Sinologists, without exception I believe, have called Shang a 'nephew' of Teh, overlooking the way in which the
relationship
between them is expressed in Chinese.
Confucius - Book of Rites
I have also enjoyed the benefit of the more recent work, 'Cursus Litteratura o Sinicae,' by P.
Angelo Zottoli, in whom the scholarship of earlier Jesuit missionaries has revived.
In his third the earlier volume, published at Shang-hâi in 1880, there are good translations of the 1st, 5th, 10th, 20th, 21st, and 22nd Books; while the 28th and 39th are in his second volume.
In the Latin which he employs, according to the traditions of his church and what is still a practice of some scholars, he is able to be more brief in his renderings than Callery and myself, but perhaps not so satisfactory to readers generally.
I also referred occasionally to Signor Carlo Puini's 'Lî-Kî: Instituzioni, Usi e Costumanze della Cina antica; Traduzione.
Commento e Note (Fascicolo Primo; Firenze, i883Y
The present translation is, as I said above, the first published in any European language of the whole of the Lî Kî; but another had existed in manuscript for several years, the work of Mr. Alexander Wylie, now unhappily, by loss of eye-sight and otherwise failing health, laid aside from his important Chinese labours. I was fortunate enough to obtain possession of this when I had got to the 35th Book in my own version, and, in carrying the sheets through the press, I have constantly made reference to it. It was written at an early period of Mr. Wylie's Chinese studies, and is not such as a Sinologist of his attainments and research would have produced later on. Still I have been glad to have it by me, though I may venture to say that, in construing the paragraphs and translating the characters, I have not been indebted in a single instance to him or P. Callery. The first six Books, and portions of several others, had been written out, more than once, before I finally left China in 1873; but I began again at the beginning, early in 1883, in preparing the present version. I can hardly hope that, in translating so extensive and peculiar a work. descriptive of customs and things at so remote a period of time, and without the assistance of any Chinese graduate with whom I could have talked over complicated and perplexing paragraphs, I may not have fallen into some mistakes; but I trust they will be found to be very few. My simple and only aim has been, first, to understand the text for myself and then to render it in English, fairly and as well a I could in the time attain to, for my readers.
J. L.
OXFORD,
July 10, 1885.
THE Lî Kî
OR
COLLECTION OF TREATISES ON THE RULES OF PROPRIETY OR CEREMONIAL USAGES.
INTRODUCTION.
CHAPTER I.
THREE DIFFERENT LÎ KING, OR RITUAL BOOKS, ACKNOWLEDGED IN CHINA. THE RECOVERY OF THE FIRST TWO, AND FORMATION OF THE THIRD, UNDER THE HAN DYNASTY.
How Confucius spoke of the Lî.
1. Confucius said, 'It is by the Odes that the mind is aroused; by the Rules of Propriety that the character is established; from Music that the finish is received[1]. ' On another occasion he said, 'Without the Rules of Propriety, respectfulness becomes laborious bustle; carefulness, timidity; boldness, insubordination; and straightforwardness, rudeness[1]. '
These are two specimens of the manner in which Confucius expressed himself about the Lî, the Rules of Propriety or Ceremonial Usages, recognised in his time. It is a natural inference from his language that there were Collections of such Rules which could be read and studied; but he does not expressly say so.
How Mencius spoke of them.
The language of Mencius was more definite. In at least two passages of his works we find the usual form of quotation Lî Yüeh, 'The Lî says[2],' which, according to the analogy of Shih Yüeh, 'The Shih King, or Book of Poetry, says,' might be rendered,
[1. Confucian Analects, Book VIII, 8 and 2.
2. Works of Mencius, II, Part ii, 2. 5; III, Part ii, 3. 3. ]
'The Lî. King says. ' In another passage, he says to a Mr. King Khun, 'Have you not read the Lî? ' It does not appear that Mencius was always referring to one and the same collection of Lî; but it is clear that in his time there were one or more such collections current and well known among his countrymen.
Now there are three Lî King, or three Rituals.
There are now three Chinese classics into which the name Lî enters:--the Î Lî, the Kâu Lî, and the Lî Kî, frequently styled, both by the Chinese themselves and by sinologists, 'The Three Rituals[2]. ' The first two are books of the Kâu dynasty (B. C. 1122-225). The third, of which a complete translation is given in the present work, may contain passages of an earlier date than either of the others; but as a collection in its present form, it does not go higher than the Han dynasty, and was not completed till our second century. It has, however, taken a higher position than those others, and is ranked with the Shû, the Shih, the Yî, and the Khun Khiû, forming one of 'The Five King,' which are acknowledged as the books of greatest authority in China. Other considerations besides antiquity have given, we shall see, its eminence to the Lî Kî.
State of the Lî books at the rise of the Han an dynasty.
2. The monuments of the ancient literature, with the exception, perhaps, of the Yi King, were in a condition of disorder and incompleteness at the rise of the Han dynasty. (B. C. 206). This was the case especially with the Î Lî and Kâu Lî. They had suffered, with the other books, from the fires and proscription of the short-lived dynasty of Khin, the founder of which was bent especially on their destruction[3]; and during the closing centuries of Kâu, in all the period of 'The Warring Kingdoms,' they had been variously mutilated by the contending princess[4].
[1. Works of Mencius, III, ii, 2. 2.
2. See Wylie's Notes on Chinese Literature, p. 4, and Mayers' Chinese Reader's Manual, p. 300.
3. Sze-mâ Khien's Biographies, Book 61 (###), p. 5b. Other testimonies to the fact could be adduced.
4. Mencius V, ii, 2. 2. See also the note of Liû Hsin, appended to his catalogue of Lî works, in the Imperial library of Han. ]
Work of the ancient emperors of Han in recovering the books.
The sovereigns of Han undertook the task of gathering up and arranging the fragments of the ancient books, and executed it well. . In B. C. 213 Shih Hwang Tî of Khin had promulgated his edict forbidding any one to hide and keep in his possession the old writings. This was repealed in B. C. 191 by the emperor Hui, so that it had been in existence only twenty-two years, during most of which, we may presume, it had been inoperative. Arrangements were also made to receive and preserve old tablets which might be presented[1], and to take down in writing what scholars might be able to repeat. In B. C. 164, the emperor Wan ordered 'the Great Scholars' of his court to compile 'the Royal Ordinances,' the fifth of the Books in our Lî Kî[2].
Recovery of the Î Lî.
i. Internal evidence shows that when this treatise was made, the Î Lî, or portions of it at least, had been recovered; and with this agrees the testimony of Sze-mâ Khien, who was born perhaps in that very year[3], and lived to between B. C. 90 and 80. In the 61st Book of his Biographies, referred to in a note above, Khien says, 'Many of the scholars repeated (parts of) the Lî; but no other of them so much as Kâo Thang of Lû; and now we have only the Shih Lî, which he was able to recite. ' In harmony with this statement of the great historian, is the first entry in Liû Hsin's Catalogue of Lî books in the Imperial library of Han:--'56 küan or sections of Lî in the old text, and 17 phien in the (current) text (of the time);' forming, as is universally believed, the present Î Lî, for which the Shih Lî of Khien is merely another name.
That Kâo Thang should have been able to dictate so much of the work will not be thought wonderful by those who
[1. Such was the 'Stone-Conduit Gallery,' which Mayers (Manual, p. 18,5) describes as a building erected by Hsiâo Ho at Khang-an for the reception of the records of the extinct Khin dynasty, about B. C. 200, adding that 'in B. C. 51, the emperor Hsüan appointed a commission of scholars to assemble in this building, and complete the revision of the classical writings. ' But it had also been' intended from the first as a repository for those writings as they were recovered.
2. See the General Mirror of History under that year.
3. Mayers puts his birth 'about B. C. 163,' and his death 'about 86. ']
are familiar with the power of memory displayed by many Chinese scholars even at the present day. The sections in the old text were found in the reign of the emperor Wû (B. C. 140-87), and came into the possession of his brother, known as king Hsien of Ho-kien. We do not know how much this mass of tablets added to the Î Lî, as we now have it, but they confirmed the genuineness of the portion obtained from Kâo.
