Hu Xinsheng of Shandong University presided over and completed the National Social Science Fund project "History of Ritual Development in the Zhou Dynasty" (project approval number: 12BZS017), and the final result was a monograph of the same name. The members of the research team are Zhang Jinguang and Zeng Zhenyu.
I. Significance and purpose of the study
The ritual system of the Zhou Dynasty occupies a very important position in the whole history of the development of Chinese ritual system. A history of the development of the etiquette system in the Zhou Dynasty is the history of the gradual establishment and maturity of the cultural character and normative system of the Chinese etiquette system, and the history of the shaping of the Chinese etiquette civilization. The greatest achievement of this period of history is that the Confucianists wrote ritual documents such as Etiquette on the basis of summarizing and sorting out the ancient ritual materials, which provided a classic basis for the ritual design and interpretation of ritual for more than 2000 years later. The development of etiquette system since the Western Zhou Dynasty ended with the appearance of written etiquette classics, which laid the foundation for the further development of Chinese etiquette civilization. From the perspective of the formation of etiquette civilization, it is undoubtedly of great significance to investigate the historical trend of the ritual system of the Zhou Dynasty, and reveal the historical context of the ritual system of the Zhou Dynasty moving forward along the track of human culture, standardization, and codification.
At present, the research on the history of ritual system in the Zhou Dynasty is relatively weak in general, and the number of monographs is obviously small. Most of the existing works focus on a certain ritual system of the Zhou Dynasty, without combing the historical clues of the development and evolution of the ritual system of the Zhou Dynasty from a macro perspective. Although some works have discussed the ritual system of the Zhou Dynasty according to the times, there is a lack of analysis on the development context and cultural significance of the ritual system of the Zhou Dynasty. This achievement attempts to make up for the shortcomings of previous studies. On the basis of full investigation of relevant historical facts, it discusses the development process and cultural significance of the ritual system of the Zhou Dynasty with new concepts and new viewpoints, and strives to write a monograph on the history of ritual system with a cultural history perspective and position that can link the changes of ancient and modern times.
II Main contents of achievements
This achievement focuses on the civilized process of the ritual system in the early Western Zhou Dynasty, as well as the inheritance and transformation of the ritual system in the Zhou Dynasty to the commercial ritual system and other major issues, and puts forward new theories or makes new theoretical generalizations on several important issues in the history of the ritual system in the Western Zhou Dynasty.
This achievement includes introduction, main content and conclusion. The introduction part discusses the definition of the concept of "ritual system", the research methods of the history of ritual system, the general situation of ritual system from prehistory to Xia and Shang dynasties, and the division of the history of ritual system in Zhou Dynasty. The main content is divided into four chapters. The first chapter discusses the major changes in the field of etiquette in the early Western Zhou Dynasty, focusing on the main points of this book. The second chapter discusses the significance of the newly created ritual system in the Western Zhou Dynasty from the perspective of clan consciousness, involving the ritual system of corpse sacrifice, female characters marking family names, couple burial, bronze tripod symbol, being born in the field and living in the silkworm, respecting the elderly and providing for the elderly. The third chapter discusses the significance of the new ritual system in the Western Zhou Dynasty from the perspective of patriarchal concept, involving the worship of heaven and ancestors, the name of the Son of Heaven, the ceremony of enfeoffment, the vassals' assistance, the formation of a memorial temple, and so on. The fourth chapter examines the changes of the ritual style in the Western Zhou Dynasty, and analyzes the development trend of the weakening of witchcraft elements in the ritual system in the early Western Zhou Dynasty. The conclusion summarizes the main idea of the book.
The basic understanding of the ritual system in the early Western Zhou Dynasty is as follows.
The new rites of the Western Zhou Dynasty, including the new ritual system created by the people of the Zhou Dynasty and the traditional ritual system strengthened by the people of the Zhou Dynasty, are guided by the ideology of clan and patriarchal clan system. The spirit of the combination of "kinship", filial piety and "respect and respect", the spirit of the combination of clan ethics and political ethics shown in the ritual system of the Zhou Dynasty are also the fundamental spirit of Chinese traditional culture. The ritual systems formed in the early Western Zhou Dynasty, such as setting up a corpse like god, not marrying with the same family name, "six ceremonies" for marriage, joint burial of couples, encouraging farmers by land, respecting the elderly and providing for the aged, and food utensils, were closely related to the development of clan consciousness; The spirit of patriarchal clan system is directly reflected in the system of offering sacrifices to heaven and ancestors, the system of naming the "Son of Heaven", the system of civil and military temples, the system of offering sacrifices to near ancestors, the ceremony of enfeoffment of feudal lords and the system of offering sacrifices to feudal lords, etc. These ritual systems either did not appear in the Xia and Shang Dynasties, or had sprouts but had not yet been fully developed. The active consciousness of clan and patriarchal clan system made the ritual system of the Western Zhou Dynasty take on a new mental outlook, which led the development of the Chinese ritual system to the road of emphasizing kinship and morality, which made the Chinese ritual system have a clear difference from the ritual culture of other nations in the world.
