Lilun — Discourse on Ritual禮論篇

Where does ritual arise? The answer is this. Men are born with desires. When they desire and do not get, they cannot but seek. When they seek without measure or bound of division, they cannot but contend. Contention brings disorder, and disorder brings a dead end.

The former kings hated that disorder, and so they made ritual and rightness to divide them, to nourish men's desires and to supply what men seek. They saw to it that desire is never blocked by things and that things are never bent by desire. The two hold each other up and grow together. This is where ritual arose.

So ritual is nourishing. Grain-fed meat and rice and millet, the five tastes blended fragrant, are what nourish the mouth. The scent of pepper plant and orchid is what nourishes the nose. Carving and cutting and inlay, embroidery and figured pattern, are what nourish the eye. Bells and drums, pipes and chiming stones, zithers and lutes, mouth organs and reed pipes, are what nourish the ear. Airy rooms and deep halls, rush mats and couches and bamboo mats and armrests, are what nourish the body. So ritual is nourishing.

The gentleman, having got this nourishing, also loves its distinctions.

What is meant by distinction? The answer is this. In noble and base there are grades, in old and young there is order, and in poor and rich, light and heavy, there is what befits each.

So the rush mat in the Son of Heaven's great carriage is what nourishes his body. The fragrant herbs loaded at his side are what nourish his nose. The figured yoke bar in front is what nourishes his eye. The sound of the bells, which at a walk matches the Wu (武) and the Xiang (象) and at a trot matches the Shao (韶) and the Hu (護), is what nourishes his ear. The dragon banner with its nine streamers is what nourishes trust. The rhinoceros hide spread out and the tiger skin drawn round, the girth strap figured with dragons, the silk-woven border and the dragons wrought on the yoke, are what nourish his awe. So the horses of the great carriage are mounted only when they are wholly trustworthy and trained to obey, and this is what nourishes his ease.

Who knows that going out to death and holding to one's honor is what nourishes life? Who knows that laying out what is spent is what nourishes wealth? Who knows that respect and yielding are what nourish ease? Who knows that ritual and rightness, pattern and order, are what nourish the feelings?

So if a man looks only to living anyhow, such a one will surely die. If he looks only to gain, such a one will surely be harmed. If he takes idleness and cowardice for ease, such a one will surely be endangered. If he takes the delight of his feelings for joy, such a one will surely perish.

So if a man makes himself one with ritual and rightness, he gets both. If he makes himself one with his feelings and his nature, he loses both. So the Confucian would have men get both, and the Mohist would have men lose both. This is the parting of Confucian and Mohist.

Ritual has three roots. Heaven and earth are the root of life. Forebears are the root of the kind. The ruler and the teacher are the root of order. Without heaven and earth, where would life come from? Without forebears, where would one come out? Without ruler and teacher, how would there be order? If even one of the three is missing, no man is at peace. So ritual serves heaven above and serves earth below, honors forebears and exalts ruler and teacher. These are the three roots of ritual.

So the king matches his great ancestor with heaven, the feudal lords dare not pull that down, and the grandees and officers have their standing head house. This is how the honoring of beginnings is marked out, and honoring beginnings is the root of virtue.

The jiao (郊) sacrifice stops at the Son of Heaven, the she (社) sacrifice stops at the feudal lords, and the dao (道) sacrifice reaches down to officers and grandees. This marks out that the honored serve what is honored and the lowly serve what is lowly, that what befits the great is made great and what befits the small is made small.

So he who holds all under heaven serves seven generations, he who holds one state serves five, he who holds land for five chariots serves three, he who holds land for three chariots serves two, and he who eats by the work of his hands may not set up an ancestral hall. This marks out whether what is heaped up is thick or thin, for where what is heaped up is thick the flowing favor is broad, and where it is thin the flowing favor is narrow.

At the great feast the dark wine jar is put highest, raw fish is set on the stand, and the plain broth comes first, for this honors the root of eating and drinking. At the feast the dark wine jar is put highest, yet ale and sweet ale are used, and millet and panic grain are set first, yet rice and fine millet are eaten. At the sacrifice the plain broth is set out in its place, yet men are filled with every dish. This is honoring the root while keeping use close.