King Hsien of Ho-kien, and his recovery of the Kâu Lî.
ii. The recovery of the Kâu Lî came not long after, and through the agency of the same king Hsien. No one did so much as he in the restoration of the ancient of literature. By name Teh, and one of the fourteen sons of the emperor King (B. C. 156-141), he was appointed by his father, in B. C. 155, king of Ho-kien, which is still the name of one of the departments of Kih-lî, and there he continued till his death, in 129, the patron of all literary men, and unceasingly pursuing his quest for old books dating from before the Khin dynasty. Multitudes came to him from all quarters, bringing to him the precious tablets which had been preserved in their families or found by them elsewhere. The originals he kept in his own library, and had a copy taken, which he gave to the donor with a valuable gift. We are indebted to him in this way for the preservation of the Tâo Teh King, the works of Mencius, and other precious treasures; but I have only to notice here his services in connexion with the Lî books[1].
Some one [2] brought to him the tablets of the Kâu Lî, then called Kâu Kwan, 'The Official Book of Kâu,' and purporting to contain a complete account of the organised government of the dynasty of Kâu in six sections. The sixth section, however, which should have supplied a list of the officers in the department of the minister of Works,
[1. See the account of king Hsien in the twenty-third chapter of the Biographies in the History of the first Han dynasty. Hsien was the king's posthumous title (###), denoting 'The Profound and Intelligent. '
2 The Catalogue of the Sui Dynasty's (A. D. 589-618) Imperial library says this was a scholar of the surname Lî (###). I have been unable to trace the authority for the statement farther back. ]
with their functions, was wanting, and the king offered to pay 1000 pieces of gold to any one who should supply the missing tablets, but in vain[1]. He presented the tablets which he had obtained at the court of his half-brother, the emperor Wû; but the treasure remained uncared for in one of the imperial repositories till the next century; when it came into the charge of Liû Hsin. Hsin replaced the missing portion from another old work, called Khâo Kun Kî, which Wylie renders by 'The Artificers' Record. ' This has ever since continued to appear as the sixth section of the whole work, for the charge of which Hsin obtained the appointment of a special board of scholars, such as had from the first been entrusted with the care of the Î Lî. The Kâu Lî is a constitutional and not a ritual work. The last entry in Hsin's Catalogue of Lî Books is:--'The Kâu Kwan in six sections; and a treatise on the Kâu Kwan in four sections. ' That is the proper name for it. It was not called the Kâu Lî till the Thang dynasty[2].
Formation of the Lî Kî.
iii. We come to the formation of the text of the Lî Kî, in which we are more particularly interested. We cannot speak of its recovery, for though parts of it had been in existence during the Kâu dynasty, many of its Books cannot claim a higher antiquity than the period of the Han. All that is known about the authorship of them all will be found in the notices which form the last chapter of this Introduction;
After the entry in Lia Hsin's Catalogue about the recovered
[1. This is related in the Catalogue of the Sui dynasty, It could not be in Khien's sixty-first chapter of Biographies, because the Kâu Kwan was not known, or, at least, not made public, in Khien's time. The Sui writers, no doubt, took it from some biography of the Han, which has escaped me.
2. A complete translation of the Kâu Lî appeared at Paris in 1851, the work of Edward Biot, who had died himself before its publication, before his fiftieth year. According to a note in Callery's 'Memorial des Rites' (p. 191), the labour of its preparation hastened Biot's death. There are some errors in the version, but they are few. I have had occasion to refer to hundreds of passages in it, and always with an increasing admiration of the author's general resources and knowledge of Chinese. His early death was the greatest loss which the cause of sinology has sustained. His labours, chiefly on Chinese subjects, had been incessant from 1835. The perusal of them has often brought to my memory the words of Newton, 'If Mr. Cotes had lived, we should have known something. ' Is there no sinologist who will now undertake a complete translation of the Î Lî? ]
text of the Î Lî, 'there follows--'131 phien of Kî,' that is, so many different records or treatises on the subject of Lî. These had also been collected by king Hsien, and Kû Hsî's note about them is that they were 'Treatises composed by the disciples of the seventy disciples,' meaning by 'the seventy disciples' those of Confucius' followers who had been most in his society and, profited most from his instructions. These 131 phien contained, no doubt, the germ of our Lî Kî; but there they remained for about a century in the imperial repositories, undigested and uncared for, and constantly having other treatises of a similar nature added to them.
Council of B. C. 511.
At last, in B. C. 51, the emperor Hsüan (B. C. 71-47) convoked a large assembly of Great Scholars to meet in the Stone-Conduit Gallery, and discuss the text of the recovered classics[1]. A prominent member of this assembly, the president of it I suppose, was Liû Hsiang, himself a celebrated writer and a scion of the imperial house, who appears to have had the principal charge of all the repositories. Among the other members, and in special connexion with the Lî works, we find the name of Tâi Shang, who will again come before us[2].
B. C. 26.
We do not know what the deliberations of the Great Scholars resulted in, but twenty-five years later the emperor Khang caused another search to be made throughout the empire for books that might hitherto have escaped notice; and, when it was completed, he ordered Hsiang to examine all the contents of the repositories, and collate the various copies of the classics. From this came the preparation of a catalogue; and Hsiang dying at the age of seventy-two, in B. C. 9, before it was completed, the work was delegated to his third and youngest son Hsin. His catalogue we happily possess. It mentions, in addition to the Î Lî and
[1. See the Details in the General Mirror of History, under B. C. 51.
2. See the 58th Book of Biographies (###) in the History of the first Han, and the Catalogue of the Sui Library. ]
Kâu Lî, 199 phien of Lî treatises. The résumé appended to the Lî books in the Catalogue of the Su i Dynasty, omitting works mentioned by Hsin, and inserting two others, says that Hsiang had in his hands altogether 214 phien. What was to be done with this mass of tablets, or the written copies made from them?
Hâu Zhang and the two Tâis
The most distinguished of the Lî scholars in the time of the emperors Hsüan and Khang was a Hâu Zhang, the author of the compilation called in Hsin's Catalogue Khü Tâi Kî; and two of his disciples, Tâi Teh and Tâi Shang, cousins[1], the name of the latter of whom has already been mentioned as a member of the council of B. C. 51, were also celebrated for their ability. Teh, the older of the two, and commonly called Tâ Tâi, or 'the Greater Tâi,' while Hsiang was yet alive, digested the mass of phien, and in doing so reduced their number to 85. The younger, called Hsiâo Tâi, or 'the Lesser Tâi,' doing the same for his cousin's work, reduced it to 46 treatises. This second condensation of the Lî documents met with general acceptance, and was styled the Lî Kî. Shang himself wrote a work in twelve chapters, called 'A Discussion of the Doubts of Scholars about the Lî Kî,' which, though now lost, was existing in the time of Sui.
Mâ Yung and Kang Hsüan.
Through Khiâo Zan and others, scholars of renown in their day, the redaction passed on to the well-known Mâ Yung (A. D. 79-166), who added to Shang's books the Yüeh Ling, the Ming
[1.
Sinologists, without exception I believe, have called Shang a 'nephew' of Teh, overlooking the way in which the relationship between them is expressed in Chinese. Shang is always Teh's ###, and not simply###. Foreign students have overlooked the force of the phrase and, more fully, ###. Teh and Shang's father had the same grand-father, and were themselves the sons of brothers. They were therefore what we call first cousins, and Teh and Shang were second cousins. The point is unimportant, but it is well to be correct even in small matters. Not unimportant, however, is the error of Callery (Introduction, p. 6), who says, 'Le neveu, homme dépravé, beaucoup plus adonné aux plaigirs, qu'à 1'étude, retrancha encore davantage et fixa le nombre des chapitres à 46. ' No such stigma rests on the character of Taî Shang, and I am sure translators have reason to be grateful to him for condensing, as he did, the result of his cousin's labours. ]
Thang Wei, and the Yo Kî making their number in all forty-nine, though, according to the arrangement adopted in the present translation, they still amount only to forty-six. From Mâ, again, it passed to his pupil Kang Hsüan (A. D. 127-200), in whom be was obliged to acknowledge a greater scholar than himself.
Thus the Lî Kî was formed. It is not necessary to pursue its history farther. Kang was the scholar of his age, and may be compared, in scholarship, with the later Kû Hsî. And he has been fortunate in the preservation of his works. He applied himself to all the three Rituals, and his labours on them all, the Kâu Lî, the Î Lî, and the Lî Kî, remain. His commentaries on them are to be found in the great work of 'The Thirteen King' of the Thang dynasty. There they appear, followed by the glosses, illustrations, and paraphrases of Khung Ying-tâ.
Zhâi Yung and his manusculpt.
