Pàngōng Lǐyuè Shū 頖宮禮樂疏
Annotated Manual of the Confucius-Temple Music and Ritual by 李之藻 (撰)
About the work
A late-Míng systematic treatment of the pàngōng 頖宮 (the Confucius-Temple imperial-school complex) ritual and music, by Lǐ Zhīzǎo 李之藻 (1565–1630)—better known as one of the principal Chinese Catholic scholar-converts of the late Míng (collaborator of Matteo Ricci on the Tóngwén suànzhǐ and the Yuánróng jiàoyì) and as the editor of the Tiānxué chūhán 天學初函. In 10 juǎn: jìdiǎn (sacrifice-protocols) at the head; yízhù (ceremonial regulations); míngwù qìshù (vessel-and-implement names and counts) totaling 8 juǎn; Qǐshèng cí (Sage-Father shrine), Famous-Officials and Local-Worthies shrines, with the xiāngyǐnjiǔ (district drinking) ritual appended (juǎn 9); the xiāngshè (district archery) ritual appended (juǎn 10).
Tiyao
By Lǐ Zhīzǎo of the Míng. Zhīzǎo, zì Zhènzhī, of Rénhé. Took the jìnshì in Wànlì wùxū (1598). Held office to Tàipúsì shǎoqīng. The book opens with the pàngōng sacrifice protocol; then ceremonial regulations; then named objects, vessels, and counts—8 juǎn in all. Juǎn 9 covers the Qǐshèng cí, the Mínghuàn (renowned officials) shrine, the Xiāngxián (local worthies) shrine, with the xiāngyǐnjiǔ ritual appended; juǎn 10 has the xiāngshè ritual appended.
Within the work, items such as the shìdiàn protocol’s sànzhāi yǎnyuè díshēng (preliminary fast, music rehearsal, sacrifice-vessel cleansing) and the seasonal-sacrifice protocols are not in the Míng huìdiǎn or the Nányōng zhì. The yíngshén music: Lǐ shows that the Míng system inherits the Sòng, “1-strophe / 3-strophe” with no change; the music-pattern, fitted to the six tonal pitches, is given simply with gōngchě notation—he grasps the lineage. Music-pitch from Sòng Rénzōng’s reign onward dropped the zuòlì èr bù (two-section seated-and-standing) court-music division and the upper-and-lower-hall division; Southern-Sòng scholars further reduced and supplemented the older system, dropping the gāoshàng gāochě pitches—so what remains is only the Zhōnghé sháoyuè. The Míng inherits this. Lǐ’s notation also gives the contemporary popular yījǐ qīngfán tones and identifies their identity with the older modes—this is exact.
For qín and sè technique, he provides separate scores. The qín score follows the Sōngfēnggé old style: several notes per character with few gōutī finger-flicks—aiming at slow softness to harmonize with the Sháoyuè. The sè score uses the six pitches as primary, slowing the tempo to fit the rhythm—different from Yuán Xióng Péngfēng’s one-note-one-character sè score. All proceed from numerical foundation: Lǐ was an expert in mathematics (he edited the Tiānxué chūhán), so his music-rule founded on numerical principle is its own school.
The final juǎn on xiāngyǐnjiǔ together with xiāngshè is included because in early Míng the archery ritual was still performed at the pàngōng; by mid-Míng it had lapsed, and the Míng huìdiǎn and Nányōng zhì therefore record it only briefly. Lǐ’s collation of past and present is full and detailed.
The bāochóng (honors) section relies only on standard-history biographies and does not include Mǎ Duānlín’s full Xuéxiào kǎo. The vessel-diagrams’ xīzūn (rhinoceros-vessel) and similar are not based on the Sānlǐ tú nor cross-checked against the Kǎogǔ-and-Bógǔ tú; only contemporary practice is recorded—a slight thinning. But ritual is settled by the practice of the reigning king, and this principle has its own justification; one cannot wholly condemn.
Abstract
The work was compiled in Lǐ Zhīzǎo’s late prefectural service in the 1610s, before his retirement in 1620 and re-emergence under Chóngzhēn. The dating bracket reflects this: notBefore=1610 (general bracketing of his middle period) / notAfter=1620 (before his retirement and conversion-period activities). CBDB confirms his dates 1565–1630.
The work is uniquely interesting in that Lǐ Zhīzǎo, the principal mathematical and astronomical scholar of late-Míng Christian intellectual circles, here applies his numerical-mathematical methods to ritual music—producing a treatment that founds music-pitch on numerical principle (shù) and is “its own school” (zì wéi yī jiā). The Sìkù editors’ note here connects the work to Lǐ’s Tiānxué chūhán and his collaborations with Matteo Ricci on the Tóngwén suànzhǐ and Yuánróng jiàoyì. Lǐ Zhīzǎo is the only late-Míng Catholic-convert mathematician whose ritual-music writings entered the Sìkù.
Translations and research
Standard editions: Wényuāngé Sìkù. The major Western Catholic-history scholarship treats Lǐ Zhīzǎo’s other works rather than this one: see Erik Zürcher, “The Jesuit Mission in Fujian in Late Ming Times,” in Development and Decline of Fukien Province in the 17th and 18th Centuries (Brill, 1990). For the music-ritual content specifically: Joseph S. C. Lam, State Sacrifices and Music in Ming China (SUNY Press, 1998); Yáng Zhì-gāng, Zhōng-guó lǐ-xué shǐ 中國禮學史 (2014). For Lǐ’s mathematical work, see Catherine Jami, The Emperor’s New Mathematics (Oxford, 2012).
Other points of interest
The work demonstrates how a late-Míng Christian-convert scholar like Lǐ Zhīzǎo could and did continue to participate in—and indeed contribute substantively to—Confucian state-ritual scholarship without contradiction. The ritual-music numerical foundation Lǐ articulates here is consonant with the mathematical principles he was simultaneously translating and adapting from European sources.