Tang's Keeping Mourning System And Practice

Tang was a great dynasty in Chinese history, which inherited many traditional Chinese family principles and beliefs from previous dynasties. One of them demanded that parents should love and raise their children to show their affection, on the other hand, their children are asked to be obedient to their parents when they were alive, and to pay their last respects to parents after they died. How to deal with their parents' funerals and to show their last respects to them was an important symbol to judge whether the children were filial or not.Chinese traditional mourning system is a system to direct people how to arrange and deal with their family funerals and to keep deathwatch. The system was classified into different ratings according their family relationship. Especially, Tang's mourning system experienced several great changes as it inherited the previous tradition.Based on recalling of some predecessors' researches and historical material, the thesis focuses on the Tang's mourning system and practice to demonstrate Tang's social and family conviction.The thesis includes four parts as following:Part I. Analyzing Tang's ceremonial books and governmental regulations in different periods to present the Tang's mourning system; discovering that the position of Tang's material mourning system was promoted higher than before, which had been lower than paternal mourning system; revealing some changes and evaluation of Tang's mourning system through demonstrating that how long Tang's officials should keep deathwatch after their parents died and shy they should obey to stop their official career for 3 years for mourning.Part II. Explaining the custom for officials to keep mourning for 3 years; describing how they kept their deathwatch and how they recovered their former official position; exploring some particular human restrictions for relegated officials after their mourning period.Part III. Presenting that some officials keeping deathwatch could be permitted to stop their deathwatch and recover their official position formeeting military needs or showing royal special favor; showing which officials could get the favor and what procedures they should do and what taboos they should abide during mourning time.Part IV. Focusing on the practice of Tang's mourning system with 200 Tang's officials' statistical material; illustrating specific execution of Tang's keeping mourning system; concluding that filial piety was still a vital social conviction.