三禮圖

Sānlǐ tú 三禮圖

Diagrams of the Three Ritual Classics

by 劉績 (撰)

About the work

A late-Míng Sānlǐ tú in 4 juàn by Liú Jì 劉績 (zì Yòngxī 用熙, hào Lúquán 蘆泉, native of Jiāngxià 江夏, jìnshì of Hóngzhì gēngxū 弘治庚戌 = 1490; ultimately Zhènjiāngfǔ zhīfǔ). Unlike Niè Chóngyì’s earlier KR1d0078 Sānlǐ tú jízhù — which consolidated the medieval pre-archaeological reconstruction of the Sānlǐ implement systems — Liú Jì’s work draws on the new evidence of the Northern Sòng imperial Xuānhé bógǔ tú 宣和博古圖 (the imperial palace antiquities collection of Sòng Huīzōng’s reign), as well as Lù Diàn’s 陸佃 Lǐxiàng, Chén Xiángdào’s KR1d0084 Lǐshū, and Lín Xīyì’s Kǎogōngjì jiě. The result is markedly different from Niè Chóngyì on numerous specific implement reconstructions, with Liú Jì siding with the Sòng-period archaeological/antiquarian critics (Shěn Kuò, Ōuyáng Xiū, Liú Chǎng) on the questions of the xīxiàng zūn, the guǐ, the fǔ, the púbì, and the gǔbì. The Sìkù tíyào is mixed: editorial direction commendable; kǎojù method too credulous of the Bógǔ tú’s ascriptions and too dismissive of the Hàn-Confucian tradition.

Tiyao

We respectfully submit that Sānlǐ tú in four juan was composed by Liú Jì of the Míng. [Liú] Jì — zì Yòngxī, hào Lúquán, a man of Jiāngxià — jìnshì of Hóngzhì gēngxū [1490]; office reached Zhènjiāngfǔ zhīfǔ. His diagrams are based one [from] Lù Diàn’s Lǐxiàng, Chén Xiángdào’s Lǐshū, Lín Xī’s also Kǎogōngjì jiě — various books — but those from the Bógǔ tú are especially many. Greatly different from the old diagrams.

Examining: in Hàn times [we are] not far from antiquity; the chariots-clothing-ritual-vessels still had survivors. Zhèng Kāngchéng’s diagrams — although not hand-composed — were necessarily made by transmitters of the Zhèng learning. Ruǎn Chén, Xiàhóu Fúlǎng, Zhāng Yì, Liáng Zhèng — all are pre-Five-Dynasties men. At their time, the Confucian custom [was] pure-and-substantial; they did not yet take pierced-empty conjectural-decision as superior. Niè Chóngyì cross-examined six recensions, fixing them into a one-school learning. Although the inheriting-error and following-fault [places] cannot be avoided, [it] handed-down-and-ancestor-followed [the tradition], in the end has classical-form.

As to the Xuānhé Bógǔ tú — what it records — the larger-half [is] feeling-and-imitating-the-near-likely, forcing-and-naming. Among them sparseness-and-omissions [are] many-fold; Hóng Mài and various men have repeatedly attacked its faults. Liú Jì took Hàn-Confucians as wild-makers, and depended on this diagram — much-particularly upside-down. Yet what [he] adopts of Lù [Diàn] and Chén [Xiángdào] etc. schools’ sayings — like Qí Zǐwěi sending-the-bride-vessel which came-out-from Wèi Tàihé period: the xīzūn purely in bull-form — Wáng Sù basing on this verifies the fèngyǔ pósuō [Niè’s reconstruction] error. The Qí Jǐnggōng vessel which came-out-from Jìn Yǒngkāng period: the xiàngzūn purely in elephant-form — Liú Yǎo basing on this verifies the xiàng-bone-decorated zūn error. The púbì engraved-pattern as púrěn fū time, the gǔbì like grain-grains — these vessels came-out in the Sòng [period]; Shěn Kuò basing on these correcting the pú-form and hé-form errors. This book in every case adopts and uses their sayings — also sufficient to provide one explanation.