In A. D. 175, while Kang was yet alive, Zhâi Yung, a scholar and officer of many gifts, superintended the work of engraving on stone the text of all the Confucian classics. Only fragments of that great manusculpt {sic} remain to the present day, but others of the same nature were subsequently made. We may feel assured that we have the text of the Lî Kî and other old Chinese books, as it was 1800 years ago, more correctly than any existing Manuscripts give us that of any works of the West, Semitic, or Greek, or Latin, of anything like equal antiquity.
Lî of the Greater Tâi.
3. A few sentences on the Lî of the Greater Tâi will fitly close this chapter. He handed down his voluminous compilation to a Hsü Liang of Lang Yeh in the present Shan-tung[1], and in his family it was transmitted; but if any commentaries on it were published, there is no trace of them in history. As the shorter work of his cousin obtained a wide circulation, his fell into neglect, and, as Kû Î-zun says, was simply put upon the shelf. Still there appears in the Sui Catalogue these two entries:--'The Lî Kî of Tâ Tâi, in 13 Sections,' and 'The Hsiâ
[1. ###. ]
Hsiâo Kang, in 1 Section,' with a note by the editor that it was compiled by Tâ Tâi. This little tractate may, or may not, have been also included in one of the 13 Sections. There are entries also about Tâ Tâi's work in the catalogues of the Thang and Sung dynasties, which have given rise to many discussions. Some of the Sung scholars even regarded it as a 14th King. In the large collection of 'Books of Han and Wei,' a portion of the Lî of Tâ Tâi is still current, 39 Book in 10 Sections, including the fragment of the Hsiâ dynasty, of which a version, along with the text, was published in 1882 by Professor Douglas of King's College, under the title of 'The Calendar of the Hsiâ Dynasty. ' I have gone over all the portion in the Han and Wei Collection, and must pronounce it very inferior to the compilation of the Hsiâo or Lesser Tâi. This inferiority, and not the bulk, merely, was the reason why from the first it has been comparatively little attended to.
CHAPTER II.
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE CHINESE CHARACTER CALLED LÎ. MEANING OF THE TITLE LÎ KÎ. VALUE OF THE WORK.
Lî is a symbol of religious import.
1. The Chinese character Lî admits of a great variety of terms in translating a work where it abounds into any of our western languages. In order fully to apprehend its significance, we must try to get bold of the fundamental ideas which it was intended to convey. And these are two. First, when we consult the Shwo Wan, the oldest Chinese dictionary, we find Lî defined as 'a step or act; that whereby we serve spiritual beings and obtain happiness. ' The character was to the author, Hsü Shan, an ideagram of religious import; and we can see that he rightly interpreted the intention of its maker or makers. It consists of two elements, separately called khih and lî[1]. That on the left is the symbol,
[1. ###. ]
determining the category of meaning to which the compound belongs. It was the earliest figure employed to indicate spiritual beings, and enters into characters denoting spirits, sacrifices, and prayer[1]. That on the right, called lî, is phonetic, but even it is the symbol for (a vessel used in performing rites;' and if, as the Khang-hsî dictionary seems to say, it was anciently used alone for the present compound, still the spiritual significance would attach to it, and the addition of the khih to complete the character, whensoever it was made, shows that the makers considered the rites in which the vessel was used to possess in the first place a religious import.
Lî is a symbol for the feeling of propriety.
Next, the character is used, in moral and philosophical disquisitions, to designate one of the primary constituents of human nature. Those, as set forth by Mencius, are four; 'not fused into us from without,' not produced, that is, by any force of circumstances, but 'belonging naturally to us, as our four limbs do. ' They are benevolence (zan), righteousness (î), propriety (lî), and understanding (kîh). Our possession of the first is proved by the feeling of distress at the sight of suffering; of the second, by our feelings of shame and dislike; of the third, by our feelings of modesty and courtesy; of the fourth, by our consciousness of approving and disapproving[2].
Thus the character lî, in the concrete application of it, denotes the manifestations, and in its imperative use, the rules, of propriety. This twofold symbolism of it--the religious and the moral--must be kept in mind in the study of our classic. A life ordered in harmony with it would realise the highest Chinese ideal, and surely a very high ideal, of human character.
But never and, nowhere has it been possible for men to maintain this high standard of living. In China and elsewhere the lî have become, in the usages of society in. its various relationships, matters of course, forms without the
[1. E. g. ### (shan), ###, (kî), ### (khi).
2. Mencius, II, i, 6; VI, i, 6. 7. ]
spirit, and hence we cannot always translate the character by the same term. It would be easy to add to the number of words, more or less synonymous, in French or English or any other Aryan language, which Callery has heaped together in the following passage:--'Autant que possible, j'ai traduit Lî par le mot Rite, dont le sens est susceptible à une grande étendue; mais il faut convenir que, suivant les circonstances où il est employé, il peut signifier--Cérémonial, Cérémonies, Pratiques cérémoniales, L'étiquette, Politesse, Urbanité, Courtoisie, Honnêteté, Bonnes manières, Égards, Bonne éducation, Bienséance, Les formes, Les convenances, Savoir-vivre, Décorum, Décence, Dignité personnelle, Moralité de conduite, Ordre Social, Devoirs de Société, Lois Sociales, Devoirs, Droit, Morale, Lois hiérarchiques, Offrande, Usages, Coutumes[1]. ' I have made little use in my translation of the word Rite or Rites, which Callery says he had endeavoured to adhere to as much as possible, but I do not think I have allowed myself so much liberty in other terms in my English as he has done in his French. For the symbol in the title I have said 'Rules of Propriety or Ceremonial Usages. '
Translation of the title.
2. The meaning of the title--Lî Kî-need not take us so long. There is no occasion to say more on the significance of Lî; the other character, Kî, should have a plural force given to it. What unity belongs to the Books composing it arises from their being all, more or less, occupied with the subject of Lî. Each one, or at least each group, is complete in itself. Each is a Ki; taken together, they are so many Kîs. Only into the separate titles of seven of them, the 13th, 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th, 27th, and 29th, does the name of Kî enter. That character is the symbol for 'the recording of things one by one,' and is often exchanged for another Kî[2], in which the classifying element is sze, the symbol for 'a packet of cocoons,' the compound denoting the unwinding
[1. Introduction, p. 16.
2. The classifier of Kî in the title is ### (yen), the symbol of words; that of this this Kî (###) is ### (sze). ]
and arrangement of the threads'. Wylie's 'Book of Rites' and Callery's 'Mémorial des Rites' always failed to give me a definite idea of the nature of our classic. Sze-mâ Khien's work is called Sze Kî [2], or 'Historical Records,' and Lî Kî might in the same way be rendered 'Ceremonial Records,' but I have preferred to give for the title, 'A Collection of Treatises on the Rules of Propriety or Ceremonial Usages. '
The value of the Lî Kî.
3. The value of the work has been discussed fully by P. Callery in the sixth paragraph of the Introduction to his translation of an abbreviated edition of it, and with much of what he has said I am happy to feel myself in accord. I agree with him, for instance, that the book is 'the most exact and complete monography which the Chinese nation has been able to give of itself to the rest of the human race. ' But this sentence occurs in a description of the Chinese spirit, which is little better than a caricature. 'Le cérémonial,' he says, 'résume l'esprit Chinois. . . . Ses affections, si elle en a, sont satisfaites par le cérémonial; ses devoirs, elle les remplit au moyen du cérémonial; la vertu et le vice, elle les reconnait au cérémonial; en un mot, pour elle le cérémonial c'est l'homme, l'homme moral, l'homme politique, l'homme religieux, Dans ses multiples rapports avec la famille, la société, l'état, la morale et la religion. '
To all this representation the first sentence of our classic is a sufficient reply:--'Always and in everything let there be reverence. ' In hundreds of other passages the same thing is insisted on,--that ceremony without an inspiring reverence is nothing. I do not deny that there is much attention to forms in China with a forgetfulness of the spirit that should animate them. But where is the nation against whose people the same thing may not be charged? The treaties of western nations with China contain an article stipulating for the toleration of Chinese Christians on the ground that, 'The Christian religion, as professed by
[1. Structure of Chinese Characters, p. 132.
2. ###. ]
Protestants or Roman Catholics, inculcates the practice of virtue, and teaches man to do as he would be done by[1]. ' Scores of Chinese, officers, scholars, and others, have, in conversations with myself, asked if such were indeed the nature of Christianity, appealing at the same time to certain things which they alleged that made them doubt it. All that can be said in the matter is this, that as the creeds Of men elsewhere are often better than their practice, so it is in China. Whether it be more so there or here is a point on which different conclusions will be come to, according to the knowledge and prejudices of the speculators.
