Creating Confucian Authority: The Field of Ritual Learning in Early China to 9 CE by Robert Chard

Robert Chard's book explores how li (禮)—a term typically translated as "ritual" but which the author approaches with great care—became central to Confucian identity and gradually came to order the political realm in early China. In Chard's words, the book traces "the early formation and evolution of Ritual Learning from before the time of Confucius to the end of the Western Han Dynasty in 9 CE: what it was in different periods, who mastered it, how it was deployed, and what it reveals about the interactions between Confucian Ru and political power" (p. 3). The book explores how a recognized body of ritual practice and norms emerged during this time, eventually becoming codified knowledge in canonical texts. "Ritual learning"—Chard's key term—is defined broadly, as "the study and practice of li" (p. 5) and "all knowledge related to the various aspects of li in early China" (p. 9). The frequent use of the pinyin li is deliberate, as the author seeks to retain its broad range of implications, in contrast to a more constrained term such as "ritual."

Chard is careful to limit the scope of his inquiry into li. Excluded, for example, is consideration of analytic treatments of li found in canonical Confucian texts, such as the Xunzi, parts of the Liji and Han cosmological discourse (p. 17). Also, circumvented is the modern trend toward understanding the Confucian tradition in the abstract, as a set of general theoretical commitments or philosophical positions. Instead, using a method described as "cultural history," Chard seeks to understand the practices that constitute early Confucian li, and how knowledge of those practices (rather than other non-Confucian esoteric ritual practices) influenced the formation of later imperial ritual, thereby establishing the Confucian tradition at the heart of state affairs. A further feature of the author's approach is an emphasis on the visual impact of ritual practice (again, in contrast to a more theoretical understanding of ritual). This builds on the author's earlier work, and on the work of other scholars, such as Robert Eno's claim that the driving concern of the early Confucian movement was physical training and mastery, rather than an ideology or set of ideas (p. 9). Understood as a practical and cultural phenomenon, Chard offers four characteristics of li (pp. 7–8). These are: a "socio-cultural order based on ritual institutions instituted by governments" (lizhi 禮制), "visible, technical mastery," or "ritual performance" (liyi 禮儀), a code of "civilized ethical behavior" (liyi 禮義), and "a regimen of self-cultivation" (xiushen 修身) to which "the personal observation of li was central."

The heart of the book consists of three long chapters, each examining a historical period in the development of ritual learning. The chapters move from the Spring and Autumn period, through the Warring States and early Han, and culminate with a study of Confucian ritual's ascendency in the late Western Han (206 B.C.E.–9 C.E.). Chapter 2 covers the first of these three putative stages of ritual learning and focuses on the understanding of li during the Spring and Autumn Era, particularly as portrayed in the Zuo zhuan. At this time, li was one branch of learning, alongside those such as knowledge of the Book of Songs and music. We find a portrait of li as a body of knowledge whose application and significance are in transition: from a "code of conduct among the aristocracy" to a set of practices that were, through Confucius, "made … available to a somewhat broader segment of society" (p. 83). Even though older social orders ruptured, precise observance and visible display of li remained closely linked to social status; however, li also came to be understood as a physical practice that was integral to personal cultivation.

The chapter also highlights the emerging linkage between visible mastery of ritual practice and the authority to offer general political advice, and also to offer judgments of other people's prospects based on their practice of li. One important feature of li in this context is its effect on others, especially those observing ritual practice. Ritual practice is linked to de (德)—charisma or efficacy (the author is rightfully wary of using the generic term "virtue" as a translation, p. 34)—in the Zuo zhuan, such that the ruler's appropriate ritual form inspires awe and obedience among subordinate officials (p. 35).

Various textual anecdotes illustrate the diverse functions of ritual practice during the Spring and Autumn period. For example, a minister strongly advises a ruler against an official visit to a fishery, since such non-martial excursions did not contribute to the great ceremonies that underpinned general awareness and acceptance of the state. A second, related, example of ritual's practical efficacy is how association with fish undermined the ruler's authority, since such a lowly food had no place in the grand sacrifices that secured social prestige (p. 37). In this way, the ritualized prescription of actions prevented the ruler from unwittingly engaging in activities that failed to advance the interests of a state. Other functions of ritual learning included inferring a ruler's moral virtue and future prospects from slight imperfections in attitude or action during ritual (p. 38), cosmological implications of following ritual propriety (p. 40), ideological justification of hegemonic authority over other feudal lords (p. 44), and the safeguard of normative principles such as reciprocity in interactions between rulers (p. 47). In addition, the distinction between mere ceremonial activity (yi 儀) and morally and socially significant ritual propriety is made clear. The generous use of anecdotes—many of which do not feature the term li—yields a more comprehensive picture of ritual practice, one that would be missed by more analytical or mechanical studies that focus on the character li 禮.

The second major chapter traces the cultural history of ritual learning from the later Warring States through the early Han. There is particular focus on the emergence of Ru scholars, as professional specialists in ritual practice, and the initial development of the first canonical text to codify ritual practice, the Yili. The origins and identity of the Ru, and the concerns of the historical Confucius—in particular, the moral implications of personal cultivation through immersion in ritual practice—do not neatly align with the activities of later Ru. The latter were more explicitly concerned with authority derived from knowledge of ritual texts and practices. Also, in the time after Confucius, "there was no single, homogenous community of Ru, but rather a multiplicity of traditions which had evolved in separate paths …" (p. 100). This included esoteric Ru who were not Confucian; however, ritual learning remained a defining characteristic of Ru (p. 103).

