“Sharing the Moralizing Influence of the Three Dynasties” Zhu Xi’s Shaping of East Asian Cultural Imagery
Resource
美術史研究集刊, 31, 061-150
Journal
美術史研究集刊
Journal Issue
31
Pages
061-150
Date Issued
2011-09
Date
2011-09
Author(s)
Chen, F.M.
Abstract
The academic community has already committed considerable attention to the position of the School of Zhu Xi in the civilization and education of East Asia. However, little attention has been paid to the important role that his moral engagement with the models of the Three Dynasties played in the Southern Song movement to revive archaistic forms and in the shaping of East Asian cultural imagery. This may be because his dedicated work on the shidian ceremonies deals with a particular set of rituals reserved for local sacrifices to Confucius and thus occupies only a very small place in his massive corpus of writings. It may also be because of the questions surrounding the date and authorship of the Shaoxi zhouxian shidian yitu, which is conventionally attributed to Zhu Xi, but preserved only in a Qing dynasty edition. However, these doubts overlook the fact that Zhu Xi’s shidian ceremonies are preserved in rubbings of Yuan stele carvings and Ming dynasty illustrations of ritual implements, with further mention in the collected writings of Song dynasty individuals. These materials not only demonstrate visual connections between the Song, Yuan, and Ming illustrations and the Qing edition of the Shaoxi zhouxian shidian yitu, they also reveal a clear relationship to Zhu Xi, and therefore must be understood within the historical context of his life and work. Zhu Xi established a ceremonial system consistent with his Daoxue system, implemented it at public and private schools throughout the Southern Song domain, and shaped an idealized moral image of the Three Dynasties to change, rectify, and replace the common customs of the day and marginalize the social place of Buddhism and Daoism. In Zhu Xi’s time, this ideal was only put into practice in the private academies with which he was affiliated, and failed to find purchase in the top-down officially administered system of local schools. A result of his efforts, however, the ideal was finally realized in the state-run school system during the period between the last five years of his life and the first fifty years after his death. Over the next five or six centuries, Zhu Xi’s shidian ceremonies were transmitted as far afield as the Choson dynasty, Korea, and the Qing dynasty, Taiwan.
Subjects
桂林府學、釋奠牲幣器服圖、朱熹、復古 (Zhu Xi, shidian ceremonies)
Type
journal article
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