The Book of Rites 3

1. In the first month of spring the sun is in Shih, the star culminating at dusk being Zhan, and that culminating at dawn Wei.

2. Its days are kiâ and yî.

1. In this month the conjunction of the sun and moon took place in Shih or a Alarkab Pegasi. Zhan is a constellation embracing Betelguese, Bellatrix, Rigel, {gamma}, {delta}, {epsilon}, {zeta}, {eta}, of Orion; and Wei is {epsilon}, {mu}, of Scorpio. Shih is called in the text Ying Shih, 'the Building Shih,' because this month was the proper time at which to commence building.

2 Kiâ and yî are the first two of the 'ten heavenly stems,' which are combined with the 'twelve earthly branches,' to form the sixty binomial terms of 'the cycle of sixty,' that was devised in a remote antiquity for the registration of successive days, and was subsequently used also in the registration of successive years. The origin of the cycle and of the names of its terms is thus far shrouded in mystery; and also the application of those terms to the various purposes of divination. The five pairs of the stems correspond, in the jargon of mysterious. speculation, to the five elements of wood, fire, earth, metal, and water, and, as will be seen in his Book, to the seasons of spring, summer, the intermediate centre, autumn, and winter. Whether there be anything more in this short notice than a declaration of this fact, or any indication of the suitableness of 'the days' for certain 'undertakings' in them, as even the Khien-lung editors seem to think, I cannot say.

3. Its divine ruler is Thâi Hâo, and the (attending) spirit is Kâu-mang.

4. Its creatures are the scaly.

5. Its musical note is Kio, and its pitch-tube is the Thâi Zhâu.

6. Its number is eight; its take is sour; its smell is rank.

1. Thâi Hâo, 'the Grandly Bright,' is what is called the dynastic designation' of Fû-hsî and his line. By the time that the observances described in this Book had come into use, Fû-hsî and other early personages had been deified and were supposed to preside over the seasons of the year. To him as the earliest of them was assigned the presidency of the spring and the element of wood, the phenomena of vegetation being then most striking. He was the 'divine ruler' of the spring, and sacrificed to in its months; and at the sacrifices there was associated with him, as assessor, an inferior personage called Kâu-mang (literally, 'curling fronds and spikelets'), said to have been a son of Shâo Hâo, another mythical sovereign, founder of the line of Kin Thien. But Shâo Hâo was separated from Thâi Hâo by more than 1000 years. The association at these sacrifices in the spring months of two personages so distant in time from each other as Fû-hsî and Kâu-mang, shows how slowly and irregularly the process of deification and these sacrifices had grown up.

2. The character for which I have given ' creatures' is' often translated by 'insects;' but fishes, having scales, must form a large portion of what are here intended. 'The seven (zodiacal) constellations of the east,' says Wû Khang, I make up the Azure Dragon, and hence all moving creatures that have scales belong to (the element of) wood.'

3. Kio is the name of the third of the five musical notes of the Chinese scale, corresponding to our B (?); and Thâi Zhâu is the name of one of the twelve tubes by which, from a very early date, music was regulated. The Thâi Zhâu, or ' Great Pipe,' was the second of the tubes that give the 'six upper musical accords.'

4. The 'number' of wood is three, which added to five, the number' of earth, gives eight, the 'number' of the months of spring; but this, to me at least, is only a jargon.

7. Its sacrifice is that at the door, and of the parts of the victim the spleen has the foremost place.

8. The east winds resolve the cold. Creatures that have been torpid during the winter begin to move. The fishes rise up to the ice. Otters sacrifice fish. The wild geese make their appearance.

9. The son of Heaven occupies the apartment on the left of the Khing Yang (Fane); rides in the carriage with the ph£nix (bells), drawn by the azure-dragon (horses), and carrying the green flag; wears the green

1. This was one of the sacrifices of the house; see paragraph 6, page 116, and especially the seventh paragraph of Book XX. As the door is the place of exodus, it was the proper place for this sacrifice in the spring, when all the energies of nature begin to be displayed afresh. Among the five viscera,--the heart, the liver, the spleen, the lungs, and the kidneys,--the spleen corresponds to the element of earth, and therefore it was made prominent in this service, in the season when the earth seems to open its womb beneath the growing warmth of the year.