More may be learned about the religion of the ancient Chinese from this classic than from all the others together. Where the writers got their information about the highest worship and sacrifices of the most ancient times, and about the schools of Shun, we do not know. They expressed the views, doubtless, that were current during the Han dynasty, derived partly from tradition, and partly from old books which were not gathered up, or, possibly, from both those sources. But let not readers expect to find in the Lî Kî anything like a theology. The want of dogmatic teaching of religion in the Confucian system may not be all a disadvantage and defect; but there is a certain amount of melancholy truth in the following observations of Callery:--'Le Lî Kî, celui de tous les King où les questions religieuses auraient dû être traitées tout naturellement, à propos des sacrifices au Ciel, aux Dieux tutélaires, et aux ancêtres, glisse légèment sur tout ce qui est de pure spéculation, et ne mentionne ces graves matières qu'avec une extrême indifférence. Selon moi ceci prouve deux choses: la première, que dans les temps anciens les plus grand génies de la Chine n'ont possédé sur le créateur, sur la nature et les destinées de l'âme, que des notions obscures, incertaines et souvent contradictoires; la seconde, que les Chinois possèdent à un trés faible degré le sentiment religieux, et qu'ils n'éprouvent pas, comme les races de
[1. From the eighth article in the Treaty with Great Britan, 1858. ]
l'occident, le besoin impérieux de sonder les mystères du monde invisible. '
The number of the Kî that are devoted to the subject of the mourning rites shows how great was the regard of the people for the departed members of their families. The solidarity of the family, and even the solidarity of the race, is a sentiment which has always been very strong among them. The doctrine of filial piety has also the prominence in several Books which we might expect.
As to the philosophical and moral ideas which abound in the work, they are, as Callery says, 'in general, sound and profound. ' The way in which they are presented is not unfrequently eccentric, and hedged about with absurd speculations on the course of material nature, but a prolonged study of the most difficult passages will generally bring to light what Chinese scholars call a tâo-li, a ground of reason or analogy, which interests and satisfies the mind.
The Lî Kî as one of the Five King.
4. The position that came gradually to be accorded to the Lî Kî as one of 'The Five King,' par excellence, was a tribute to its intrinsic merit. It did not, like the Kâu Lî, treat of matters peculiar to one dynasty, but of matters important in all time; nor like the Î Lî, of usages belonging to one or more of the official classes, but of those that concerned all men. The category of 'Five King' was formed early, but the 'Three Rituals' were comprehended in it as of equal value, and formed one subdivision of it. So it was early in the Thang dynasty when the collection of 'The Thirteen King' was issued; but ere the close of that dynasty our classic had made good its eminence over the other two Rituals. In the 29th chapter of the Monographs of Thang, page 17, it is said, 'To the charge of each of the Five King two Great Scholars were appointed. The Yî of Kâu, the Shang Shû, the Shih of Mâo, the Khun Khiû, and the Lî Kî are the Five King. '
CHAPTER III.
BRIEF NOTICES OF THE DIFFERENT BOOKS WHICH MAKE UP THE COLLECTION.
BOOK I. KHÜ LÎ.
This first Book in the collection is also the longest, and has been divided because of its length into two Books. In this translation, however, it appears only as one Book in two Sections, which again are subdivided, after the Khien-lung editors, into five Parts and three Parts respectively.
The name Khü Lî is taken from the first two characters in the first paragraph, and the first sentence, 'The Khü Lî says, 'extends over all that follows to the end of the Book. P. Callery, indeed, puts only the first paragraph within inverted commas, as if it alone were from the Khü Lî, and the rest of the Book were by a different hand. He translates the title by 'Rites Divers,' and to his first sentence, 'Le Recueil des rites divers dit,' appends the following note :--'This work, that for a very long time has been lost, was, so far as appears, one of those collections of proverbs and maxims with which philosophy has commenced among nearly all peoples. Although the author does not say so, it is probable that this chapter and the next contain an analysis of that ancient collection, for the great unconnectedness which we find in it agrees well with the variety indicated by the title Khü Lî. ' My own inference from the text, however, is what I have stated above, that the Book is a transcript of the Khü Lî, and not merely a condensation of its contents, or a redaction of them by a different author.
It is not easy to translate the title satisfactorily. According to Kang Hsüan (or Kang Khang-khang), the earliest of all the great commentators on the Lî Kî, 'The Book is named Khü Lî, because it contains matters relating to all the five ceremonial categories. What is said in it about sacrifices belongs to the "auspicious ceremonies;" about the rites of mourning, and the loss or abandonment of one's state, to the "inauspicious;" about the payment of tributory dues and appearances at the royal court, to "the rites of hospitality;" about weapons, chariots, and banners, "to those of war;" and about serving elders, reverencing the aged, giving offerings or presents, and the marriage of daughters, to the "festive ceremonies. "' On this view the title would mean 'Rules belonging to the different classes of ceremonies,' or, more concisely, the 'Rites Divers' of Callery; and Mr. Wylie has called the Book 'The Universal Ritual. '
But this rendering of the title does not suit the proper force of the character Khü, which is the symbol of 'being bent or crooked,' and is used, with substantival meaning, for what is small and appears irregularly. Mention is made in Book XXVIII, ii, 23, Of 'him who cultivates the shoots of goodness in his nature,' those 'shoots' being expressed by this character Khü; and in a note on the passage there I have quoted the words of the commentator Pâi Lü:--'Put a stone on a bamboo shoot, or where the shoot would show itself, and it will travel round the stone, and come out crookedly at its side. ' Thus Khü is employed for what is exhibited partially or in a small degree. Even Kang Hsüan on that passage explains it by 'very small matters;' and the two ablest in my opinion of all the Chinese critics and commentators. , Kû Hsî and Wû Khang (of the Yüan dynasty, A. D. 1249-1333), take our title to mean 'The minuter forms and smaller points of ceremony. ' P. Zottoli is not to be blamed for following them, and styling the Book--'Minutiores Ritus. ' Still even this does not satisfy my own mind. Great rites are mentioned in the treatise as well as small ones. Principles of ceremony are enunciated as well as details. The contents are marked indeed by the 'unconnectedness' which Callery mentions; but a translator cannot help that. The Book may not be as to method all that we could wish, but we must make the best we can of it as it stands; and I have ventured to call it 'A Summary of the Rules of Ceremony. ' It occupies very properly the place at the beginning of the collection, and is a good introduction to the treatises that follow.
Among the Lî books in Lâo Hsin's Catalogue of the Imperial Library of Han, is a Treatise in nine chapters (phien), compiled by Hâu Zhang, and called Khü Thâi Ki, or 'Record made in the Khü Tower. ' The Khü Tower was the name of an educational building, where scholars met in the time of the emperor Hsüan to discuss, questions about ceremonies and other matters connected with the ancient literature, and Hâu Zhang (mentioned in the preceding chapter) kept a record of their proceedings. I should like to think that our Khü Lî is a portion of that Khü Thâi Kî, and am sorry not to be able to adduce Chinese authorities who take the same view. It would relieve us of the -difficulty of accounting for the use of Khü in the title.
BOOK II. THAN KUNG
The name Than Kung given to this Book is taken from the first paragraph in it, where the gentleman so denominated appears attending the mourning rites for an officer of the state of Lû. Nowhere else in the Treatise, however, is there any mention of him, or reference to him. There can be no reason but this, for calling it after him, that his surname and name occur at the commencement of it. He was a native, it is understood, of Lû; but nothing more is known of him.
The Than Kung, like the Khü Lî, is divided into two Books, which appear in this translation as two Sections of one Book. Each Section is subdivided into three Parts.
The whole is chiefly occupied with the observances of the mourning rites. It is valuable because of the information which it. gives about them, and the views prevailing at the time on the subject of death. It contains also many historical incidents about Confucius and others, which we are glad to possess. Some of the commentators, and especially the Khien-lung editors, reject many of them as legendary and fabulous. The whole Book is reduced to very small compass in the expurgated editions of the Lî Kî. We are glad, however, to have the incidents such as they are. Who would not be sorry to want the account of Confucius' death, which is given in I, ii, 20? We seem, moreover, to understand him better from accounts which the Book contains of his intercourse with his disciples, and of their mourning for him.
Dze-yû[1], an eminent member of his school, appears in the first paragraph much to his credit, and similarly afterwards on several occasions; and this has made the Khien-lung editors throw out the suggestion that the Book was compiled by his disciples. It may have been so.
