GESCHICHTETE RITENDISKURSE EINE ARCHÄOLOGIE

Abstract

The most comprehensive of all the ritual discourses in the canonical ritual books in China is the discourse on mourning rites (sangli ). The most important topic within this discourse is the ritual regulation of mourning garments (sangfu ). The earliest text on mourning garments is the Sangfu chapter in the Yili. This text is transmitted to us in its earliest version with the two commentarial layers of a ji-note and a zhuan-commentary. The article shows how starting from these first exegetical layers further commentarial layers can be found in the Liji-chapters on mourning garments. The exegetical development, interconnection and relationship of these different texts commenting on mourning garments is analyzed in this article. The main hypothesis being that the innovative dynamic of the different interpretations is based on a stratification of these commentarial texts through which each text refers to earlier texts which it thus includes in its own interpretation. Instead of breaking with the old and offering entirely new interpretations, the new texts rather widen exegetical principles, add further explications and specifications of earlier texts - often in the mode of new exegetical text genres. The texts thus have to be understood and analyzed within a model of referential text layers in which the later texts can be understood as more and more complex integrative discourses of a growing accumulative discursive tradition which starts off from the Yili Sangfu chapter. The archaeological methodology of the article consists in showing the innovative exegetical elements, discovering the discursive layers and intertextual references in these texts and, finally, to propose a general line of exegetical development of which a relative dating of the different chapters on mourning garments in the Liji might be inferred.