聞分館君 Ask BunKanKun

家禮

7 min read

Text ID
KR1d0089
Date
1170–1200
Dynasty
宋

Jiālǐ 家禮

Family Rituals

attributed to 朱熹 (撰)

About the work

The most influential household-ritual handbook in the late-imperial Chinese tradition, in 5 juàn, traditionally attributed to Zhū Xī 朱熹 (1130–1200) but with a complex transmission history that the Sìkù tíyào — following Wáng Màohóng’s 王懋竑 Báitián zájì 白田雜記 Jiālǐ kǎo — explicitly characterises as not in fact Zhū Xī’s hand-fixed work, but rather a work composed in his manner and circulating under his name. The five-juan structure: tōnglǐ (general ritual), guānlǐ (capping), hūnlǐ (marriage), sānglǐ (mourning), jìlǐ (sacrifice). Down to the abolition of the imperial examination system in 1905, this work was the standard handbook of upper-class household ritual practice across China and (in its various translations and adaptations) Korea, Japan, and Vietnam. The Sìkù editors include the work as the jiālǐ of canonical attribution to Zhū Xī while explicitly registering the philological doubt about its authentic authorship.

Tiyao

We respectfully submit that Jiālǐ in five juan; the old recension titles it composed by Zhūzǐ of the Sòng. Examining: Wáng Màohóng’s Báitián zázhù has Jiālǐ kǎo saying: “Jiālǐ is not Zhūzǐ’s book. The Jiālǐ records [Zhū-]zǐ’s Xíngzhuàng; its preface records [it] in the Wénjí; the year-and-month of its book’s completion records [it] in the Niánpǔ; and the cause of its book having been lost and recovered records [it] in the Jiālǐ fùlù. From the Sòng onward, [people have] followed it and used it; that it is Zhūzǐ’s book — [there is] hardly any doubt. Yet now, repeatedly examining it, I know [it is] decidedly not Zhūzǐ’s book.

Lǐ Gōnghuì’s Niánpǔ preface: ‘Jiālǐ completed in gēngyín [1170], during [Zhūzǐ’s] mourning of Mother Zhù; the Wénjí preface does not record the year-and-month, and the preface absolutely does not touch on the residing-mourning matter. The Jiālǐ fùlù records Chén Ānqīng quoting Zhū Jìngzhī saying: ‘this is the previously-lost book at the temple; some scholar copy-recorded it; meeting [Zhū-]zǐ’s burial-day, [he] brought it [back]; thereby [we] obtained it.’ The “copy-recording-and-bringing-it” — does not say what man, also does not say where [he] obtained it. Huáng Miǎnzhāi [Huáng Gàn] composed [Zhūzǐ’s] Xíngzhuàng, only saying: ‘what [Zhūzǐ] compiled — the Jiālǐ — the world followed-and-used. Afterwards [there were] many additions-and-deletions; [Zhūzǐ] not yet fixing [them].’ Did not say [it] was completed during the mother-mourning, also did not say its having been lost and recovered. Jiālǐ later [tradition] also similar.

[Zhū] Jìngzhī [is] Zhūzǐ’s youngest son. Gōnghuì, Miǎnzhāi, [Chén] Ānqīng all are Zhūzǐ’s high-rank disciples. Yet their statements are at-variance and not-cross-examinable like this. Examining the Wénjí: Zhūzǐ’s letters to Wāng Shàngshū, to Zhāng Jìngfū, to Lǚ Bógōng — discussing jìyí (sacrifice-protocol) and jìshuō — go-back-and-forth most-thoroughly. The WāngLǚ letters [are] from rénchén guǐsì [1172–1173]; the Zhāng letter does-not-detail its year, calculating also [is] front-and-back. Rénchén guǐsì are distant from gēngyín by only two-or-three years. If the Jiālǐ already has a complete book — why [in] absolutely not touching it [are these letters] only taking jìyí-and-jìshuō as words?” et cetera.

[The tíyào continues with extensive Wáng Màohóng evidence that the Jiālǐ contradicts Zhū Xī’s other writings on specific points and concludes:]

This must be one [who] depended-on-and-imitated the Sānjiā lǐfàn postscript-words to make it. Apparently those who attached themselves to the “later gentleman” — the transmitter then accordingly entrusted [it] to Zhūzǐ’s own composition. Its preface also depended-on-and-imitated the Lǐfàn postscript-words and on the Jiālǐ on the contrary has not-fitting [points]. The Jiālǐ emphasises zōngfǎ (clan-method) — this [is what] ChéngZhāngSīmǎshì [are] taught.