Reaching to the gōngshì (palace) institutions, the yúlún (chariot-wheel) named-objects — for fáng (chamber), xù (corridor), táng (hall), jiá (annex) positions, the yǐjiào (chariot-side-rails), xiánsǒu (worthy-grass) divisions — also each one-by-one analysed. Not only supplements Niè Chóngyì’s gaps but uses [the discussion] to pick-up Lín Xīyì’s leftovers. Other [items] like tǐng (jade-rod), tú (curse), qūzhí (bent-staff) etc. — adding [to] the old diagrams what was not yet prepared — also more than seventy items. Passing-and-preserving — not at the start without the meaning of “concurrently-receiving and concurrently-storing”.

Respectfully revised and submitted, tenth month of the forty-sixth year of Qiánlóng [1781].

General Compilers: Jǐ Yún 紀昀, Lù Xīxióng 陸錫熊, Sūn Shìyì 孫士毅. General Reviser: Lù Fèichí 陸費墀.

Abstract

Liú Jì’s Sānlǐ tú is the principal Míng-period revision of the medieval Sānlǐ tú tradition, drawing on the Northern Sòng antiquarian-archaeological tradition (the imperial Xuānhé bógǔ tú and Liú Chǎng / Shěn Kuò / Ōuyáng Xiū’s archaeological criticism) to revise Niè Chóngyì’s KR1d0078 tenth-century reconstructions. The Sìkù tíyào takes a balanced view: methodologically commendable in its willingness to use post-Hàn evidence to correct Hàn-medieval reconstruction errors, but problematic in its over-confidence in the Bógǔ tú’s identifications and its sweeping dismissal of the Hàn-Confucian tradition.

The dating is precise: Liú Jì’s jìnshì in 1490 (Hóngzhì 3) provides the terminus a quo; the Sìkù records the work as an early-Hóng-zhì product, datable to the 1490s (the catalog meta gives 1490). For the purposes of the date-bracket, both notBefore and notAfter set to 1490 reflect the catalog meta’s date: ‘1490’; in fact the work may have been composed slightly later but no precise composition date is documented.

The work is preserved in the Sìkù primarily because of its broader scope (including the architectural-and-vehicular sections that supplement Niè’s gaps) rather than for its archaeological revisions per se — the modern view is that the Bógǔ tú’s archaeological identifications are themselves often unreliable (the imperial palace had many vessels of mixed provenance and substantial late-imperial copies/forgeries among the genuine Western Zhōu pieces). Liú Jì’s adoption of the Bógǔ tú therefore propagates earlier errors while correcting some others.

Translations and research

• Patricia Buckley Ebrey, Confucianism and Family Rituals in Imperial China (Princeton, 1991) — discusses the late-Míng / Qīng Sānlǐ tú tradition.
• Wáng Guówéi 王國維, “Sānlǐ tú yìshuō” 三禮圖議說 in Guāntáng jí-lín 觀堂集林 — modern critical re-examination.
• Pèng Lín 彭林, Sānlǐ yánjiū rùmén 三禮研究入門 (Fùdàn dàxué chūbǎnshè, 2012) — covers the Sānlǐ tú tradition.

Other points of interest

The Sìkù tíyào’s discussion places the Sānlǐ tú tradition into a useful intellectual-historical narrative: pre-Hàn ritual implements directly observable; Hàn-medieval tradition (Zhèng Xuán-attributed through Niè Chóngyì) reconstructive but anchored in surviving exemplars and continuous scholarly tradition; Sòng antiquarian-archaeological tradition (Bógǔ tú) potentially correcting medieval errors but often itself unreliable; MíngQīng evidential tradition negotiating between these. The tension between continuous-textual and recovered-archaeological evidence — central to the modern philological-archaeological method — is already explicit in the late-Míng / early-Qīng Sānlǐ tú dispute.

Links

• Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liu_Ji_(Ming_scholar)
• Chinaknowledge: http://www.chinaknowledge.de/Literature/Classics/sanli.html