Interpretation of the Ritual in the Line of"Confucius's Reluctance of Watching the Grand Ritual Ceremony by the King of Lu"from Bayi of The Analects
Interpreting the connotations of the ritual in The Analects was valued by ancient intellectuals,but is often ignored in modern annotations to The Analects.In Bayi of The Analects,Confucius was quoted as saying,"I could no longer watch the grand ritual ceremony when the King of the state of Lu started pouring wine on the ground as a tribute to the divine."Interpretation of this line can best reflect the importance of the ritual system in the appreciation the classical work.There are three main interpreta-tions to the ritual in the past dynasties.Kong Anguo,Xing Bing and other scholars believed that the time of the grand ritual cere-mony by the King of the state of Lu violated the etiquette system.Scholars in the Qing dynasty believed that Confucius was to ridi-cule the grand ritual ceremony by the nobles of the Lu State as an arrogation to the supreme King of the Zhou Dynasty.Zheng Xu-an and Ma Rong,on the other hand,explained it by analyzing the rules of the ritual system itself.The three different dimensional interpretations,combining with the internal rules of the ritual and the external historical context of the event,all point to the con-notation of Confucius's inheritance and persistence to the ritual system of the Zhou Dynasty,as well as his worry over the politi-cal situation of the state of Lu.Appreciating the important roles that The Analects plays in its interpretation to the ritual system is the key to accurate comprehension of this classical work and the intended meaning of Confucius the sage.
Bayi of The Analectsthe grand ritual ceremonyZheng Xuan
NETL
NSTL
万方数据
