the importance rolein the process of "morality-cultivation". Finally, we venture to explore the historicalinfluence of rui yu, which laid the foundation of social hierarchy for emperors throughoutall generations to use jade. This makes jade appreciation and jade collection become anoble pursuit. We hold that Chinese favor jades not only for their physical property, butalso for their connotative meanings personated by our ancient forbears. Jade has formed aperfect and durative culture with its exclusive characteristics. Nowadays, Chinese pursuitJade both for its quality and its color. Furthermore, the concept of "auspicious sign" isalso based on the meaning of rui yu and many words related to jade also come from rui yu.All these contribute to the core of Chinese culture.