BOOK III. WANG KIH.
According to Lû Kih (died A. D. 192)[2], the Wang Kih, or 'Royal Regulations,' was made by the Great Scholars of the time of the emperor Wan (B. C. 179-157), on the requisition of that sovereign[3]. It professes to give the regulations of the early kings on the classes of the feudal nobles and officers and their emoluments, on their sacrifices, and their care for the aged.
The present translation is, as I said above, the first published in any European language of the whole of the Lî Kî; but another had existed in manuscript for several years, the work of Mr. Alexander Wylie, now unhappily, by loss of eye-sight and otherwise failing health, laid aside from his important Chinese labours. I was fortunate enough to obtain possession of this when I had got to the 35th Book in my own version, and, in carrying the sheets through the press, I have constantly made reference to it. It was written at an early period of Mr. Wylie's Chinese studies, and is not such as a Sinologist of his attainments and research would have produced later on. Still I have been glad to have it by me, though I may venture to say that, in construing the paragraphs and translating the characters, I have not been indebted in a single instance to him or P. Callery. The first six Books, and portions of several others, had been written out, more than once, before I finally left China in 1873; but I began again at the beginning, early in 1883, in preparing the present version. I can hardly hope that, in translating so extensive and peculiar a work. descriptive of customs and things at so remote a period of time, and without the assistance of any Chinese graduate with whom I could have talked over complicated and perplexing paragraphs, I may not have fallen into some mistakes; but I trust they will be found to be very few. My simple and only aim has been, first, to understand the text for myself and then to render it in English, fairly and as well a I could in the time attain to, for my readers.
J. L.
OXFORD,
July 10, 1885.
THE Lî Kî
OR
COLLECTION OF TREATISES ON THE RULES OF PROPRIETY OR CEREMONIAL USAGES.
INTRODUCTION.
CHAPTER I.
THREE DIFFERENT LÎ KING, OR RITUAL BOOKS, ACKNOWLEDGED IN CHINA. THE RECOVERY OF THE FIRST TWO, AND FORMATION OF THE THIRD, UNDER THE HAN DYNASTY.
How Confucius spoke of the Lî.
1. Confucius said, 'It is by the Odes that the mind is aroused; by the Rules of Propriety that the character is established; from Music that the finish is received[1]. ' On another occasion he said, 'Without the Rules of Propriety, respectfulness becomes laborious bustle; carefulness, timidity; boldness, insubordination; and straightforwardness, rudeness[1]. '
These are two specimens of the manner in which Confucius expressed himself about the Lî, the Rules of Propriety or Ceremonial Usages, recognised in his time. It is a natural inference from his language that there were Collections of such Rules which could be read and studied; but he does not expressly say so.
How Mencius spoke of them.
The language of Mencius was more definite. In at least two passages of his works we find the usual form of quotation Lî Yüeh, 'The Lî says[2],' which, according to the analogy of Shih Yüeh, 'The Shih King, or Book of Poetry, says,' might be rendered,
[1. Confucian Analects, Book VIII, 8 and 2.
2. Works of Mencius, II, Part ii, 2. 5; III, Part ii, 3. 3. ]
'The Lî. King says. ' In another passage, he says to a Mr. King Khun, 'Have you not read the Lî? ' It does not appear that Mencius was always referring to one and the same collection of Lî; but it is clear that in his time there were one or more such collections current and well known among his countrymen.
Now there are three Lî King, or three Rituals.
There are now three Chinese classics into which the name Lî enters:--the Î Lî, the Kâu Lî, and the Lî Kî, frequently styled, both by the Chinese themselves and by sinologists, 'The Three Rituals[2]. ' The first two are books of the Kâu dynasty (B. C. 1122-225). The third, of which a complete translation is given in the present work, may contain passages of an earlier date than either of the others; but as a collection in its present form, it does not go higher than the Han dynasty, and was not completed till our second century. It has, however, taken a higher position than those others, and is ranked with the Shû, the Shih, the Yî, and the Khun Khiû, forming one of 'The Five King,' which are acknowledged as the books of greatest authority in China. Other considerations besides antiquity have given, we shall see, its eminence to the Lî Kî.
State of the Lî books at the rise of the Han an dynasty.
2. The monuments of the ancient literature, with the exception, perhaps, of the Yi King, were in a condition of disorder and incompleteness at the rise of the Han dynasty. (B. C. 206). This was the case especially with the Î Lî and Kâu Lî. They had suffered, with the other books, from the fires and proscription of the short-lived dynasty of Khin, the founder of which was bent especially on their destruction[3]; and during the closing centuries of Kâu, in all the period of 'The Warring Kingdoms,' they had been variously mutilated by the contending princess[4].
[1. Works of Mencius, III, ii, 2. 2.
2. See Wylie's Notes on Chinese Literature, p. 4, and Mayers' Chinese Reader's Manual, p. 300.
3. Sze-mâ Khien's Biographies, Book 61 (###), p. 5b. Other testimonies to the fact could be adduced.
4. Mencius V, ii, 2. 2. See also the note of Liû Hsin, appended to his catalogue of Lî works, in the Imperial library of Han. ]
Work of the ancient emperors of Han in recovering the books.
The sovereigns of Han undertook the task of gathering up and arranging the fragments of the ancient books, and executed it well. . In B. C. 213 Shih Hwang Tî of Khin had promulgated his edict forbidding any one to hide and keep in his possession the old writings. This was repealed in B. C. 191 by the emperor Hui, so that it had been in existence only twenty-two years, during most of which, we may presume, it had been inoperative. Arrangements were also made to receive and preserve old tablets which might be presented[1], and to take down in writing what scholars might be able to repeat. In B. C. 164, the emperor Wan ordered 'the Great Scholars' of his court to compile 'the Royal Ordinances,' the fifth of the Books in our Lî Kî[2].
Recovery of the Î Lî.
i. Internal evidence shows that when this treatise was made, the Î Lî, or portions of it at least, had been recovered; and with this agrees the testimony of Sze-mâ Khien, who was born perhaps in that very year[3], and lived to between B. C. 90 and 80. In the 61st Book of his Biographies, referred to in a note above, Khien says, 'Many of the scholars repeated (parts of) the Lî; but no other of them so much as Kâo Thang of Lû; and now we have only the Shih Lî, which he was able to recite. ' In harmony with this statement of the great historian, is the first entry in Liû Hsin's Catalogue of Lî books in the Imperial library of Han:--'56 küan or sections of Lî in the old text, and 17 phien in the (current) text (of the time);' forming, as is universally believed, the present Î Lî, for which the Shih Lî of Khien is merely another name.
That Kâo Thang should have been able to dictate so much of the work will not be thought wonderful by those who
[1. Such was the 'Stone-Conduit Gallery,' which Mayers (Manual, p. 18,5) describes as a building erected by Hsiâo Ho at Khang-an for the reception of the records of the extinct Khin dynasty, about B. C. 200, adding that 'in B. C. 51, the emperor Hsüan appointed a commission of scholars to assemble in this building, and complete the revision of the classical writings. ' But it had also been' intended from the first as a repository for those writings as they were recovered.
2. See the General Mirror of History under that year.
3. Mayers puts his birth 'about B. C. 163,' and his death 'about 86. ']
are familiar with the power of memory displayed by many Chinese scholars even at the present day. The sections in the old text were found in the reign of the emperor Wû (B. C. 140-87), and came into the possession of his brother, known as king Hsien of Ho-kien. We do not know how much this mass of tablets added to the Î Lî, as we now have it, but they confirmed the genuineness of the portion obtained from Kâo.
King Hsien of Ho-kien, and his recovery of the Kâu Lî.
ii. The recovery of the Kâu Lî came not long after, and through the agency of the same king Hsien. No one did so much as he in the restoration of the ancient of literature. By name Teh, and one of the fourteen sons of the emperor King (B. C. 156-141), he was appointed by his father, in B. C. 155, king of Ho-kien, which is still the name of one of the departments of Kih-lî, and there he continued till his death, in 129, the patron of all literary men, and unceasingly pursuing his quest for old books dating from before the Khin dynasty. Multitudes came to him from all quarters, bringing to him the precious tablets which had been preserved in their families or found by them elsewhere. The originals he kept in his own library, and had a copy taken, which he gave to the donor with a valuable gift. We are indebted to him in this way for the preservation of the Tâo Teh King, the works of Mencius, and other precious treasures; but I have only to notice here his services in connexion with the Lî books[1].