2. These are all phenomena of the spring. The third of them is differently expressed in Hwai-nan Dze, the Tâoist grandson of the founder of the Han dynasty (see Book V of his works), and in the Hsiâ Hsiâo Mang, showing that this text of the Lî Kî was taken from Lü Pû-wei, if the whole Book were not written by him. They read ###, which Professor Douglas renders, Fish mount (to the surface of) the water, bearing on their backs pieces of ice.' But the meaning of the longer text is simply what I have given. Ying-tâ says, 'Fishes, during the intense cold of winter, lie close at the bottom of the water, attracted by the greater warmth of the earth; but, when the sun's influence is felt, they rise and swim near to the ice.' ### = 'with their backs near to the ice.' What is said about the otter is simply a superstitious misinterpretation of its habit of eating only a small part of its prey, and leaving the rest on the bank. The geese come from the south on the way to their quarters during the warmer season in the north.

robes, and the (pieces of) green jade (on his cap and at his girdle pendant). He eats wheat and mutton. The vessels which he uses are slightly carved, (to resemble) the shooting forth (of plants).

1. The Khing Yang ('Green and Bright') was one of the principal divisions in the Hall of Distinction of Book XII. We must suppose that the sovereign went there (among other purposes) to give out the first day of the month, and did so in the apartment indicated, and in the style and robes and ornaments of the text, in the first month of spring. The ancient Shun, it is said, set the example of the carriage with bells, whose tinkling was supposed to resemble the notes of the lwan, a bird at which we can only guess, and which has been called the ph£nix, and the argus pheasant. Horses above eight feet high were called dragon steeds. The predominating green colour suits the season and month; but what made wheat and mutton then peculiarly suitable for the royal mat, I do not know the fancies of Tâoism sufficiently to be able to understand.

In the plates to the Khien-lung edition of our classic, the following rude ground-plan of the structure is given to illustrate the various references to it in this Book.

The building is made to consist of nine large apartments or halls; three fronting the different points of the compass, and one in the centre; making nine in all. That in the centre was called 'The Grand Apartment of the Grand Fane;' south from it was 'The Ming Thang Grand Fane;' on the east 'The Khing Yang Grand Fane;' on the west 'The Zung Yang Grand Fane;' and on the north 'The Hsüan Thang Grand Fane.'

In the second month of the seasons, the king went the round of the Grand Fanes. The four corner apartments were divided into two each, each one being named from the Grand Fane on the left or right of which it was. Commencing with the half on the left of the Khing Yang Fane, the king made the circuit of all the others and of the Fanes, returning to the other half on the right of the Hsüan Thang Fane in the twelfth month. The Grand Apartment in the centre was devoted to the imaginary season of the centre, between the sixth and seventh months, or the end of summer and beginning of autumn.

10. In this month there takes place the inauguration of spring. Three days before this ceremony, the Grand recorder informs the son of Heaven, saying, 'On such and such a day is the inauguration of the spring. The energies of the season are fully seen in wood. On this the son of Heaven devotes himself to self-purification, and on the day he leads in person the three ducal ministers, his nine high ministers, the feudal princes (who are at court), and his Great officers, to meet the spring in the eastern suburb;

1. We are not told what the ceremonies in the inauguration of the spring were. The phrase li khun (###) is the name of the first of the twenty-four terms into which the Chinese year is divided, dating now from the sun's being in the fifteenth degree of Aquarius. Kang Hsüan thought that the meeting of the spring in the eastern suburb was by a sacrifice to the first of 'the five planetary gods,' corresponding to Jupiter, 'the Azure Tî, called Ling-wei-jang' But where he found that name, and what is its significance, is a mystery; and the whole doctrine of five planetary Tîs is held to be heresy, and certainly does not come from the five King.

and on their return, he rewards them all in the court.

