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儀禮(正文)

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Text ID
KR1d0025
Date
-300–-100
Dynasty
周

Yílǐ 儀禮

Etiquette and Ceremonial

(canonical text — no single author)

About the work

The Yílǐ 儀禮 (“Etiquette and Ceremonial”), one of the canonical Sānlǐ 三禮 (together with the Zhōulǐ KR1d0001 and the Lǐjì KR1d0052). The bare canonical text in 17 chapters (piān 篇), which together constitute the principal source for the actual ceremonial procedures of pre-Qín ritual: capping (shì guān lǐ 士冠禮), marriage (shì hūn lǐ 士昏禮), audience (shì xiāng jiàn lǐ 士相見禮), village wine-drinking (xiāng yǐn jiǔ lǐ 鄉飲酒禮), village archery (xiāng shè lǐ 鄉射禮), banqueting (yàn lǐ 燕禮), grand archery (dà shè yí 大射儀), interstate visit (pìn lǐ 聘禮), feasting visiting officials (gōng shí dàfū lǐ 公食大夫禮), royal audience (jìn lǐ 覲禮), mourning attire (sāng fú 喪服), gentleman’s mourning (shì sāng lǐ 士喪禮), evening rites (jì xī 既夕), gentleman’s sacrifice (shì yú lǐ 士虞禮), single-victim food-offering (tè shēng kuì shí lǐ 特牲饋食禮), small-victim food-offering (shǎo láo kuì shí lǐ 少牢饋食禮), and yǒu sī chè 有司徹.

The Kanripo recension carries the canonical text only, derived from the Qīng Jiāqìng 20 (1816) Jiāngxī Nánchāng prefectural-school re-cut of the Sòng Yílǐ zhùshū edition.

Abstract

The Yílǐ in its received seventeen-chapter form is universally agreed to be a substantially-but-incompletely preserved fragment of a once-larger ritual corpus. Three Hàn-period recensions are recorded: (a) the Dài Dé 戴德 recension, with chapter order guān-hūn-xiāngjiàn-shìsāng etc.; (b) the Dài Shèng 戴聖 recension, with a different chapter order; and (c) the Liú Xiàng 劉向 Biélù 別錄 recension, which is the order Zhèng Xuán adopted for his canonical annotation and which is therefore the standard order ever since. There were also two recensions of the text itself: a jīnwén 今文 (modern script) recension transmitted by Gāotáng Shēng 高堂生 of Lǔ in the early Western Hàn (the principal received line), and a gǔwén 古文 (ancient script) recension recovered (with 56 chapters) from the wall of Confucius’s old residence under King Gōng of Lǔ 魯恭王. Zhèng Xuán’s notes consult both recensions, with parallel readings preserved.

The text is conventionally regarded as the “original” of the Sānlǐ — the actual ritual-procedure manual, while the Zhōulǐ gives the bureaucratic structure and the Lǐjì gives the philosophical commentary on the rituals. Wilkinson (Chinese History) notes that prior to the Hàn the Lǐ of the Five Classics referred specifically to what we now call the Yílǐ — the Lǐjì designation came later when the Lǐjì (which mostly consists of essays on the rituals) was elevated to comparable canonical status.

The traditional attribution to the Duke of Zhōu is unsustainable. Modern scholarship (Wáng Wénjǐn, William Boltz in Early Chinese Texts) places the composition in the late Warring States to early Western Hàn (ca. 4th–2nd c. BCE), with the shì sāng and jì xī chapters showing the deepest archaic stratum, and chapters such as Dà shè yí and Pìn lǐ showing later Warring-States court protocol. The Sòngshí Yìwén zhì records that interest in the Yílǐ declined sharply in the Sòng after the Xīníng abolition of Yílǐ studies in the imperial examinations (Wáng Ānshí’s reform). Lǐ Rúguī’s KR1d0030 Yílǐ jíshì (1193) is the principal Sòng-period revival of Yílǐ studies; Zhāng Chún’s KR1d0029 Yílǐ shíwù (1172) the principal Sòng critical-edition.

Translations and research

  • John Steele, The I-li, or Book of Etiquette and Ceremonial, 2 vols. (London: Probsthain, 1917) — the only complete English translation; out of date in many particulars but still consulted.
  • Séraphin Couvreur, Cérémonial (Hsien Hsien: Mission Press, 1916; Paris: Cathasia, 1928) — French translation with parallel Chinese text.
  • William Boltz, “I li 儀禮”, in Michael Loewe (ed.), Early Chinese Texts: A Bibliographical Guide (Berkeley: SSEC / IEAS, 1993), 234–243 — the standard English critical introduction.
  • Sūn Yírǎng 孫詒讓 (continued by Wáng Wénjǐn 王文錦), Yílǐ zhèngyì — major modern critical commentary in the Sūn-Yírǎng Sānlǐ zhèngyì tradition (parallel to Sūn’s Zhōulǐ zhèngyì).
  • Yáng Tiānyǔ 楊天宇, Yílǐ yìzhù 儀禮譯注 (Shànghǎi gǔjí, 2004) — standard modern Chinese translation.
  • Pèng Lín 彭林, Yílǐ quán-yì 儀禮全譯 (Zhōnghuá shūjú, 2012) — recent modern Chinese translation.

Other points of interest

The chapter on mourning attire (sāng fú 喪服) is unique among the seventeen chapters in being accompanied by an early zhuàn (commentary) traditionally ascribed to Bǔ Shāng 卜商 (Zǐxià 子夏, 卜商) — the only chapter in the Yílǐ with such an embedded zhuàn. The chapter is the foundational source for the elaborate Chinese system of mourning grades (the wǔ fú 五服) and was in active legal-administrative use as the basis for kinship-and-mourning law down to the late imperial period.

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