Honoring the root is called pattern, and keeping use close is called order. The two joined make the pattern complete and return to the great One. This is called the great exalting.

So putting dark water highest in the jar, putting raw fish highest on the stand, and setting the plain broth first in the stemmed dish are one and the same. Not draining the cup at the toast, not tasting what is on the stand when the rite is done, and only smelling three times without eating are one and the same. The time in the great wedding before the fasting begins, the time in the great shrine before the impersonator enters, and the time just after death before the first dressing are one and the same. The plain body of the great carriage before its trim is gathered on, the hempen cap at the jiao sacrifice, and the loose hemp worn first in mourning dress are one and the same. Weeping in the three years' mourning that does not turn back, the song of the Pure Shrine (淸廟) where one sings and three sigh in answer, and the single bell hung with the fu (拊) and the ge (膈) held high, the red strings and the pierced sounding hole, are one and the same.

All ritual begins in the rough, is completed in pattern, and ends in gladness. So at its fullest, feeling and pattern are both carried through. Next to that, feeling and pattern take turns prevailing. At its lowest, it goes back to feeling and returns to the great One.

By this heaven and earth join, by this sun and moon are bright, by this the four seasons are ordered, by this the stars run their course, by this the rivers flow, by this the ten thousand things flourish, by this liking and hating are kept in measure, by this joy and anger are made fitting. Taken as the way of those below it brings compliance, taken as the way of those above it brings clarity. Through ten thousand changes there is no disorder, but divide the heart in two and all is lost.

Is ritual not the utmost? Set up its exalting as the highest point, and none under heaven can take from it or add to it. Root and branch comply with each other, end and beginning answer each other. At its utmost pattern there is distinction, at its utmost discernment there is explanation. Those under heaven who follow it are ordered and those who do not are in disorder, those who follow it are at ease and those who do not are in danger, those who follow it survive and those who do not perish. The small man cannot fathom it.

The order in ritual is truly deep. Those who pick at hard and white, at same and different, go into it and sink. Its order is truly great. Those who make up statutes and systems as they please and speak in narrow and crooked ways go into it and are lost. Its order is truly high. The violent and idle and unbridled, who make light of custom and think themselves lofty, go into it and fall.

So when the marking line is truly laid, none can be deceived about crooked and straight. When the balance is truly hung, none can be deceived about light and heavy. When compass and square are truly set, none can be deceived about square and round. When the gentleman is clear about ritual, none can deceive him with fraud and falsehood.

So the marking line is the utmost of straightness, the balance is the utmost of evenness, compass and square are the utmost of square and round, and ritual is the highest point of the way of man.

Yet he who does not take ritual for his law and does not make ritual sufficient is called a man without direction, and he who takes ritual for his law and makes ritual sufficient is called an officer with direction. To be able to think and search within ritual is called being able to reflect. To be able not to shift within ritual is called being able to stand firm. He who can reflect and can stand firm, and adds to it a love of ritual, is a sage.

So heaven is the highest point of height, earth is the highest point of lowness, the endless is the highest point of breadth, and the sage is the highest point of the way of man. So the student is of course learning to become a sage. He is not merely learning to be a man without direction.

Ritual takes goods and wealth for its use, noble and base for its pattern, many and few for its difference, exalting and paring for what is essential in it.

Where pattern and order are many and feeling and use are spare, this is the exalting of ritual. Where pattern and order are spare and feeling and use are many, this is the paring of ritual. Where pattern and order and feeling and use are inside and outside to each other, going together and mixed, this is the middle course of ritual.

So the gentleman above carries its exalting to the full, below carries its paring to the full, and in between holds its middle. Walking or hurrying, galloping or racing, he does not go outside this. This is the gentleman's courtyard and his palace. A man within it is an officer and a gentleman, a man outside it is one of the people, and one who moves all through this ground, turning about and getting its order even in its bends, is a sage.