The ritual system in the early Western Zhou Dynasty has shown a different style and style from that in the Shang Dynasty. The clan consciousness and patriarchal concept advocated by the people of the Zhou Dynasty had a strong impact on a large number of witchcraft cultural elements contained in the commercial rites. The establishment of the new style of the ritual system in the early Zhou Dynasty was not completed by promoting and publicizing the new ritual, but by not using the commercial ritual as the main way. The Japanese name system popular in the Shang Dynasty and the Zhou sacrificial ceremony system associated with it, the burial system of sacrificing the dog in the waist pit, frequent and intensive divination activities, and the wild and terrible music and dance in the mulberry forest are all mysterious and manic; The custom of sacrificing people, the various methods of killing animals, and the ritual system of burning people for rain, which was popular in the Shang Dynasty, all had a strong smell of blood. The fact that the Zhou people didn't use these rites means that the shaman flavor in the Western Zhou ritual tends to fade, and the ritual system has since embarked on a path of pursuing the beauty of Su Yong.
III. Innovation of achievements
This achievement first discusses the development stage and historical status of the ritual system of the Zhou Dynasty from the perspective of cultural history. Compared with the previous works on the history of ritual system in the Pre Qin period, the innovative pursuit of this achievement in research methods is mainly manifested in the following aspects.
(1) It focuses on studying the ritual system of the Zhou Dynasty from the perspective of cultural comparison, and reveals the significance of the Western Zhou ritual system in the development history of Chinese ritual system, as well as the characteristics of Chinese ritual civilization shown by the Western Zhou ritual system. This study describes several new rites in the early Western Zhou Dynasty, not only focusing on describing these rites themselves, but also trying to explore the substantive differences between Chinese ritual civilization and western religious civilization. This research idea runs through the whole book and determines the structure system of the book. The author puts forward the concept of "ethnocentric values with clan consciousness and patriarchal concept as the core" to control the book. The views in the book are consistent, systematic and strictly adhere to the principle of positivism. This achievement strives to pursue the unity of academic and ideological nature, and the ideological value of academic achievements. The purpose of this kind of writing and the specific discussion based on it are very different from all previous works on the history of ritual system in the Pre Qin Dynasty.
(2) Pay attention to the research method of combining the history of ritual system with the history of ideology. The manuscript pays close attention to the interaction between the ritual system and the ritual theory, and describes that a ritual system in the early Zhou Dynasty must be analyzed in combination with the related thoughts of later Confucianism. The goal of the manuscript is to explain the formation process of Chinese ritual education by analyzing the interaction between ritual system and ritual theory, which is different from previous works that simply analyze the ritual system of Zhou Dynasty and Confucian ritual theory.
(3) The main points raised in this achievement are as follows.
① "Three main lines and three stages of ritual system development in Zhou Dynasty". The development trend of the etiquette system in the Zhou Dynasty was mainly manifested in three aspects: civilization, standardization and canonization. These three trends are closely related and complement each other, leading the development of the ritual system together, and forming three historical clues to the development of the ritual system in the Zhou Dynasty. The three main lines of the development of the ritual system in the Zhou Dynasty did not go hand in hand with the same speed and intensity in the historical process, but dominated the development of the ritual system. The three main lines in turn became the theme of the development of the ritual system, which made the evolution of the ritual system of the Zhou Dynasty present a stage: the early Western Zhou Dynasty was a period of major changes in the form of ritual system, which can also be called the transformation period of Chinese ritual civilization; The theme of ritual development from the middle of Western Zhou Dynasty to the middle of Spring and Autumn Period is standardization; From the late Spring and Autumn Period to the Warring States Period, the mainstream ritual system was tested by all kinds of chaos and finally became classic.
The theory of "three main lines and three stages" is intended to make a macro grasp of the development process of the ritual system of the Zhou Dynasty, that is, the process of the ritual system of the Zhou Dynasty moving towards ritual education.
② "Shang and Zhou ritual material - technological inheritance and spirit - concept change theory". The inheritance of the ritual system at the time of Shang and Zhou dynasties was mainly related to the material technology level, while the change took place in the deeper level of spiritual consciousness and social and political concepts. The continuity and integration of the Shang and Zhou Dynasties history and the Chinese civilization are due to the inheritance of material and technology, while the transformation of spiritual consciousness makes the Chinese civilization mature and stereotyped through renewal and qualitative change. The accumulation of quantity and the mutation of quality coexist in the field of etiquette in the Shang and Zhou dynasties. The dominant ideology of ritual system in the Shang and Zhou dynasties has undergone a major change, which is a transformation of spirit and cultural type, and a fission change in the history of Chinese ritual system. This change was the decisive factor leading the development of the ritual system of the Zhou Dynasty.