Some one [2] brought to him the tablets of the Kâu Lî, then called Kâu Kwan, 'The Official Book of Kâu,' and purporting to contain a complete account of the organised government of the dynasty of Kâu in six sections. The sixth section, however, which should have supplied a list of the officers in the department of the minister of Works,
[1. See the account of king Hsien in the twenty-third chapter of the Biographies in the History of the first Han dynasty. Hsien was the king's posthumous title (###), denoting 'The Profound and Intelligent. '
2 The Catalogue of the Sui Dynasty's (A. D. 589-618) Imperial library says this was a scholar of the surname Lî (###). I have been unable to trace the authority for the statement farther back. ]
with their functions, was wanting, and the king offered to pay 1000 pieces of gold to any one who should supply the missing tablets, but in vain[1]. He presented the tablets which he had obtained at the court of his half-brother, the emperor Wû; but the treasure remained uncared for in one of the imperial repositories till the next century; when it came into the charge of Liû Hsin. Hsin replaced the missing portion from another old work, called Khâo Kun Kî, which Wylie renders by 'The Artificers' Record. ' This has ever since continued to appear as the sixth section of the whole work, for the charge of which Hsin obtained the appointment of a special board of scholars, such as had from the first been entrusted with the care of the Î Lî. The Kâu Lî is a constitutional and not a ritual work. The last entry in Hsin's Catalogue of Lî Books is:--'The Kâu Kwan in six sections; and a treatise on the Kâu Kwan in four sections. ' That is the proper name for it. It was not called the Kâu Lî till the Thang dynasty[2].
Formation of the Lî Kî.
iii. We come to the formation of the text of the Lî Kî, in which we are more particularly interested. We cannot speak of its recovery, for though parts of it had been in existence during the Kâu dynasty, many of its Books cannot claim a higher antiquity than the period of the Han. All that is known about the authorship of them all will be found in the notices which form the last chapter of this Introduction;
After the entry in Lia Hsin's Catalogue about the recovered
[1. This is related in the Catalogue of the Sui dynasty, It could not be in Khien's sixty-first chapter of Biographies, because the Kâu Kwan was not known, or, at least, not made public, in Khien's time. The Sui writers, no doubt, took it from some biography of the Han, which has escaped me.
2. A complete translation of the Kâu Lî appeared at Paris in 1851, the work of Edward Biot, who had died himself before its publication, before his fiftieth year. According to a note in Callery's 'Memorial des Rites' (p. 191), the labour of its preparation hastened Biot's death. There are some errors in the version, but they are few. I have had occasion to refer to hundreds of passages in it, and always with an increasing admiration of the author's general resources and knowledge of Chinese. His early death was the greatest loss which the cause of sinology has sustained. His labours, chiefly on Chinese subjects, had been incessant from 1835. The perusal of them has often brought to my memory the words of Newton, 'If Mr. Cotes had lived, we should have known something. ' Is there no sinologist who will now undertake a complete translation of the Î Lî? ]
text of the Î Lî, 'there follows--'131 phien of Kî,' that is, so many different records or treatises on the subject of Lî. These had also been collected by king Hsien, and Kû Hsî's note about them is that they were 'Treatises composed by the disciples of the seventy disciples,' meaning by 'the seventy disciples' those of Confucius' followers who had been most in his society and, profited most from his instructions. These 131 phien contained, no doubt, the germ of our Lî Kî; but there they remained for about a century in the imperial repositories, undigested and uncared for, and constantly having other treatises of a similar nature added to them.
Council of B. C. 511.
At last, in B. C. 51, the emperor Hsüan (B. C. 71-47) convoked a large assembly of Great Scholars to meet in the Stone-Conduit Gallery, and discuss the text of the recovered classics[1]. A prominent member of this assembly, the president of it I suppose, was Liû Hsiang, himself a celebrated writer and a scion of the imperial house, who appears to have had the principal charge of all the repositories. Among the other members, and in special connexion with the Lî works, we find the name of Tâi Shang, who will again come before us[2].
B. C. 26.
We do not know what the deliberations of the Great Scholars resulted in, but twenty-five years later the emperor Khang caused another search to be made throughout the empire for books that might hitherto have escaped notice; and, when it was completed, he ordered Hsiang to examine all the contents of the repositories, and collate the various copies of the classics. From this came the preparation of a catalogue; and Hsiang dying at the age of seventy-two, in B. C. 9, before it was completed, the work was delegated to his third and youngest son Hsin. His catalogue we happily possess. It mentions, in addition to the Î Lî and
[1. See the Details in the General Mirror of History, under B. C. 51.
2. See the 58th Book of Biographies (###) in the History of the first Han, and the Catalogue of the Sui Library. ]
Kâu Lî, 199 phien of Lî treatises. The résumé appended to the Lî books in the Catalogue of the Su i Dynasty, omitting works mentioned by Hsin, and inserting two others, says that Hsiang had in his hands altogether 214 phien. What was to be done with this mass of tablets, or the written copies made from them?
Hâu Zhang and the two Tâis
The most distinguished of the Lî scholars in the time of the emperors Hsüan and Khang was a Hâu Zhang, the author of the compilation called in Hsin's Catalogue Khü Tâi Kî; and two of his disciples, Tâi Teh and Tâi Shang, cousins[1], the name of the latter of whom has already been mentioned as a member of the council of B. C. 51, were also celebrated for their ability. Teh, the older of the two, and commonly called Tâ Tâi, or 'the Greater Tâi,' while Hsiang was yet alive, digested the mass of phien, and in doing so reduced their number to 85. The younger, called Hsiâo Tâi, or 'the Lesser Tâi,' doing the same for his cousin's work, reduced it to 46 treatises. This second condensation of the Lî documents met with general acceptance, and was styled the Lî Kî. Shang himself wrote a work in twelve chapters, called 'A Discussion of the Doubts of Scholars about the Lî Kî,' which, though now lost, was existing in the time of Sui.
Mâ Yung and Kang Hsüan.
Through Khiâo Zan and others, scholars of renown in their day, the redaction passed on to the well-known Mâ Yung (A. D. 79-166), who added to Shang's books the Yüeh Ling, the Ming
[1.
Sinologists, without exception I believe, have called Shang a 'nephew' of Teh, overlooking the way in which the relationship between them is expressed in Chinese. Shang is always Teh's ###, and not simply###. Foreign students have overlooked the force of the phrase and, more fully, ###. Teh and Shang's father had the same grand-father, and were themselves the sons of brothers. They were therefore what we call first cousins, and Teh and Shang were second cousins. The point is unimportant, but it is well to be correct even in small matters. Not unimportant, however, is the error of Callery (Introduction, p. 6), who says, 'Le neveu, homme dépravé, beaucoup plus adonné aux plaigirs, qu'à 1'étude, retrancha encore davantage et fixa le nombre des chapitres à 46. ' No such stigma rests on the character of Taî Shang, and I am sure translators have reason to be grateful to him for condensing, as he did, the result of his cousin's labours. ]
Thang Wei, and the Yo Kî making their number in all forty-nine, though, according to the arrangement adopted in the present translation, they still amount only to forty-six. From Mâ, again, it passed to his pupil Kang Hsüan (A. D. 127-200), in whom be was obliged to acknowledge a greater scholar than himself.
Thus the Lî Kî was formed. It is not necessary to pursue its history farther. Kang was the scholar of his age, and may be compared, in scholarship, with the later Kû Hsî. And he has been fortunate in the preservation of his works. He applied himself to all the three Rituals, and his labours on them all, the Kâu Lî, the Î Lî, and the Lî Kî, remain. His commentaries on them are to be found in the great work of 'The Thirteen King' of the Thang dynasty. There they appear, followed by the glosses, illustrations, and paraphrases of Khung Ying-tâ.
Zhâi Yung and his manusculpt.
In A. D. 175, while Kang was yet alive, Zhâi Yung, a scholar and officer of many gifts, superintended the work of engraving on stone the text of all the Confucian classics. Only fragments of that great manusculpt {sic} remain to the present day, but others of the same nature were subsequently made. We may feel assured that we have the text of the Lî Kî and other old Chinese books, as it was 1800 years ago, more correctly than any existing Manuscripts give us that of any works of the West, Semitic, or Greek, or Latin, of anything like equal antiquity.
Lî of the Greater Tâi.
