A Study On The Four-Ritual System In The Song Dynasty

Ancient ritual system was commonly classified into five types,Ji(?),Xiong(?),Bin(?),Jvn(?),Jia(?)in the Han-Tang Dynasties;while in the Song-Ming Dynasties,scholars preferred a four-ritual system,Guan(?),Hun(?),Sang(?),Ji(?),which was very different from the former.Such change actually began in the Song Dynasty when the theoretical basis,the framework and the ideological connotations of the four-ritual system took shape.This dissertation follows the reviving course of Confucianism,exploring how the four-ritual system was formed and practiced in the Song Dynasty as well as how the related problems were resolved.This dissertation consists of two parts in total.The first part briefly traces the origin of the four-ritual system under the background of ritual changes from the Tang Dynasty to the Song Dynasty and also makes textual research of the system,which lays a solid foundation for further studies.The second part discusses about the four-ritual system,the capping ceremony,the wedding ceremony,the funeral and sacrifices respectively,revealing efforts made by the Song-Confucian scholars to reconstruct people's daily life with rituals and achievements they got.There are eight chapters.The first chapter is introduction,which makes critical thoughts about recognized notions of family rituals and reviews previous studies of the four rituals in the Song Dynasty as well as presents the research concepts,methods and the framework of this dissertation.The second chapter explores the change of ritual system from the Han-Tang Dynasties to the Song-Ming Dynasties based on textual research on ritual literatures compiled by individual scholars and the government,aiming to present the very differences in terms of ideological concepts and practice between the five-ritual system promoted by Zheng Xuan and the four-ritual system represented by Chu Hsi;in addition to the changes of ideas about rituals between the Tang and Song people.The third chapter focuses on textual examination of ritual literatures in the Song Dynasty in terms of their authors,published time,written styles,contents and collected passages,providing a foundation for further studies.The fourth chapter is about the capping ceremony of the Song.This chapter argues that the aim of the Song-Confucian scholars,who made efforts to reconstruct ritual texts of the capping ceremony,is not only to achieve ancient ritual meanings but also to make costumes for daily use,thus stabilizing the wearing and reconstruction of Confucian clothing system.The fifth chapter mainly discusses about disputes on ritual and custom in the process of making ritual texts of the wedding ceremony in the Song Dynasty,and concludes that the wedding ceremony had undergone a torturous path from following ancient rituals to customs then back to the original.What's more,the retro characteristic presented in Family Rituals written by Chu Hsi not only aims to achieve ancient meanings but also to construct ideal family life with harmony.The sixth chapter is about funeral of the time.Following the criticism towards Buddhism,this chapter explores how the Song Confucian scholars restored the Wu-fii(??)ethics by integrating the funeral ceremony with family members and extensively mitigated the influence of Buddhism through criticism of Buddhist samsara.Besides,this chapter also discusses how scholars revised ritual texts of the funeral ceremony and how they changed people's view of filial piety with more emphasis on the respect for corpses.All these efforts constructed Confucian concern for death,which in turn influenced Buddhist funeral ceremony.The seventh chapter studies Confucian concepts of family sacrifices and how it positively regulates and embraces tomb sacrifices.Then the case study of the Zheng family in Pujiang shows how family sacrifices and tomb sacrifices existed together in society.The eighth chapter is the conclusion part.