③ "The ritual system of the Western Zhou Dynasty established the theory of ethnocentric value system". The main manifestation is that the clan ethics with "filial piety" and "friendship" as the core has become the basic principle guiding the establishment of etiquette system and etiquette practice. The core connotation of ethnocentrism is to attach great importance to consanguinity and patriarchal clan system, which includes two closely related basic concepts, namely, clan consciousness and patriarchal clan system. The social and cultural characteristics derived from clan consciousness are to highlight the value of kinship and human feelings, and to weaken the awareness of legal rules; Highlight clan value and group value, and downplay individual rights and individual freedom consciousness. The patriarchal clan concept is derived from the phenomenon of highlighting parental authority and natural identity differences, and weakening the equality consciousness of social members. The clan consciousness and patriarchal clan concept together contribute to the religious belief that maintains these social and cultural characteristics - highly developed ancestor worship. It is an important feature of the Zhou Dynasty's ritual system that it is endowed with the connotation of clan ethics and morality.
④ "The cultural tradition of Zhou states determines the spiritual orientation of the Western Zhou ritual system.". The ritual system reform in the early Western Zhou Dynasty was not a sudden political event, but a cultural change with deep reasons. The cultural differences between the Shang and Zhou nationalities existed as early as the pre Zhou period. When the Zhou people overthrew the Shang Dynasty, it became a natural trend to establish and develop the ritual system of the dynasty with the cultural spirit of the Zhou state as the leading force. The traditional rites and customs of the Zhou state, such as setting up a corpse like god, offering sacrifices to heaven and ancestors, paying attention to animals, paying attention to fish sacrifice, no Japanese name system, no Zhou sacrifice system, no large-scale human sacrifice, no large-scale killing of animals, no waist pit sacrificial dog burial system, paying attention to the birth of field parents, paying attention to the elderly, no marriage with the same surname, and female characters marking the surname, all had an important impact on the development of the ritual system of the Zhou Dynasty. Most of these rites and customs showed the spiritual character of emphasizing clans and patriarchal clan system, which fundamentally determined the development direction and overall characteristics of the ritual system of the Western Zhou Dynasty. Since the Western Zhou Dynasty, most of the ritual elements related to the spiritual value, the idea of governing the country, and the principles of etiquette came from the Zhou culture.
⑤ "The theory that the primary and secondary cultural elements of Shang and Zhou dynasties in the ritual system of the Western Zhou Dynasty were transposed, coexisted for a long time, and merged in ebb and flow". After the establishment of the Zhou Dynasty, the status of the Shang and Zhou cultures changed, and the Zhou culture became the dominant culture. Although the Shang culture is still continuing, it has fallen to a subordinate position. The dominant Zhou culture in the Western Zhou Dynasty and the subordinate Shang culture have been coexisting in the world for a long time. Since the Western Zhou Dynasty, all ritual systems and cultures that have deviated from the spirit of ritual education have gradually disappeared. However, ritual systems that conform to this spirit, mainly those advocated by the people of Zhou Dynasty, have been constantly promoted and developed, with the decline and rise of business and the rise and fall of business. The culture of Zhou Dynasty has been constantly covering, eroding and melting the culture of business. As the boundaries between the Shang and Zhou clans became blurred, the ritual system and culture of the Shang and Zhou dynasties, which were originally clearly defined, gradually became indistinguishable from each other and mixed into one. Finally, they achieved integration on the basis of widely recognized values of ritual education.
In addition to the above important points, the manuscript also put forward many new ideas when analyzing a ritual system. For example, the analysis of the great enfeoffment at the beginning of the Zhou Dynasty played an important role in promoting the spread of the Zhou style ritual system and the values of the Zhou people, the analysis of the transformation of ancestor worship concept caused by the corpse sacrifice system, which had a significant impact on Chinese religious beliefs, and the analysis of the "six ceremonies" of ancient Chinese marriage from the traditional ritual system of the Zhou state, The analysis of the ritual system of offering sacrifices to heaven and matching ancestors symbolizes the monopoly of a certain clan's supreme political power, the analysis of the patriarchal significance of the Emperor Zhou's awarding of his clan's historical relics to the princes, and the analysis of the special status of King Wen and King Wu in the Western Zhou Dynasty, which contributed to the system of ancestral temples, are all the contents that have not been involved or are less involved in previous works.
(Editor in charge: Sun Kaijia, Huang Wei)
