In Pursuit of the Holy Rite: Ritual Innovation in the High Tang

• In Event: State Ritual and Political Culture in Imperial and Late Imperial China

Abstract

How and why does ritual change? The frequent and drastic changes in the state ritual program during the first half of the Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD) has been an important issue in Tang studies. The current scholarship emphasizes the political effects of ritual and associates the vibrant ritual innovations in this period, such as the highly unorthodox "New Mingtang Rites" of Empress Wu (r. 690-704) and "Three Grand Rites" of Emperor Xuanzong (r. 712-755), with the instability of imperial succession and the need to glamorize sovereignty. By examining the forms and performances of major grand rites, this paper reveals a different trajectory of ritual change. It argues that ritual innovations are derived from the duplication, extension, and reconstruction of earlier practices. The Feng and Shan rites by Emperor Gaozong (r. 649-683) served as a paradigm, whose structure and key settings were first transplanted by Empress Wu to her new rites, which were later more radically reconstructed by Xuanzong. More importantly, these gradually gave new meaning to the concept of the sovereign, who did not dictate the ritual change, but rather became the product of the changing practices, slowly formed during the one hundred years from Gaozong to Xuanzong's reign. The evolution of the Tang state ritual thus manifested a concurrent reconstruction of both power and culture.

Author

• Stephen S. Chou, Nanyang Technological University