The Han Dynasty Scholarship On The Jinwen(Modern Script) Rites Canon: A New Appraisal

In the times of rites deficiency,Confucius stressed the dialectical relationship between rites learning and rites practicing,with the phrase "there are three hundred rites in the doctrinal superclass and three thousand rites in the practical subsections"("????,????").His profound connotation has been explicated by his students Zeng Zi(??),Zi Si(??),and then continually improved by their students,so as to exert great influence on the differentiation and the successional variation process of Rites theory in early Han Dynasty.With the rise of the study of Chuan(?)and Ji(?),Ji of Ritual Studies teemed and the rites had broader extension.Just because Jing(?)and Ji were mixed up,the confusion of standard canon worsened.And this disordered complex system through history has become the typical characteristic of Jinwen Rites(????)and its all texts such as Jing,Chuan and Ji.After the burning of ritual books in Qin Dynasty,the complete books of Rites disappeared,with some early scholars on Jinwen Ritual Studies such as Gao Tangsheng(???),only able to recite parts of the theory texts.The lack of Jing texts and mixed-up of Ji texts made the Jinwen Ritual Studies face severe challenges.Meanwhile,in order to put into practice,some learners only exercised action in the subsections instead of interpreting the classic books in the superclass.For example,from Hanyi(??)School in national rites system to Rong(??)School in personal etiquette system,though among them there are Xiao Fen(??),Xu Yan(??),Huan Sheng(??)to learn both theory and practice,the separation of rites in theory and rites in practice still made the core value of Confucius ritual studies overshadowed.The decline of Confucius culture,the upheaval of politics,and the deficiency of rites reappeared.After being passed on through generations by early scholars,in the period of Emperor Wu and Zhao of Han Dynasty,Jinwen Ritual Study was ready to come back to the academic circles of the imperial court and change its ethos.The fourth generation of successor Hou Cang(??)became the first official Doctor of Jinwen Ritual Study in Emperor Zhao's era.He presented "to deduce the rites of Emperor from the rites of Shi Class in the Book of Yili"("???????"),gave consideration to both theory propagating and ritual action specification making in Emperor Zhao and Xuan's era,and made contributions to the unification of the rites in theory and rites in practice.What he did laid a solid foundation for the following hundreds of years' development of Jinwen Ritual Studies.His students Dai De(??),Dai Sheng(??)compiled the Ji,helped to make rituals by checking the leftovers of those relevant books.On the one hand,they made Jinwen ritual studies become a study of both Jing and Ji instead of only Jing reciting;on the other hand,they made the Ji literature in pre-Qin period more"piled-up" and more complex.At the end of Western Han Dynasty,Liu Xin(??)summarized "three hundred rites" in the superclass as the Book of Zhouli instead of Book of Yili in the preface of Qi Lue(????).From then on,the Confucius saying"there are three hundred rites in the doctrinal superclass and three thousand rites in the practical subsections" was presented a different meaning.Together with some other backgrounds,between the Book of Yili and the Book of Zhouli,which one is the Rites Classics became a discussed case through history.After the failure of Guwen(??)Rites School's political innovation,the Jinwen Rites Cannon participated in the practice of formulating rites in Emperor Guang Wu's era.Before that,Hou Cang's disciple Qing Pu(??)adopted Ji as the material of spreading Jing and making rituals,set up Qing's School in the Emperor Yuan and Cheng's era of the Western Han Dynasty.Cao Chong(??),Qing's third generation of successor,became the first official Doctor of Qing's School(?????)by the end of Emperor Guang Wu's era.In oder to revitalization the Jinwen ritual studies as well as conform to the times and put the rites into practice,Cao Chong inherited the vein of scholarship,wrote Zhangju(??)and proposed a major guideline:"The Great Han Dynasty should make their own rites instead of following the rites of Qin dynasty"(" ??????").In Emperor Guangwu and Ming's era,Cao Chong and Dong Jun(??)adopted Hou's "to deduce the rites of Emperor from the rites of Shi Class in theBook of Yili" to formulate the Emperor's rites,such as Qijiao(??),Sanyong(??),Dashe(??),Yanglao(??)and so on.These practices made an excellent contribution to moderating the political orders and formulating the rites of the Eastern Han Dynasty.However,because of the death of Cao Chong and Dong Jun,the vacancy of the Qing's School had been last for more than ten years,until Cao Bao(??)succeeded the official Doctor of Qing's School.He wrote Tongyi(????)and njingzalun(??????)which made the Qing's theory develop from the study of Zhangju into a general study that take in strong points of other classics.This practice paved the way for the fusion of the three classics of Li(??)· In addition to spreading Jing,Cao spent ten years on modifying the Hnli(????)in the Emperor Zhang and He's era,while his reformation suffered a great obstruction in court.As a result of this,only a few new rites carried out during the Emperor He and Shun's era.As Hanli could not be carried out,Qing's School were forced to spread Jing and Ji which meant that there was no distinction between other rites schools.After Cao Bao,Ma Rong(??)and Zheng Xuan(??)ascended the history stage successively.Zheng Xuan digested the three classics of Li,ritual studies of Zheng's time was coming.