The Five Ritual System

The ritual systems were the combination of society, culture, politics, system, economy and other aspects. The research into the ritual systems of Five Dynasty is the key to the deep research into Five Dynasty. In this paper the basic situations of the ritual system of it are outlined. According to the sequences of Five Rituals in Tang Dynasty, the ritual systems are divided into 5 parts. They are the rituals of happiness, the ritual for guests, the rituals for armies, the ritual for celebrations and the rituals for funerals. They are explored in 5 chapters. In the part of the ritual for happiness, 6 aspects are explored. They are God, the god of the field, states, temples of ancestors, the god of wind, the god of rain, the god in charge of winter, hundreds of gods, the god of the mountain and the sea, prior emperors, Confucius and Jiangshang; In the part of the ritual of guests, the savage tribes and "er wang san ke" are mainly explored, In the part of the ritual for armies, 6aspects are explored. They are emperor's personally leading a military expedition and tours of inspection, contributions of captives and declarations of victories, giving awards to armies and drinking liquor, military trainings, archeries and visits of them, protection of the sun and avoidance of the evil. In the part of the ritual for celebrations, 7 aspects are explored. They are the formal congratulations, conferring titles, marriages, remitting punishments, celebrations of emperor's birthdays, liquor among the people. In the part of the ritual for funerals, 3 aspects are explored. They are funerals, rules of giving titles to the dead and the costume on the occasions of someone's death. In the author's opinion, the political purposes were much more than those in other dynasties and they were more confused. Many ritual officials didn't know rituals and wrong rituals were in use in many aspects. All those mentioned above led to the new situations and features of the rituals systems in Five Dynasty. For all these, the ritual systems still played an important role in the society and the political lives.