So thickness is ritual heaped up, greatness is ritual made broad, height is ritual exalted, and clarity is ritual carried through. The Odes say, "Ritual and bearing are all to measure, laughter and speech are all as they should be." This is what is meant.

Ritual is care in ordering life and death. Life is a man's beginning and death is his end. When end and beginning are both good, the way of man is complete. So the gentleman reveres the beginning and is careful at the end, and makes end and beginning as one. This is the way of the gentleman and the pattern of ritual and rightness.

To make much of a man's life and little of his death is to revere him while he knows and to slight him when he knows nothing. This is the way of a crooked man and a heart that turns its back and betrays. The gentleman is ashamed to meet even a servant with a heart that turns its back and betrays. How much more in serving the one he exalts and holds dear.

So death as a way comes once and cannot be had a second time. Here the subject carries to the full his weight of honor for his ruler, and the son his weight of honor for his parent.

So to serve the living without true thickness, without reverence and pattern, is called coarse. To send off the dead without true thickness, without reverence and pattern, is called meager. The gentleman holds the coarse cheap and is ashamed of the meager.

So the coffin and outer coffin of the Son of Heaven are sevenfold, of a feudal lord fivefold, of a grandee threefold, of an officer twofold. Then for each there are the numbers of robes and coverlets, many or few, thick or thin, and for each the grades of fans and figured pattern, to adorn him with reverence and make life and death, end and beginning, as one. Being as one is enough to be what men wish for, and this is the way of the former kings and the highest point of the loyal subject and the filial son.

The mourning of the Son of Heaven stirs the four seas and gathers the feudal lords. The mourning of a feudal lord runs through the whole state and gathers the grandees. The mourning of a grandee stirs one state and gathers the cultivated officers. The mourning of a cultivated officer stirs one village and gathers his friends. The mourning of a common man brings together his kin and his neighbors and stirs the district.

The mourning of a criminal who has been punished may not bring together kin and neighbors, and gathers only his wife and children. The coffin and outer coffin are three inches, the robes and coverlets three sets. The coffin may not be adorned, they may not go by day but bury him at dusk, and they go with what they have about them and bury him. Coming back there is no measured weeping, no mourning dress of hemp, no grades of months for near and far kin. Each returns to his ordinary way, each goes back to his beginning, and once the burial is done they stop as though there had been no mourning. This is called the utmost disgrace.

Ritual is care that the lucky and the unlucky do not cover each other.

At the time when floss is held to the nose to watch the breath, even the loyal subject and the filial son know their grief. Yet they do not seek out the things for laying out and dressing the body. They shed tears and are afraid, but the heart that hopes for life has not yet stopped and the work of keeping him alive has not yet ceased. Only when he is gone do they prepare them.

So even a household with everything ready must let a day pass before it can lay the body out, and on the third day the mourning dress is complete. Then those who tell the distant kin set out, and those who furnish the things get to work.

So the body lies in state seventy days at the longest and not less than fifty at the soonest. Why is this? The answer is this. Those far off can arrive, all that must be sought can be got, and all the tasks can be done. Then the loyalty is utmost, the measure is great, and the pattern is complete.

Then at the new moon they divine for the day and at the moon's end they divine for the place, and after that they bury him. At such a time, if rightness says stop, who could go on? If rightness says go on, who could stop?

So the burial in the third month is a sending of the dead adorned as if alive. It is surely not a keeping back of the dead to set the living at ease. It is carrying to the full the rightness of exalting and longing.

The whole of the mourning rites is this. As the body changes it is adorned, as it is moved it goes further off, and as time passes things become even again.

So death as a way is this. If the body is not adorned it grows ugly, and if it is ugly there is no grief. If it is kept close it grows familiar, if familiar then wearisome, if wearisome then forgotten, and if forgotten then unrevered.

To lose a stern parent in one morning, and then to send him to burial without grief and without reverence, comes near to the birds and beasts, and the gentleman is ashamed of this.

So adorning it as it changes is what wipes out ugliness, moving it further off is what carries reverence through, and letting time make things even is what favors the living.

