Qīndìng Mǎnzhōu Jìshén Jìtiān Diǎnlǐ 欽定滿洲祭神祭天典禮
Imperially Authorized Ritual Code of the Manchu Spirit-and-Heaven Sacrifice by 允祿 (總辧), 官著 (承修), 阿桂 (漢譯), 于敏中 (漢譯)
About the work
The codification of the Manchu jìshén (spirit-sacrifice, šangsi-de juktere) and jìtiān (heaven-sacrifice) rituals—the inner-court Tungusic shamanic-pantheist ritual practiced at the Forbidden City’s Kūnnínggōng throughout the Qīng. Originally commissioned in Qiánlóng 12 (1747) and prepared in Manchu by Yùnlù 允祿 (chief editor), Guān Zhù 官著 (executing editor), and others, recording the sacrificial protocols, ritual instructions, prayer-songs (zhùcí), and praise-songs (zàncí) of the imperial Manchu cult. In Qiánlóng 42 (1777), Águì 阿桂 and Yú Mǐnzhōng 于敏中 prepared a Hàn-Chinese translation, the present text. 6 juǎn: 2 of jìyí (sacrifice protocols); 1 of huìjì gùshì (gathered precedents); 41 of yízhù, zhùcí, zàncí (rituals, prayers, praises); 1 of qìyòng shùmù (implement counts); 1 of qìyòng xíngshì tú (implement diagrams).
Tiyao
By imperial command of Qiánlóng 12 (1747). Our state arose in the eastern lands; its customs are pure and plain; in honoring virtue and rewarding merit it has held to ancient ritual without change for more than a hundred years. The luminous addresses to heaven and the appropriate sacrifices have been performed with full sincerity—but always orally transmitted. Prayer-text and ritual-instructions have, over time, developed small inconsistencies. Our August Emperor, in reverent earnestness and with deep penetration, anxious that with passing years the original might gradually drift, commanded the princes and grand ministers to verify the matter in detail and, in Guóyǔ (Manchu) and Guóshū (Manchu script), to fix it in a single edition.
The headings: 2 piān of jìyí; 1 of gathered precedents; 41 of ritual-instructions, prayer-text, praise-text; 1 of implement counts; 1 of implement diagrams. As each juǎn was completed, the emperor personally collated and corrected. Sincere precision; reverent comprehensiveness. The meanings of supplication and thanksgiving, the inwardness of the ceremony, are made manifest for ten thousand ages.
In Qiánlóng 42 (1777), an edict ordered translation by phonetic gloss into the present Hàn version, to function alongside the Dà Qīng tōnglǐ, manifesting the sage dynasty’s ordering. At the end is the postface by Grand Secretary Águì and others, narrating the import of “approaching with sincerity, summoning blessing.” On those various spirits whose origins were unknown, they cite the precedent of the Lǐjì’s shècài xiānshī (Zhèng Xuán not naming the xiānshī) as authority. On the prayer-texts and praise-texts whose only the sound was transmitted (without preserved meaning), they cite the Hàn Yuèfǔ Duówǔ qǔ’s “preserving sound without sense” as authority. Both follow the principle of “transmitting what is true, leaving doubt where it falls”—showing the sage’s reverent caution. Compared to Hàn ritualists who attached prophetic readings, or Sòng ritualists who freely rearranged disordered passages, claiming knowledge they did not have, this work is profoundly different.
Abstract
A unique document in the Qīng administrative-ritual corpus: the formal codification of the Manchu shamanic-cult of jìshén and jìtiān, conducted at the Kūnníng Palace’s xījiān (western chamber) and at the tāngzi outdoor altar throughout the year. The work documents a living ritual tradition originally entirely oral; the Sìkù tíyào is explicit that prior to 1747 there had been “no written record.”
The work was first prepared in Manchu (1747); translated into Hàn (1777); the Hàn version is what survives in Sìkù. The dating bracket reflects this. Yùnlù’s death (1767) preceded the Hàn translation; Águì and Yú Mǐnzhōng, both already deeply involved in the Sìkù project, were assigned the translation—a notable repurposing of senior Hàn officials for a Manchu-cult document. The postface justifies preserving Manchu ritual-language (sound without translatable sense) by citing the Lǐjì’s shècài and Yuèfǔ Duówǔ precedents—a remarkable classical-Confucian framing of an essentially shamanic Tungusic practice.
The work is the principal primary documentary source for Qīng-imperial Manchu shamanism and is heavily used in modern Manchu-studies scholarship. Wilkinson (§66.4.6.4) lists it as a key reference for Qīng court religion.
Translations and research
Standard editions: Wényuāngé Sìkù; modern reprint with Manchu collation in Liú Xiǎomíng 劉小萌, ed., Mǎnzhōu jì-shén jì-tiān diǎnlǐ jiǎo-zhù 滿洲祭神祭天典禮校註 (Liáo-níng mín-zú chū-bǎn-shè, 1989). Western: Pamela Crossley, A Translucent Mirror (1999), pp. 235–82, on the work’s role in Qiánlóng-era Manchu identity politics; Mark Elliott, The Manchu Way (2001); Nicola Di Cosmo, “Manchu Shamanic Ceremonies at the Qing Court,” in McDermott, ed., State and Court Ritual in China (Cambridge, 1999). The standard Chinese reference is Liú Xiǎomíng’s edition with full apparatus.
Other points of interest
The work is one of very few official-imperial Qīng compilations whose Manchu original genuinely precedes its Chinese translation by decades; the philological history is itself a small case-study in Manchu-to-Hàn imperial translation practice. The decision to preserve untranslated Manchu prayer-text “as sound without sense”—classically justified by Lǐjì precedent—remains a touchstone for the field’s understanding of Qīng-court ritual conservatism.