The second part of this chapter traces the origins of the earliest settled Li texts, examining clues from Warring States texts and earlier sources. For example, passages in a later text, the Liji, have close parallels in an earlier text, the Mencius, which suggests a common understanding of ritual norms, even if these do not necessarily appear in a single extant text about li from the pre-Han period (p. 106). However, the author does not find sufficient evidence that any form of canonical ritual text can be identified prior to the Han period: "no particular ritual text had anything like the status of a canon, or 'classic,' in this time [prior to the Western Han]" (p. 113).

The final chapter details the development of ritual learning during the later Western Han, and is characterized by the increased receptiveness of certain Western Han emperors to Ru ritual. This development is manifested in two ways: the reform of ancestral shrines, that is, the removal of regional centers and certain shrines commemorating filial lineage, to accord with supposed Zhou dynasty models; and reform of sacrificial rituals such as the jiao (郊) or suburban sacrifice, also bringing them into line with antiquity. These developments are partly driven by increasing recognition of Ru textual authority on ritual questions.

Notably, the chapter follows recent scholarship in challenging the traditional narrative that Confucianism and ritual learning gained influence when adopted by Emperor Wu (r. 141–87 B.C.E.): there is "little evidence that the political influence of Ru ritual specialists was much greater than it had been in previous reigns" (p. 140), and "the Ru's failure to influence imperial sacrificial ritual continued for many decades after Emperor Wu's death" (p. 131).

The chapter highlights how ritual learning became fixed, even constrained, by an expanding set of canonical li texts in the later Western Han; ritual learning was now characterized by "the shift to a genuinely text-based field of study" (p. 204). Earlier, there had been greater scope for specialists in ritual learning to adjust to the needs of the times. This textual canon, which had emerged by the second century B.C.E., resembled the extant Yili, but also made use of the Liji and Zhou Li (Zhou Guan). Appeal to what had become canonical textual authorities, under the guidance of Ru officials, became prevalent, and sayings or wording attributed to texts such as the Liji (p. 162) and the Book of Songs (p. 165) provided rationale for reforming the sacrificial practices of earlier Han emperors. The chapter finishes with a study of Wang Mang, who is usually credited with codifying these long-lasting changes in imperial ritual practice. The evolutionary arc of "ritual learning" up to the late Western Han is thus complete: from a quality of aristocrats and learned men, to practices that meet the needs of the times, to formalized learning that was grounded in texts and could stand apart from and as a corrective to any historical moment.

How should this study of ritual learning be assessed? Its strength lies in the detailed reconstruction of the disparate threads of ritual discourse found throughout the early texts. By eschewing commonly repeated but often reductive glosses of ritual, it encourages epistemic humility on the part of anyone aspiring to broad claims about ritual in pre-Han China. It vividly illustrates, for example, the difficulty of determining whether there was a stable body of written texts around or before the Zuo zhuan that codified the role of ritual in society; or whether the power of ritual was decentered, belonging to oral tradition, and residing in more local evolutions of practice and the effects of visible demonstrations by rulers. This is consistent with later disputes about which rituals were to be considered orthodox Confucian, worthy of state sponsorship, and which were to be dismissed as esoteric or contravening Zhou practices.

The methodological motivation to avoid reductive theory and to challenge widely accepted assumptions about li gives rise to its own challenges, however. Consider the author's two main guiding claims, which the book fills out in detail, and which are repeated in the conclusion: "First … there was in Early China a recognizable body of knowledge relating to li in its aspects of 'ritual' 'ritual order' and 'ritual propriety.' Second … ritual learning was a fundamental component of what we know of as 'Confucianism' …" (p. 206). It is difficult to argue with these claims, but nor do they appear to require much argument nowadays. There is already, for example, sensitivity toward treating li simply as ritual: the now common "ritual propriety" goes some way toward capturing the broad implications of li that the author emphasizes. The point here is that this book is less about introducing new claims or ideas that constitute a significant challenge to or reorientation of current thinking, and more about reminding the reader of the variety and nuance with which any claims about "ritual" in early Confucian thought must grapple—while also locating Ru ritual within three approximate historical phases.

A second minor reservation concerns the book's stated aim: to examine what ritual learning "reveals about the interactions between Confucian Ru and political power" (p. 3). This is an alluring project, but the work does not delve very deeply into it. The reader is offered a detailed record of how Ru officials have tried to shape imperial ritual, particularly toward the end of the Han, but this is not the same as an examination of what kinds of political power the Ru acquired at the court. While these rituals were undoubtedly important, they constitute only a part of political power. Coverage of what kind of political power Confucian Ru acquired as a result of ritual expertise (i.e., whether they acquired other forms of political influence through the shaping of certain imperial rituals) is beyond the scope of the book, and rightly so given its focus on the textual records of discussions of ritual practice, but this does mean that the notion of the "political" doesn't do much work, and this grander aim of the book remains unfulfilled. The author hints at further volumes, which will extend this study into later historical periods, and perhaps these will take up the political aspect in more detail.

In conclusion, this is an excellent example of careful scholarship, which weaves together a wide range of textual sources into a plausible picture of li's and Ru's evolution. It is particularly valuable when read as a counterpoint to the work of philosophers, historians, or any other system builders. The book doesn't offer comprehensive answers about what li or ritual learning is, but rather reminds us that whatever claims are made about it must confront the complex and incomplete textual corpus found up to the end of the Western Han period.