This study inquires into a historical question of how politics surrounding death rituals and ensuing changes in ritual performance shaped a revival of Confucianism during eleventh-century China. It investigates how polarizing debates about death rituals introduced new terrain for political power dynamics between monarchy and officialdom, and between groups of court officials. During the reign of Renzong, in reaction to Emperor Zhenzong’s statewide Daoist ritual programs for venerating the royal ancestors, some court officials maneuvered in the imperial court to return Confucian canonical rituals to their place of primacy. Later, a faction of scholar-officials took a lead in reviving the Confucian rituals as a way of checking the power of both the emperors and the wealthy merchants. By perceiving Confucian rituals as the models for social reality as it ought to be, they wrote new ritual manuals, condemned non-Confucian rituals, took legal actions, and established public graveyards.

Mihwa Choi, author

Lecturer, Chapman University