Borrowing Legitimacy from the Dead: The Confucianization of Ancestral Worship

Abstract

This chapter explores in what ways and to what extent the ancestral rites were practiced in early medieval China (AD 100-600), as well as how these ceremonies were connected to the conveyance of political legitimacy. It provides an idealized vision of the forms and activities of ancestral worship that the various Ru theoretical works articulated. The chapter briefly examines the ancestral rites put into effect by the Han dynasty's imperial family. It focuses on how early medieval statesmen from the various dynasties attempted to and eventually succeeded in assimilating the emperor's sacrificial regime to the Ru ritual codes. Although realizing that many China specialists object to the word Confucianism for a host of reasons, the chapter has shown that, on the basis of textual evidence, during the early medieval period, the sacrificial rites were increasingly based on the prescriptions found in the Ru texts. Keywords: ancestral worship; Confucianism; early medieval China; political legitimacy; Ru ritual codes