The Ritual Study Of Chun Qiu

The Records of the Grand Historian held the view that Chun Qiu was a fundamental work of ritual. Yang Shixun said in the Guliang Zhuan Shu: "Zuo Zhuan is expert in ritual." The study of ritual epitomizes the academic activities about the ritual in general, is mainstream discourse in the traditional Chinese Society, hence from the perspective of it our study of the interpretation of Zuo Zhuan on Chun Qiu, undoubtedly brings great benefit to our deep understanding of Chun Qiu, and the cultural ecology of traditional Chinese society.After entering the Spring and Autumn Period, "the vassals of the Zhou dynasty are Increasingly out of sequence", "ritual and conquest come from the vassals", "the royal family of the Zhou dynasty faded and the etiquette system slacked." The late Spring and Autumn Period witnessed the emerging of the study of ritual, marked by many politicians and thinkers facing the reality of social unrest caused by the decline and even destruction of the three generations' ritual, consciously reflected the existence of ceremony, gave prominence to the function of ritual, to enhance the status of ritual and to explore the origin of ritual. Confucius revised Chun Qiu in his later years to survive what gone with the wind, inherited endangered culture. Only does a scholar knows of this, can he stuy Chun Qiu legitimately.Although in form a of taking Chun Qiu as the key link in the chronological history books, but in essence, Zuo Zhuan, with Chun Qiu together, are famous works on ritual belongs to the Spring and Autumn Period. To explain the classic and ritual, instead of writing the historical events simply, is the real purpose of the two works. In terms of the essence on carrying forward the spirit of ritual, the two books maintained a high degree of agreement. This paper focuses on four very important Propriety proposition:"On the Rules", "On the Status", "On the Hierarchy", and "On the Respect".According to Chun Qiu Hui Yao, this thesis classified the rituals of two works as "Five Rites":Ji Li, Jia Li, Bin Li, Jun Li, Xiong Li. Although ritual slacked, people never changed their respect of ritual fundamentally. Zuo Zhuan melt the description of specific manners into objective historical facts. In Chun Qiu, especially in Zuo Zhuan, a large number of narrative about the ritual, shows hundreds and thousands of ceremony activities and research objects.In Zuo Zhuan, the vast majority of people's rhetoric of topic focus, almost can be considered as the ritual monograph with self-sufficiency as a whole. In terms of the breadth of ritual theory expounded in Zuo Zhuan, those rhetoric almost covered all contents of what the ritual classics discussed. This thesis selected the following four propositions from the perspective of rhetoric: "ritual politics", "self-cultivation", "Integrity", "ins and outs".Zuo Zhuan successfully created a large number of ritual models who enjoys popular support. In this paper, six representative characters have been selected and brief reviews on their deeds are made:Wu Sheng, Shusun Bao, Zi Chan, Shu Xiang, Yan Zi, and Confucius.Discussing ritual views through historical events, determined Chun Qiu took narrative as the baisc expression style. However there exists obvious difference between two works. Confucius said:"No embellish, no further transmission." Just as some kind of embelish, Zuo Zhuan on the premise of ruling out the embellish, focused more on the finding, interpretation and carrying forward subtle ritual meanings of Chun Qiu, so that those subtle meanings can be clarified, thus a more adequate social significance may be achieved. This paper demonstrated the four clarified narrative styles of Zuo Zhuan, which namely, "narration and induction", "get sayings' help and side narrative", "Symbolism", "causal relationship".To explain the classics and ritual through the writing of history events, is in no doubt an artistic way, hence Zuo Zhuan has become an important work in the history of Chinese literature. It fully integrated into the ritual spirit of Confucian through the the shell of historical events, so that readers enjoy the legendary historical events, while the basic ritual sense being reinforced constantly. This entertaining form of Zuo Zhuan, makes ritual meaning of Chun Qiu popular and wide spreaded. In this sense, No comparable work can take more important role in popularizing ethical codes and creating the spirit of the historical process of traditional Chinese ritual law than Zuo Zhuan does.