3. A few sentences on the Lî of the Greater Tâi will fitly close this chapter. He handed down his voluminous compilation to a Hsü Liang of Lang Yeh in the present Shan-tung[1], and in his family it was transmitted; but if any commentaries on it were published, there is no trace of them in history. As the shorter work of his cousin obtained a wide circulation, his fell into neglect, and, as Kû Î-zun says, was simply put upon the shelf. Still there appears in the Sui Catalogue these two entries:--'The Lî Kî of Tâ Tâi, in 13 Sections,' and 'The Hsiâ
[1. ###. ]
Hsiâo Kang, in 1 Section,' with a note by the editor that it was compiled by Tâ Tâi. This little tractate may, or may not, have been also included in one of the 13 Sections. There are entries also about Tâ Tâi's work in the catalogues of the Thang and Sung dynasties, which have given rise to many discussions. Some of the Sung scholars even regarded it as a 14th King. In the large collection of 'Books of Han and Wei,' a portion of the Lî of Tâ Tâi is still current, 39 Book in 10 Sections, including the fragment of the Hsiâ dynasty, of which a version, along with the text, was published in 1882 by Professor Douglas of King's College, under the title of 'The Calendar of the Hsiâ Dynasty. ' I have gone over all the portion in the Han and Wei Collection, and must pronounce it very inferior to the compilation of the Hsiâo or Lesser Tâi. This inferiority, and not the bulk, merely, was the reason why from the first it has been comparatively little attended to.
CHAPTER II.
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE CHINESE CHARACTER CALLED LÎ. MEANING OF THE TITLE LÎ KÎ. VALUE OF THE WORK.
Lî is a symbol of religious import.
1. The Chinese character Lî admits of a great variety of terms in translating a work where it abounds into any of our western languages. In order fully to apprehend its significance, we must try to get bold of the fundamental ideas which it was intended to convey. And these are two. First, when we consult the Shwo Wan, the oldest Chinese dictionary, we find Lî defined as 'a step or act; that whereby we serve spiritual beings and obtain happiness. ' The character was to the author, Hsü Shan, an ideagram of religious import; and we can see that he rightly interpreted the intention of its maker or makers. It consists of two elements, separately called khih and lî[1]. That on the left is the symbol,
[1. ###. ]
determining the category of meaning to which the compound belongs. It was the earliest figure employed to indicate spiritual beings, and enters into characters denoting spirits, sacrifices, and prayer[1]. That on the right, called lî, is phonetic, but even it is the symbol for (a vessel used in performing rites;' and if, as the Khang-hsî dictionary seems to say, it was anciently used alone for the present compound, still the spiritual significance would attach to it, and the addition of the khih to complete the character, whensoever it was made, shows that the makers considered the rites in which the vessel was used to possess in the first place a religious import.
Lî is a symbol for the feeling of propriety.
Next, the character is used, in moral and philosophical disquisitions, to designate one of the primary constituents of human nature. Those, as set forth by Mencius, are four; 'not fused into us from without,' not produced, that is, by any force of circumstances, but 'belonging naturally to us, as our four limbs do. ' They are benevolence (zan), righteousness (î), propriety (lî), and understanding (kîh). Our possession of the first is proved by the feeling of distress at the sight of suffering; of the second, by our feelings of shame and dislike; of the third, by our feelings of modesty and courtesy; of the fourth, by our consciousness of approving and disapproving[2].
Thus the character lî, in the concrete application of it, denotes the manifestations, and in its imperative use, the rules, of propriety. This twofold symbolism of it--the religious and the moral--must be kept in mind in the study of our classic. A life ordered in harmony with it would realise the highest Chinese ideal, and surely a very high ideal, of human character.
But never and, nowhere has it been possible for men to maintain this high standard of living. In China and elsewhere the lî have become, in the usages of society in. its various relationships, matters of course, forms without the
[1. E. g. ### (shan), ###, (kî), ### (khi).
2. Mencius, II, i, 6; VI, i, 6. 7. ]
spirit, and hence we cannot always translate the character by the same term. It would be easy to add to the number of words, more or less synonymous, in French or English or any other Aryan language, which Callery has heaped together in the following passage:--'Autant que possible, j'ai traduit Lî par le mot Rite, dont le sens est susceptible à une grande étendue; mais il faut convenir que, suivant les circonstances où il est employé, il peut signifier--Cérémonial, Cérémonies, Pratiques cérémoniales, L'étiquette, Politesse, Urbanité, Courtoisie, Honnêteté, Bonnes manières, Égards, Bonne éducation, Bienséance, Les formes, Les convenances, Savoir-vivre, Décorum, Décence, Dignité personnelle, Moralité de conduite, Ordre Social, Devoirs de Société, Lois Sociales, Devoirs, Droit, Morale, Lois hiérarchiques, Offrande, Usages, Coutumes[1]. ' I have made little use in my translation of the word Rite or Rites, which Callery says he had endeavoured to adhere to as much as possible, but I do not think I have allowed myself so much liberty in other terms in my English as he has done in his French. For the symbol in the title I have said 'Rules of Propriety or Ceremonial Usages. '
Translation of the title.
2. The meaning of the title--Lî Kî-need not take us so long. There is no occasion to say more on the significance of Lî; the other character, Kî, should have a plural force given to it. What unity belongs to the Books composing it arises from their being all, more or less, occupied with the subject of Lî. Each one, or at least each group, is complete in itself. Each is a Ki; taken together, they are so many Kîs. Only into the separate titles of seven of them, the 13th, 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th, 27th, and 29th, does the name of Kî enter. That character is the symbol for 'the recording of things one by one,' and is often exchanged for another Kî[2], in which the classifying element is sze, the symbol for 'a packet of cocoons,' the compound denoting the unwinding
[1. Introduction, p. 16.
2. The classifier of Kî in the title is ### (yen), the symbol of words; that of this this Kî (###) is ### (sze). ]
and arrangement of the threads'. Wylie's 'Book of Rites' and Callery's 'Mémorial des Rites' always failed to give me a definite idea of the nature of our classic. Sze-mâ Khien's work is called Sze Kî [2], or 'Historical Records,' and Lî Kî might in the same way be rendered 'Ceremonial Records,' but I have preferred to give for the title, 'A Collection of Treatises on the Rules of Propriety or Ceremonial Usages. '
The value of the Lî Kî.
3. The value of the work has been discussed fully by P. Callery in the sixth paragraph of the Introduction to his translation of an abbreviated edition of it, and with much of what he has said I am happy to feel myself in accord. I agree with him, for instance, that the book is 'the most exact and complete monography which the Chinese nation has been able to give of itself to the rest of the human race. ' But this sentence occurs in a description of the Chinese spirit, which is little better than a caricature. 'Le cérémonial,' he says, 'résume l'esprit Chinois. . . . Ses affections, si elle en a, sont satisfaites par le cérémonial; ses devoirs, elle les remplit au moyen du cérémonial; la vertu et le vice, elle les reconnait au cérémonial; en un mot, pour elle le cérémonial c'est l'homme, l'homme moral, l'homme politique, l'homme religieux, Dans ses multiples rapports avec la famille, la société, l'état, la morale et la religion. '
To all this representation the first sentence of our classic is a sufficient reply:--'Always and in everything let there be reverence. ' In hundreds of other passages the same thing is insisted on,--that ceremony without an inspiring reverence is nothing. I do not deny that there is much attention to forms in China with a forgetfulness of the spirit that should animate them. But where is the nation against whose people the same thing may not be charged? The treaties of western nations with China contain an article stipulating for the toleration of Chinese Christians on the ground that, 'The Christian religion, as professed by
[1. Structure of Chinese Characters, p. 132.
2. ###. ]
Protestants or Roman Catholics, inculcates the practice of virtue, and teaches man to do as he would be done by[1]. ' Scores of Chinese, officers, scholars, and others, have, in conversations with myself, asked if such were indeed the nature of Christianity, appealing at the same time to certain things which they alleged that made them doubt it. All that can be said in the matter is this, that as the creeds Of men elsewhere are often better than their practice, so it is in China. Whether it be more so there or here is a point on which different conclusions will be come to, according to the knowledge and prejudices of the speculators.
