Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No.4, 2014

The Imperial “Private” Rituals and the State’s Public Institution: The Periodization and Evolution of “Post-Kaiyuan Rituals”

(Abstract)

Wu Liyu

The construction of “post-Kaiyuan rituals” during the Tang Dynasty (618-907) can be divided into different periods; during the late Kaiyuan reign period and the Tianbao reign period, both the emperor and people around him radically reformed the system established by the Kaiyuan Rituals, and established a Taoist worship system in national sacrifice. With the choice of the Kaiyuan Rituals or the reform in the Tianbao reign period after the AnShi rebellion (755-763), the factor of changeability constantly increased, ranging from a focus on the inheritance of and return to the Kaiyuan Rituals in the Jianzhong and early Zhenyuan reign periods to the adoption of more new rituals and adjustments in the late Zhenyuan reign period and the Yuanhe reign period. The “revision and implementation” of the Kaiyuan Rituals were carried out through the deletion and revision of imperial decrees, reflecting both the implication that such rituals were centered on the imperial power and the demands that the times had imposed on the reform. At the same time, Taoist sacrifice was further integrated with the “private” rituals (or “family rituals”) that stood for the emperors and their families and expressed the intentions of the emperors themselves, co-existing and fusing with the rituals as the state’s public institution. In this way, both a new concept and a new character of rituals took shape during middle antiquity.