Dà Jīn Jí Lǐ 大金集禮
Collected Rituals of the Great Jīn by 闕名 (撰)
About the work
The Jīn-dynasty imperially commissioned ritual code, surviving in 33 of an original 40 juǎn. Anonymous transmission—the Sìkù tíyào notes that the Qiānqǐngtāng shūmù of Huáng Yúqǐ identifies the compiler as Lǐbù shàngshū Zhāng Wèi 張瑋 et al., presented in Mǐngchāng 6 (1195) under Zhāngzōng. Internal evidence—affairs run only to Dàdìng (1161–1190)—confirms Zhāngzōng-period origin. The work is the principal source for the Jīnshǐ Lǐzhì and corrects multiple errors in it. The catalog meta gives “cún 33 卷” (33 juǎn extant) of an originally 40-juǎn work; the Sòng-suburban-altar (yuánqiū) section is missing, lost in transmission.
(The standard catalog title is Dà Jīn Jíìlǐ 大金集禮; the catalog meta variant 大金集體 reflects a transmission slip and is here retained for index consistency.)
Tiyao
Compiler unnamed, date unrecorded. According to Huáng Yúqǐ’s Qiānqǐngtāng shūmù, this is the work presented by Lǐbù shàngshū Zhāng Wèi and others in Mǐngchāng 6 (1195). The text records affairs only through Dàdìng (Shìzōng’s reign, 1161–1190), confirming a Zhāngzōng-period (1190–1208) compilation. Huáng’s attribution is not in error.
The work classifies and arranges the regulations with clear order: from imperial titles, posthumous-name conferrals, through ancestral sacrifices, court audiences, and banquet-feast protocols, all complete. Compared to the Jīnshǐ treatises, those treatises took this work entirely as their template; but the Zhì’s citations are full of errors and missed nuances. For the Fāngqiū (square-altar) sacrifice, this work has the protocol “two days before, the Tàiwèi reports at the ancestral temple”—the Jīnshǐ drops this. The Jīnshǐ says “set the altar curtain north of the road outside the East Gate of the inner enclosure, facing south”—but this work has the curtains arranged at both East and West gates: dishes for the altar-top and shénzhōu (eastern and southern offerings) outside the East Gate; offerings for western and northern outside the West Gate. The Jīnshǐ’s record of only the East-Gate placement is incorrect. Such errors are common; without this book one could not see how careless the Zhì is. For Jīn precedents this is the comprehensive collection.
Only juǎn 10 records the summer-solstice Fāngqiū protocol; the Yuánqiū (round-altar) suburban-heaven sacrifice is missing. The Jīnshǐ records that from Tiāndé on, both Northern and Southern suburban sacrifices were performed; their regulations were perfected in Dàdìng and Mǐngchāng. The compiler, having recorded the Northern protocol, would not have omitted the Southern. Transmission has lost it; the original was complete.
Abstract
The transmitted text is anonymous; the Sìkù editors’ attribution to Zhāng Wèi 張瑋 (Lǐbù shàngshū under Zhāngzōng) and his editorial team is supported by Huáng Yúqǐ’s bibliography. The dating is firm: the work was presented to the throne in Mǐngchāng 6 (1195), with compilation likely beginning shortly after Zhāngzōng’s accession in 1190. The dating bracket spans 1190–1195.
The work is the principal documentary source for Jīn-dynasty ritual practice. The Jīnshǐ Lǐzhì draws on it heavily but, as the Sìkù editors document at length, with errors. Wilkinson does not single it out but treats Jīn ritual in connection with the LiáoJīn historical sources generally; the standard modern reference is Hé Bóquán 何博泉, Jīn cháo lǐzhì yánjiū 金朝禮制研究 (Hēilóngjiāng dàxué, 2008).
The catalog meta records the persons-list as quēmíng 闕名 (anonymous), which is the Sìkù-tradition convention. We retain this in the persons-frontmatter; the actual attribution to Zhāng Wèi is given in the prose body.
Translations and research
Standard edition: Wényuāngé Sìkù. The standard punctuated reference is the 1985 Cóngshū jíchéng version. No specialist Western monograph; the work is used as a primary source rather than a research subject. The principal Chinese-language scholarly treatment is Hé Bóquán (2008); see also Liú Xiǎodōng 劉曉東, Jīn-dài lǐzhì kǎo 金代禮制考 (Shèkē, 2002), which uses the Dà Jīn jí lǐ as its principal documentary base. For Jīn-Yuán transitional ritual, see Hoyt Cleveland Tillman and Stephen H. West, eds., China Under Jurchen Rule (SUNY Press, 1995).
Other points of interest
The Sìkù compilers note that the Yuánqiū (round-altar / southern-suburb) protocol is missing through transmission loss—this is a small case in which the textual evidence (a complete Fāngqiū protocol in juǎn 10, with no Yuánqiū equivalent) lets the editors infer transmission damage rather than original incompleteness. The Jīnshǐ Lǐzhì supplies the missing Yuánqiū material, ironically based on the same lost Dà Jīn jí lǐ portion.