Ritual cuts what is long and joins on what is short, takes from what is over and adds to what is wanting, reaches the pattern of love and reverence, and makes grow and complete the beauty of conduct and rightness.

So adornment and coarseness, sound and music and weeping, calm gladness and sorrow and grief are opposite to each other. Yet ritual uses them together, raising them in season and taking them by turns.

So adornment, sound and music, and calm gladness are what keep the even and serve the lucky, and coarseness, weeping, sorrow and grief are what keep the hard and serve the unlucky.

So it sets up adornment, yet not to the point of showiness and wanton beauty. It sets up coarseness, yet not to the point of wasting away and casting off. It sets up sound and music and calm gladness, yet not to the point of loose excess and idleness. It sets up weeping and grief and sorrow, yet not to the point of being choked and cowed and harming life. This is the middle course of ritual.

So when the changing of feeling and outward look is enough to mark off lucky from unlucky and to make clear the measures of noble and base, near kin and far, it stops there. Beyond this is crookedness. However hard it may be, the gentleman holds it cheap.

So to measure out one's food before eating it and to measure one's waist before belting it, and to vie with one another in being wasted away, is the way of a crooked man. It is not the pattern of ritual and rightness, and it is not the feeling of a filial son. It is a man with something else in view.

So gladness and a glowing face, and grief and a withered ugly look, are the feelings of luck and ill luck, of sorrow and joy, showing in the face. Song and laughter, weeping and crying out, are those feelings showing in the voice. Meat and rice and millet, ale and sweet ale, and thin gruel and porridge, fish and flesh, beans and bean leaves, ale and sauce, are those feelings showing in eating and drinking. The cap, the embroidery and the figured silk, and coarse hemp, mourning dress, straw sandals and rush shoes, are those feelings showing in clothing. Airy rooms and deep halls, rush mats and couches and armrests, and the thatched mourning shed, the lean-to hut, the bed of brushwood and the pillow of earth, are those feelings showing in where one lives.

These two feelings are things whose beginnings men have from birth. As for cutting them off and joining them on, making them broad or shallow, adding to them and taking from them, sorting them and carrying them through, making them full and making them beautiful, so that root and branch, end and beginning, all comply and go side by side and are fit to be the rule of ten thousand ages, that is ritual. None but a gentleman who has followed it and worked at it and made it his own can know it.

So it is said, nature is the root and the beginning, the raw timber and the uncut log, and man's making is pattern and order exalted and full. Without nature, man's making would have nothing to add to. Without man's making, nature could not make itself beautiful. Only when nature and man's making join is the name of sage completed, and here the merit of making all under heaven one is achieved.

So it is said, heaven and earth join and the ten thousand things are born, yin and yang meet and change and transformation arise, nature and man's making join and all under heaven is ordered.

Heaven can give birth to things but cannot sort them. Earth can carry men but cannot order them. In the universe the ten thousand things and the kinds of men wait for the sage, and only then are they divided. The Odes say, "He soothes and calms the hundred spirits, out to the River and the high peaks." This is what is meant.

The mourning rites adorn the dead with the living, taking his life as the great model for sending off his death. So the dead are served as the living are served, and the departed as those who are present, and end and beginning are one.

Just after death the hair is washed and the body bathed, the hair is bound and rice is put in the mouth, in the likeness of how the living man was handled. If the hair is not washed, the comb is wetted and drawn three times and that is all. If the body is not bathed, the cloth is wetted and passed three times and that is all. The ears are filled and the ear plugs set in, raw rice is used for the rice and dried bone is put in the mouth, and this reverses the way of the living. The inner garment is laid on and three layers are put over it, the great sash is tied but there is no hooked belt. The face is covered and the eyes are veiled, the hair is bound but there is no cap and no hairpin. His name is written and placed on the spirit tablet, and then the name is not seen and only the coffin is plain to view.

The vessels offered are these. The cap has its cloth but no headband. The jars are empty and not filled. There are bamboo mats but no couch. The wooden vessels are not carved to completion, the earthen vessels are not made into real things, the thin vessels have no inside to them. The mouth organs and reed pipes are there but not tuned, the zithers and lutes are strung but not in tune, the carriage is buried but the horses are sent back, and all this tells that they are not for use.

