Book Review

Asia

This volume spans a wide breadth of Chinese history, from 1000 B.C.E. through 1750 C.E. This long period notwithstanding, the essays work remarkably well together, and this conference volume is an invaluable contribution to the growing literature on official Chinese ritual. Much of the volume's coherence, and ultimate success, results from the common methodological approach taken by the contributors. Rather than examining only ritual manuals and other texts that describe how various ceremonies were to be carried out, and explicating them with the aid of Western theorists, the authors study the often perplexing wider contexts of these rituals, including commentaries, debates, and the associated material culture. The result is more than a complete picture; it is ample testimony to both the power and centrality of ritual in China. With subtle and intelligent analysis these essayists introduce us to rich worlds where ritual is neither purely formulaic nor meaningless, but controversial, dynamic, and fundamental.

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The organization of the book is chronological. But it is the emergence of a common set of themes that allows these essays to cohere. Most conspicuous is the role of the emperor and imperial system. Whether as individual, as institution, or as symbol, the emperor occupied a dominant place in Chinese ritual. Several authors spotlight individual emperors and their efforts in reformulating rituals to serve personal or political ends. Mark Lewis's essay on sacrifices at Mount Tai shows how Emperor Wu (r. 141–87 B.C.E.) of the Han dynasty dramatically redefined emperorship using elements drawn largely from diverse Warring States ideas. As in later periods, such transformations were by no means always Confucian, and it is a credit to the volume as a whole that it takes non-orthodox ideologies seriously. Andreas Janousch shows how Emperor Wu (r. 502–549) of the Liang dynasty constructed rituals that made him not just emperor but bodhisattva-as-emperor, uniting secular and Buddhist sacred in a universal unity that bolstered his authority. Similarly, Nicola Di Cosmo demonstrates how, 1,200 years later, the Qianlong emperor (r. 1736–1799) codified his own native Manchu rituals to "civilize" Manchu traditions as well as preserve them as part of a unique national identity.

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