The Inheritance Of Masters Of Ceremonies And Customs Duringthe Ming Dynasty

Ceremonial servants as the experts in the ceremonial fields,had played an essential role in the dynastic ceremonies in China.Ceremonial servants were belonged to ritualists' system originally in the official system of China.There wasn' t an occupation for ceremonial servants initially in the ritualists' system of China.With the demand of dynastic ceremonies,ceremonial servants had been separated from other ritualists gradually while they had become the individual community in the ritualists' system.The.current researches in academia referred to Ming Dynastic ceremonies mainly concentrated on the rural ceremonial servants of Ming which its specific ceremonies by those ceremonial servants attended.There were insufficient researches about ceremonial servants in Ming ritualists' system and lacked of systematic researches.This article made a discussion referred to the options,treatments and promotions about ceremonial servants of Ming ritual ists' system pursuant to the relative materials.The whole article including three parts——Introduction,text and epilogue.What had been introduced in introduction which including the reasons and significances referred to the subject,the current situations about researches refer to ceremonial servants,concept definitions,outlines of this article and the methods of researches.There were three parts in the text:Introduced the original development regarded to ritualists and ceremonial servants before Ming in the first chapter.The Zhou Dynasty had established the giant ristulists' system which the occupations including ZONG BO,deputy ZONG BO,SI SHI,DA PU,XIAO CHEN,SHI FU,NEI ZONG,WAI ZONG,etc.Those occupations were similar with the subsequent ceremonial servants whose missions were that charged of guiding in the ceremonies.The ristulists' system had been improved ulteriorly in Qin and Han while the missions that guided the ceremonies mainly charged by officials from Taichang Temple during this period.A word referred to" Ceremonial servants" had been appeared firstly in the record of the Eastern Han Dynastic references.The communities of ceremonial servants,whose responsibilities were that guided those who attended the ceremonies in the national significant ceremonies,had been appeared in the ristulists' system in Tang and Song Dynasty.Ceremonial servants were hold by Confucians till this dynasty.However,there were situations which those ceremonial servants were replaced by pariahs appeared in the Yuan and Jin Dynasty.What had been introduced in the second chapter was that the occupations of ceremonial servants were hold by "Dancing and Musical Servants " from ShenYue Guan in the central official system of Ming Dynasty.ShenYue Guan,was subordinated to Taichang Temple,which was the essential department to executed the ceremonies and managed those“Dancing and Musical Servants"."Dancing and Musical Servants" were monks before in the ShenYue Guan and there were minority of Confucians and others.There were various ways for monks to became the masters or assistants in order to attended to the ceremonies for being a guider when they entered the ShenYue Guan.However,the promotional ways were more than this because most of them could impact the ristulists' system of Ming by being a vital official of Taichang Temple,even though,the minister of rists.Regarded to their salary,they enjoyed the various favorable treatments and protected them in every field of life from central government.Furthermore,they could get the governmental pensions when they retired.In the third chapter,introduced the ceremonial servants of regional official system in Ming,which including the ceremonial servants of palaces and states.There were not much professional ceremonial servants in the palaces while the institutions named "the department of sacrifice"referred to manage those ceremonial servants.Also,the regional governments were organized ceremonial servants while the situation was maintained for one year and then abolished,there were less materials referred to the professional ceremonial servants were left.