[etc., with the editors concluding that the Jiālǐ is included in the Sìkù “with the Sòng attribution preserved” but that the philological evidence is against authentic Zhū Xī authorship.]

Respectfully revised and submitted, [date].

Abstract

The Jiālǐ — by far the most widely-used household-ritual handbook in late-imperial China — has had its authorship contested in modern scholarship in much the way that the Sìkù tíyào, drawing on Wáng Màohóng’s Báitián zázhù, contests it. The traditional attribution to Zhū Xī is anchored by Lǐ Gōnghuì’s 李公晦 Niánpǔ (placing the work’s composition in gēngyín = 1170 during Zhū Xī’s mourning of his mother Zhù) and the Jiālǐ fùlù story (the manuscript was lost during Zhū Xī’s life, recovered after his death by an unidentified copyist on the day of his burial). But the Sìkù tíyào’s philological objections are substantial:

  1. The Wénjí preface to Jiālǐ (which does survive in Zhū Xī’s collected works) does not refer to the mourning-period composition or the loss-and-recovery story, and is structurally suspicious of being a later forgery imitating Zhū Xī’s Sānjiā lǐfàn postscript.

  2. Zhū Xī’s Wénjí letters to Wāng Yìngchén, Zhāng Shì, and Lǚ Zǔqiān (in rénchén guǐsì = 1172–1173, just two-or-three years after the Jiālǐ’s supposed completion) discuss family-ritual matters in extensive detail without ever referring to a completed Jiālǐ work.

  3. Huáng Gàn’s Xíngzhuàng — written by Zhū Xī’s principal disciple — refers to the Jiālǐ simply as “what [Zhūzǐ] compiled” and notes that “afterwards [there were] many additions-and-deletions; not yet fixed”, without confirming the loss-and-recovery story or the mourning-period composition.

  4. Several specific points in the Jiālǐ contradict Zhū Xī’s own positions in the Wénjí and Yǔlèi.

Modern scholarship (Patricia Ebrey, Chu Hsi’s “Family Rituals” 1991) accepts that the work was substantially Zhū Xī’s, but that the received text has been heavily reworked by his disciples and possibly later editors. The dating bracket 1170–1200 covers the period from the traditional composition-date through Zhū Xī’s death; the work as transmitted is not securely datable to a single year.

The Jiālǐ’s influence on late-imperial Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and Vietnamese household ritual is enormous: it became the standard reference for upper-class capping, marriage, mourning, and ancestral sacrifice across the Sinophone world, with vernacular adaptations in each tradition. Korean Confucianism in particular treated the Jiālǐ as the foundational text of household ritual practice (the Yi-dynasty Sìnyé 사례 / 四禮 tradition is essentially a Korean adaptation).

Translations and research

  • Patricia Buckley Ebrey, Chu Hsi’s “Family Rituals”: A Twelfth-Century Chinese Manual for the Performance of Cappings, Weddings, Funerals, and Ancestral Rites (Princeton, 1991) — full English translation with extensive scholarly apparatus and authorship discussion.
  • Patricia Buckley Ebrey, Confucianism and Family Rituals in Imperial China (Princeton, 1991) — accompanying monograph treating the Jiālǐ’s reception history.
  • Wáng Mào-hóng 王懋竑, Bái-tián zá-zhù 白田雜著 (with the Jiālǐ kǎo 家禮考) — the foundational early-Qīng critical-philological case against the traditional Zhū Xī attribution.
  • Sòng shǐ 宋史 j. 429 (biography of Zhū Xī).
  • Martina Deuchler, The Confucian Transformation of Korea (Harvard-Yenching, 1992) — the Jiālǐ’s reception in Korea.
  • Pèng Lín 彭林, Sānlǐ yánjiū rùmén 三禮研究入門 (Fùdàn dàxué chūbǎnshè, 2012) — covers the Jiālǐ in the Sòng jiā-lǐ tradition.

Other points of interest

The Sìkù editorial decision to include the Jiālǐ under the traditional Zhū Xī attribution while extensively documenting the philological case against it is unusual: it reflects the editors’ recognition that the work is too historically important to exclude (as de facto the most-used Confucian household-ritual handbook from the late Sòng to 1905) but that the traditional authorship attribution cannot be philologically sustained. The editors’ compromise — maintain the Sòng-period attribution at the level of the catalogue, register the philological problems at the level of the tíyào — is a model for how late-imperial Chinese bibliographic scholarship handled cases of contested authorship.

Graph View

Backlinks