Taking the vessels of the living along to the grave is in the likeness of a road of moving house. They are rough and not complete, they have the look of things and are not made to work, the carriage is driven out and buried, but metal and leather, reins and traces do not go in, and this makes clear that they are not for use. To be in the likeness of a road of moving house, and also to make clear that they are not for use, are both ways of making the grief weigh heavy.

So the vessels of the living are adorned and not made to work, and the bright vessels have the look of things and are not used.

In all ritual, serving the living adorns gladness, sending off the dead adorns grief, sacrifice adorns reverence, and sending out troops adorns awe. This is what the hundred kings held in common and what old times and now are one in, and there is no one who knows where it came from.

So the grave and its mound have the look of a room and a house. The coffin and the outer coffin have the look of the boards and the cover. The pall, the silk cords, the tassels and the fans have the look of the door screen and the curtain. The wood set over the grave has the look of the plastered thatch and the fence.

So the mourning rites are nothing else. They make clear the rightness of death and life, they send off with grief and reverence, and in the end they hide the body away. So the burial reverently hides his form, the sacrifice reverently serves his spirit, and the inscription and the eulogy and the line of descent reverently hand on his name. Serving the living adorns the beginning and sending off the dead adorns the end, and when end and beginning are both complete the work of the filial son is finished and the way of the sage is whole.

To pare the dead and add to the living is called meanness (墨). To pare the living and add to the dead is called delusion. To kill the living to send off the dead is called harm. To take his life as the great model for sending off his death, so that death and life, end and beginning, are all fitting and proper and love the good, this is the form and rule of ritual and rightness, and this is what the Confucian holds.

Why is there the three years' mourning? The answer is this. A pattern is set up to match the feeling, and by it the many are adorned and the measures of near kin and far, of noble and base, are marked off, so that nothing can be added or taken away. So it is said, it is an art that has no rival and cannot be changed.

When the wound is great the days are long, and when the pain is deep the healing is slow. The three years' mourning sets up a pattern to match the feeling, and so makes an end for the utmost pain. The coarse mourning dress, the hemp staff, living in the mourning shed, eating gruel, the bed of brushwood and the pillow of earth are what adorn the utmost pain.

The three years' mourning is done in twenty-five months. Grief and pain are not yet spent and longing is not yet forgotten, and still ritual cuts it off here. Is this not so that the sending off of the dead may have its end and the return to life its measure?

Of all that is born between heaven and earth, the kinds that have blood and breath must have knowing, and of the kinds that have knowing there is none that does not love its own.

Now when the great birds and beasts lose their flock and their mate, though a month pass and a season pass they will surely come back, and passing the old place they will surely walk about it and cry out, stamp and hesitate, and only then can they leave it. Even the small ones, the swallow and the sparrow, have their moment of chirping and sorrow before they can leave.

So of the kinds that have blood and breath none knows as man knows, and so a man's feeling for his parents has no end while he lives.

Is one to follow that foolish and narrow and wanton and crooked man? Then one who dies in the morning is forgotten by evening. If this were let go, it would be less than the birds and beasts, and how could such men live together in a flock without disorder?

Is one to follow the gentleman who has worked on himself and adorned himself? Then the three years' mourning done in twenty-five months is like a team of four horses passing a crack in the wall, and to go on with it would have no end.

So the former kings and the sages set up a middle for it and made a measure, and once it was enough to complete pattern and order, they laid it down.

Then how are they divided? The answer is this. For the closest kin it is cut off at one year. Why is this? The answer is this. Heaven and earth have already changed, the four seasons have already run out, and of what is in the universe there is nothing that does not begin again. So the former kings took their likeness from this.

Then why three years? The answer is this. The exalting was added and made double, and so it is two full years. And why nine months and less? The answer is this. They were made not to reach so far.

