On Sacrificial Rites Of The Ancestral Temple In Northern Song Dynasty

The sacrificial rites of the ancestral temple were the reflections of ancestor worship in the ancient Chinese society. In that time, the temple's rites were related with the national power, therefor they paly a geat role in building ceremoney systems and became the significant national rites. With the constantly pushing of society and history, the successive temple's ritual syestem would be affected in various factors and took on different faces in each historical period. As an important period of social transformation, Northern Song Dynasty would provide a new developing enviroment for a variety of systems such as scarificial rites. The Northern Song Dynasty's sacrificial rites of the temple primarily inherited the frame and principles that confirmed by the formers , and espescially by Han&Tang Dynasties, so their original idea was not changed. But these rites in the Northern Song Dynasty experienced a constant adjusted and changed process, which could be proved by the sacrifical activities held in the temple and the practice participated by the emperors. And also the temple's activities were various and pragmatic, which could be attributed to the advocacy of political achievement and the philosophy of Neo-Confucianism in the Northern Song Dynasty.