More may be learned about the religion of the ancient Chinese from this classic than from all the others together. Where the writers got their information about the highest worship and sacrifices of the most ancient times, and about the schools of Shun, we do not know. They expressed the views, doubtless, that were current during the Han dynasty, derived partly from tradition, and partly from old books which were not gathered up, or, possibly, from both those sources. But let not readers expect to find in the Lî Kî anything like a theology. The want of dogmatic teaching of religion in the Confucian system may not be all a disadvantage and defect; but there is a certain amount of melancholy truth in the following observations of Callery:--'Le Lî Kî, celui de tous les King où les questions religieuses auraient dû être traitées tout naturellement, à propos des sacrifices au Ciel, aux Dieux tutélaires, et aux ancêtres, glisse légèment sur tout ce qui est de pure spéculation, et ne mentionne ces graves matières qu'avec une extrême indifférence. Selon moi ceci prouve deux choses: la première, que dans les temps anciens les plus grand génies de la Chine n'ont possédé sur le créateur, sur la nature et les destinées de l'âme, que des notions obscures, incertaines et souvent contradictoires; la seconde, que les Chinois possèdent à un trés faible degré le sentiment religieux, et qu'ils n'éprouvent pas, comme les races de
[1. From the eighth article in the Treaty with Great Britan, 1858. ]
l'occident, le besoin impérieux de sonder les mystères du monde invisible. '
The number of the Kî that are devoted to the subject of the mourning rites shows how great was the regard of the people for the departed members of their families. The solidarity of the family, and even the solidarity of the race, is a sentiment which has always been very strong among them. The doctrine of filial piety has also the prominence in several Books which we might expect.
As to the philosophical and moral ideas which abound in the work, they are, as Callery says, 'in general, sound and profound. ' The way in which they are presented is not unfrequently eccentric, and hedged about with absurd speculations on the course of material nature, but a prolonged study of the most difficult passages will generally bring to light what Chinese scholars call a tâo-li, a ground of reason or analogy, which interests and satisfies the mind.
The Lî Kî as one of the Five King.
4. The position that came gradually to be accorded to the Lî Kî as one of 'The Five King,' par excellence, was a tribute to its intrinsic merit. It did not, like the Kâu Lî, treat of matters peculiar to one dynasty, but of matters important in all time; nor like the Î Lî, of usages belonging to one or more of the official classes, but of those that concerned all men. The category of 'Five King' was formed early, but the 'Three Rituals' were comprehended in it as of equal value, and formed one subdivision of it. So it was early in the Thang dynasty when the collection of 'The Thirteen King' was issued; but ere the close of that dynasty our classic had made good its eminence over the other two Rituals. In the 29th chapter of the Monographs of Thang, page 17, it is said, 'To the charge of each of the Five King two Great Scholars were appointed. The Yî of Kâu, the Shang Shû, the Shih of Mâo, the Khun Khiû, and the Lî Kî are the Five King. '
CHAPTER III.
BRIEF NOTICES OF THE DIFFERENT BOOKS WHICH MAKE UP THE COLLECTION.
BOOK I. KHÜ LÎ.
This first Book in the collection is also the longest, and has been divided because of its length into two Books. In this translation, however, it appears only as one Book in two Sections, which again are subdivided, after the Khien-lung editors, into five Parts and three Parts respectively.
The name Khü Lî is taken from the first two characters in the first paragraph, and the first sentence, 'The Khü Lî says, 'extends over all that follows to the end of the Book. P. Callery, indeed, puts only the first paragraph within inverted commas, as if it alone were from the Khü Lî, and the rest of the Book were by a different hand. He translates the title by 'Rites Divers,' and to his first sentence, 'Le Recueil des rites divers dit,' appends the following note :--'This work, that for a very long time has been lost, was, so far as appears, one of those collections of proverbs and maxims with which philosophy has commenced among nearly all peoples. Although the author does not say so, it is probable that this chapter and the next contain an analysis of that ancient collection, for the great unconnectedness which we find in it agrees well with the variety indicated by the title Khü Lî. ' My own inference from the text, however, is what I have stated above, that the Book is a transcript of the Khü Lî, and not merely a condensation of its contents, or a redaction of them by a different author.
It is not easy to translate the title satisfactorily. According to Kang Hsüan (or Kang Khang-khang), the earliest of all the great commentators on the Lî Kî, 'The Book is named Khü Lî, because it contains matters relating to all the five ceremonial categories. What is said in it about sacrifices belongs to the "auspicious ceremonies;" about the rites of mourning, and the loss or abandonment of one's state, to the "inauspicious;" about the payment of tributory dues and appearances at the royal court, to "the rites of hospitality;" about weapons, chariots, and banners, "to those of war;" and about serving elders, reverencing the aged, giving offerings or presents, and the marriage of daughters, to the "festive ceremonies. "' On this view the title would mean 'Rules belonging to the different classes of ceremonies,' or, more concisely, the 'Rites Divers' of Callery; and Mr. Wylie has called the Book 'The Universal Ritual. '
But this rendering of the title does not suit the proper force of the character Khü, which is the symbol of 'being bent or crooked,' and is used, with substantival meaning, for what is small and appears irregularly. Mention is made in Book XXVIII, ii, 23, Of 'him who cultivates the shoots of goodness in his nature,' those 'shoots' being expressed by this character Khü; and in a note on the passage there I have quoted the words of the commentator Pâi Lü:--'Put a stone on a bamboo shoot, or where the shoot would show itself, and it will travel round the stone, and come out crookedly at its side. ' Thus Khü is employed for what is exhibited partially or in a small degree. Even Kang Hsüan on that passage explains it by 'very small matters;' and the two ablest in my opinion of all the Chinese critics and commentators. , Kû Hsî and Wû Khang (of the Yüan dynasty, A. D. 1249-1333), take our title to mean 'The minuter forms and smaller points of ceremony. ' P. Zottoli is not to be blamed for following them, and styling the Book--'Minutiores Ritus. ' Still even this does not satisfy my own mind. Great rites are mentioned in the treatise as well as small ones. Principles of ceremony are enunciated as well as details. The contents are marked indeed by the 'unconnectedness' which Callery mentions; but a translator cannot help that. The Book may not be as to method all that we could wish, but we must make the best we can of it as it stands; and I have ventured to call it 'A Summary of the Rules of Ceremony. ' It occupies very properly the place at the beginning of the collection, and is a good introduction to the treatises that follow.
Among the Lî books in Lâo Hsin's Catalogue of the Imperial Library of Han, is a Treatise in nine chapters (phien), compiled by Hâu Zhang, and called Khü Thâi Ki, or 'Record made in the Khü Tower. ' The Khü Tower was the name of an educational building, where scholars met in the time of the emperor Hsüan to discuss, questions about ceremonies and other matters connected with the ancient literature, and Hâu Zhang (mentioned in the preceding chapter) kept a record of their proceedings. I should like to think that our Khü Lî is a portion of that Khü Thâi Kî, and am sorry not to be able to adduce Chinese authorities who take the same view. It would relieve us of the -difficulty of accounting for the use of Khü in the title.
BOOK II. THAN KUNG
The name Than Kung given to this Book is taken from the first paragraph in it, where the gentleman so denominated appears attending the mourning rites for an officer of the state of Lû. Nowhere else in the Treatise, however, is there any mention of him, or reference to him. There can be no reason but this, for calling it after him, that his surname and name occur at the commencement of it. He was a native, it is understood, of Lû; but nothing more is known of him.
The Than Kung, like the Khü Lî, is divided into two Books, which appear in this translation as two Sections of one Book. Each Section is subdivided into three Parts.
The whole is chiefly occupied with the observances of the mourning rites. It is valuable because of the information which it. gives about them, and the views prevailing at the time on the subject of death. It contains also many historical incidents about Confucius and others, which we are glad to possess. Some of the commentators, and especially the Khien-lung editors, reject many of them as legendary and fabulous. The whole Book is reduced to very small compass in the expurgated editions of the Lî Kî. We are glad, however, to have the incidents such as they are. Who would not be sorry to want the account of Confucius' death, which is given in I, ii, 20? We seem, moreover, to understand him better from accounts which the Book contains of his intercourse with his disciples, and of their mourning for him.
Dze-yû[1], an eminent member of his school, appears in the first paragraph much to his credit, and similarly afterwards on several occasions; and this has made the Khien-lung editors throw out the suggestion that the Book was compiled by his disciples. It may have been so.
BOOK III. WANG KIH.
According to Lû Kih (died A. D. 192)[2], the Wang Kih, or 'Royal Regulations,' was made by the Great Scholars of the time of the emperor Wan (B. C. 179-157), on the requisition of that sovereign[3]. It professes to give the regulations of the early kings on the classes of the feudal nobles and officers and their emoluments, on their sacrifices, and their care for the aged.
