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周禮(正文)

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Text ID
KR1d0001
Date
-300–-100
Dynasty
周

Zhōulǐ 周禮

The Rites of Zhōu

(canonical text — no single author)

About the work

The Zhōulǐ 周禮 (“Rites of Zhōu”), originally circulated under the title Zhōuguān 周官 (“Officials of Zhōu”), is the foundational text on the bureaucratic structure of the (idealised) Western Zhōu royal government and the parent classic on which the entire KR1d Zhōulǐ sub-corpus (KR1d0001–0024) comments. The Kanripo recension carried under this id is the bare canonical text, divided into six “ministries” (liù guān 六官) ordered by the symbolic colours and seasons: Tiānguān zhǒngzǎi 天官冢宰 (Heaven, Spring), Dìguān sītú 地官司徒 (Earth, Summer), Chūnguān zōngbó 春官宗伯 (Spring, ritual), Xiàguān sīmǎ 夏官司馬 (Summer, war), Qiūguān sīkòu 秋官司寇 (Autumn, justice), and the long-lost Dōngguān 冬官 (Winter, public works), supplied in the received text by the Kǎogōngjì 考工記 (“Records of the Examination of Crafts”), a separate Warring States artisanal compendium incorporated to fill the lacuna. The base edition shipped here is the TLS digital text (Kanripo PROPERTY: BASEEDITION tls), without commentary.

Abstract

The Zhōulǐ is one of the canonical Sānlǐ 三禮 (“Three Ritual Classics”, together with the Yílǐ KR1d0025 and the Lǐjì KR1d0052). Tradition ascribes it to the Duke of Zhōu (Zhōu Gōng 周公, fl. early 11th c. BCE), but this attribution is universally rejected on internal-evidence grounds. The text first surfaces in the late Western Hàn under the personal patronage of Liú Xīn 劉歆 (d. 23 CE), who promoted it as part of his Old Text 古文 programme; the Hàn shū yìwén zhì 漢書·藝文志 lists it as Zhōuguān jīng 周官經 in six juan. The dominant modern view dates the composition of the text proper to the late Warring States or early Hàn period (4th–2nd c. BCE), with the Kǎogōngjì substitution likely stabilised by the early Western Hàn after the Dōngguān portion had already been lost. A pseudepigraphic Hàn-fabrication theory (Liú Xīn as actual compiler), proposed by Kāng Yǒuwéi 康有為 in Xīnxué wěijīng kǎo 新學偽經考 (1891), has been rejected by twentieth-century scholarship — the Zhōulǐ contains too much demonstrably pre-Hàn material to be a Hàn forgery, but the text equally cannot be Western Zhōu in its received form.

The work is the most systematic and exhaustive single source on the (idealised) bureaucratic, ritual, and economic organisation of the early Chinese state. Its highly schematised account of officialdom — six ministries, each with a qīng 卿 chief, dàfū 大夫 deputies, shàngshì / zhōngshì / xiàshì 上中下士 and clerical staff, with subordinate offices arranged in elaborate symbolic hierarchies — almost certainly does not describe any actually-existing government, but it became a structuring blueprint cited in every major Chinese state reform from Wáng Mǎng’s 王莽 Xīn 新 dynasty (9–23 CE), through Wáng Ānshí’s 王安石 (1021–1086) Xīnfǎ 新法 (which was justified by his Zhōuguān xīnyì KR1d0004), and ultimately through to the Qīng Six Boards. As a result, the text has functioned both as a classic and as a perennial political programme.

The text was admitted to the Five-Classics canon under the Hàn through Zhèng Xuán’s 鄭玄 (127–200) annotation, which underlies the standard zhùshū 注疏 line of KR1d0003 Zhōulǐ zhùshū and remains the foundation of all subsequent Three Ritual Classics scholarship.

Translations and research

  • Édouard Biot, Le Tcheou-li, ou Rites des Tcheou, 3 vols. (Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1851) — the only complete translation into a European language; remains useful despite its age.
  • William Boltz, “Chou li 周禮”, in Michael Loewe (ed.), Early Chinese Texts: A Bibliographical Guide (Berkeley: SSEC / IEAS, 1993), 24–32 — the standard English-language critical introduction.
  • Sven Broman, Studies on the Chou Li (Stockholm: Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, 1961) — philological study of authenticity and dating.
  • Yáng Tiānyǔ 楊天宇, Zhōulǐ yìzhù 周禮譯注 (Shànghǎi gǔjí, 2004) — standard modern Chinese translation and annotation.
  • Luó Yùmíng 羅運明 et al. (Sūn Yírǎng 孫詒讓), Zhōulǐ zhèngyì 周禮正義 (88 juan, Zhōnghuá shūjú 1987) — the indispensable Qīng-evidential standard commentary; the most thorough single piece of Three-Rites scholarship ever produced.

Other points of interest

The Kǎogōngjì 考工記 substitution for the lost Dōngguān was already canonical by the Western Hàn and is a major source in its own right for early Chinese material culture and craft technology — including the famous passages on chariot construction, jade ritual implements, dyeing, bronze casting, and the layout of the royal city (jiàng rén yíng guó 匠人營國). Joseph Needham drew on the Kǎogōngjì extensively in Science and Civilisation in China. Wén Rénjūn 聞人軍, Kǎogōngjì yìzhù 考工記譯注 (Shànghǎi gǔjí, 1993) is the standard modern critical edition.

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