So three years is taken as the exalting, the three-month hemp mourning (緦麻) and the five-month mourning (小功) as the paring, and one year and nine months as what lies between. Above they take their likeness from heaven, below they take their likeness from earth, and in the middle they take their rule from man, and the order by which men live together in a flock in harmony and oneness is complete.

So the three years' mourning is the utmost pattern of the way of man, and this is called the utmost exalting. This is what the hundred kings held in common and what old times and now are one in.

Why does the mourning for a ruler take three years? The answer is this. The ruler is the master of order and discernment, the source of pattern and order, the fullness of feeling and outward look. Is it not right that men should lead one another in carrying his exalting to the full?

The Odes say, "The glad and easy gentleman is the father and mother of the people." That gentleman has indeed the saying that he is father and mother to the people.

A father can beget but cannot rear, and a mother can feed but cannot teach, while the ruler both feeds him and teaches him well. Shall three years end it?

The wet nurse, who feeds him, has three months, and the fostering mother, who clothes him, has nine months. The ruler furnishes him at every turn. Shall three years end it?

Get this and there is order, lose it and there is disorder, and this is the utmost of pattern. Get this and there is ease, lose it and there is danger, and this is the utmost of feeling. Both of these utmost things are heaped up here, and to serve him with three years is still not enough. It is only that there is no way to go further.

So the she (社) is the sacrifice to the spirit of the land, the ji (稷) is the sacrifice to the spirit of the grain, and the jiao (郊) is the sacrifice to the hundred kings together with high heaven.

Why lie in state for three months? The answer is this. It is to make it great and to make it weigh heavy. It is what carries exalting to the full and what carries closeness to the full. He is about to be lifted and shifted, to leave his palace and rooms and go back to the hills, and the former kings feared it would not be adorned, and so they drew out the term and made the days enough.

So the Son of Heaven has seven months, the feudal lords five months and the grandees three months, all so that the waiting is enough to hold the work, the work enough to hold the completing, the completing enough to hold the pattern, and the pattern enough to hold the furnishing. To hold the furnishing of things at every turn is called the way.

Sacrifice is the feeling of remembrance and longing. It wells up and chokes the breath, and it cannot but come at times. So even in a time of gladness and harmony the loyal subject and the filial son are stirred and something comes over them.

What comes over them moves them very greatly, and if they bend and let it go at that, then in the feeling of their remembrance they are left wanting and unsatisfied, and in ritual and its measures there is a gap and they are not complete. So the former kings set up a pattern for it, and the rightness of honoring the honored and holding dear the dear was carried to the full.

So it is said, sacrifice is the feeling of remembrance and longing. Loyalty and trust, love and reverence are at their utmost in it, and ritual and measure, pattern and outward look are full in it, and none but a sage can know it. The sage knows it clearly, the officer and gentleman perform it with ease, the officials keep it, and the people make it their custom. To the gentleman it is the way of man, and to the people it is a matter of ghosts and spirits.

So the bells and drums, the pipes and chiming stones, the zithers and lutes, the mouth organs and reed pipes, and the Shao (韶) and the Xia (夏), the Hu (護) and the Wu (武), the Zhuo (汋), the Huan (桓), the Xiao (箾), the Jian (簡) and the Xiang (象), are the pattern with which the gentleman gives voice to what makes him glad and joyful.

The coarse mourning dress, the hemp staff, living in the mourning shed, eating gruel, the bed of brushwood and the pillow of earth are the pattern with which the gentleman gives voice to what grieves and pains him.

That troops have their rules and punishments their grades, so that nothing fails to match the crime, is the pattern with which the gentleman gives voice to what he hates.

They divine for the day and look it out, they fast, they mend the road, they set out armrest and mat, they offer food and speak the prayer, as though someone were partaking of it. They take from each thing and offer it all, as though someone were tasting it. The one who lifts the cup does not drain it and the host keeps the jar, as though someone were being served. When the guest goes out the host bows him off, and he comes back, changes his clothes, goes to his place and weeps, as though someone were leaving.

How sorrowful. How reverent. The dead are served as the living are served and the departed as those who are present, and what has no form is given form, and like a shadow the pattern is complete.