Zájìfǎ 雜祭法
Miscellaneous Sacrificial Procedures
by 盧諶 (撰)
About the work
A single-juàn reconstruction of 盧諶 Lú Chén’s (284–350) lost Zájìfǎ 雜祭法 — a freestanding handbook of practical sacrificial procedures, distinguished from the more theoretical KR1d0098 Jìdiǎn by its almost exclusive focus on offering-substances and ritual-utensil details. The CHANT reconstruction (CH2c1359) draws all surviving citations from Běitáng shūchāo 北堂書鈔 (juàn 89, 145, 146, 166), Chūxué jì 初學記 (juàn 26), and Tàipíng yùlǎn 太平御覽 (juàn 185, 703, 850, 852, 853, 860 et al.).
Abstract
Lú Chén — Eastern-Jìn court official, victim of the Shí-Lè 石勒 captivity and later Hòu-Zhào 後趙 administrator, eventually killed in the Rǎn Mǐn 冉閔 rebellion of 350 — is principally known as a poet (his Zèng Liú Kūn 贈劉琨 is in the Wénxuǎn) rather than as a ritualist. The Zájìfǎ documents a less-known dimension of his cultural output: a practical handbook of jìlǐ details, addressing where to place tablets when no shrine has yet been erected (i.e. on the tīngshì 廳事 or main hall); the use of bulrush-mats and blue-cloth padding for the sacrificial seat; placement of incense-burners by the seat-side; the use of kǔjiǔ (vinegar) and báishǔ / huángshǔ (white and yellow millet) for the four seasonal sacrifices; and the use of various sacrificial cakes (mán-tou, xíng-bǐng, suǐ-bǐng, láo-wán; for summer additionally rǔ-bǐng; for winter bái-huán-bǐng) cited in Chūxué jì 26 and Tàipíng yùlǎn 860.
The work appears to have been a private-household sacrificial procedure-handbook of the kind that proliferated in the Six Dynasties before being supplanted by court-promulgated standardisations. Its survival is owed to its citation by Táng lèishū compilers searching for ritual-vocabulary entries.
The dating bracket (284–350) reflects Lú Chén’s documented lifespan in Jìn shū 44 (本傳, 盧諶傳). The Zájìfǎ is conventionally placed in his pre-Yǒngjiā post-310s northern career.
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located. The work is mostly noted as a Tāng-Sòng lèishū-citation source rather than as a self-standing scholarly work.
Other points of interest
The Zájìfǎ’s mid-fourth-century sacrificial cake list (mán-tou, xíng-bǐng, suǐ-bǐng, láo-wán, rǔ-bǐng, bái-huán-bǐng) is a key source for the early medieval Chinese culinary history of bǐng 餅 (flour-product) varieties, predating the more famous Sòng-period documentation.
Links
- Chinese Text Project — Tàipíng yùlǎn: https://ctext.org/taiping-yulan