11. He charges his assistants to disseminate (lessons of) virtue, and harmonise the governmental orders, to give effect to the expressions of his satisfaction and bestow his favours; down to the millions of the people. Those expressions and gifts thereupon proceed, every one in proper (degree and direction).

12. He also orders the Grand recorder to guard the statutes and maintain the laws, and (especially) to observe the motions in the heavens of the sun and moon, and of the zodiacal stars in which the conjunctions of these bodies take place, so that there should be no error as to where they rest and what they pass over; that there should be no failure in the record of all these things, according to the regular practice of early times.

13. In this month the son of Heaven on the first (hsin) day prays to God for a good year; and afterwards, the day of the first conjunction of the sun and moon having been chosen, with the handle and share of the plough in the carriage, placed between the man-at-arms who is its third occupant and the driver, he conducts his three ducal ministers, his nine high ministers, the feudal princes and his Great officers, all with their own hands to plough the field of

1. This rewarding, it is understood, was that mentioned in paragraph 15, p. 217.

2. These assistants are supposed to be the 'three ducal ministers.'

3. This took and takes place on the first in day, the first day commencing with that character, the eighth of the ' stems.'

God. The son of Heaven turns up three furrows, each of the ducal ministers five, and the other ministers and feudal princes nine. When they return, he takes in his hand a cup in the great chamber, all the others being in attendance on him and the Great officers, and says, 'Drink this cup of comfort after your toil.'

14. In this month the vapours of heaven descend and those of the earth ascend. Heaven and earth are in harmonious co-operation. All plants bud and grow.

15. The king gives orders to set forward the business of husbandry. The inspectors of the fields are ordered to reside in the lands having an eastward exposure, and (see that) all repair the marches and divisions (of the o-round), and mark out clearly the paths and ditches. They must skilfully survey the mounds and rising grounds, the slopes and defiles, the plains and marshes, determining what the different lands are suitable for, and where the different grains will grow best. They must thus instruct and lead on the people, themselves also engaging in the tasks. The business of the fields being thus ordered, the guiding line is first put in requisition, and the husbandry is carried on without error.

16. In this month orders are given to the chief director of Music to enter the college, and practise the dances (with his pupils).

17. The canons of sacrifice are examined and set forth, an d orders are given to sacrifice to the hills and forests, the streams and meres, care being taken not to use any female victims.

18. Prohibitions are issued against cutting down trees.

19. Nests should not be thrown down; unformed insects should not be killed, nor creatures in the Womb, nor very young creatures, nor birds just taking to the wing, nor fawns, nor should eggs be destroyed.

20. No congregating of multitudes should be allowed, and no setting about the rearing of fortifications and walls.

21. Skeletons should be covered up, and bones with the flesh attached to them buried.

22. In this month no warlike operations should be undertaken; the undertaking of such is sure to be followed by calamities from Heaven. The not undertaking warlike operations means that they should not commence on our side.

1. Not to destroy the life unborn. At 'the great sacrifices,' those to Heaven and Earth, and in the ancestral temple, only male victims were used, females being deemed 'unclean.' The host of minor sacrifices is intended here.

2. Such operations would interfere with the labours of husbandry.

3. War is specially out of time in the genial season of spring; but a state, when attacked, must, and might, defend itself even then.

23. No change in the ways of heaven is allowed; nor any extinction of the principles of earth; nor an), confounding of the bonds of men.

24. If in the first month of spring the governmental proceedings proper to summer were carried out, the rain would fall unseasonably, plants and trees would decay prematurely, and the states would be kept in continual fear. If the proceedings proper to autumn were carried out, there would be great pestilence among the people; boisterous winds would work their violence; rain would descend in torrents; orach, fescue, darnel, and southernwood would grow up together. If the proceedings proper to winter were carried out, pools of water would produce their destructive effects, snow and frost would prove very injurious, and the first sown seeds would not enter the ground.

Book of Rites 1, 2 , 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

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