The Origin of the Rite and Music System

The use of rites and music dates back to the primitive worship of our ancestors in the remote past.“Only two things are of prime importance for a country:sacrifice-offering ceremony and military affairs.” These two things were considered equally important to our ancestors in their life.In ancient Chinese language，all characters withmeanings of ancestorworshipping and god-worshipping had shared the same left side of the characters as“rites”，such as“god”，“god of land”.The right side of the character”rites”had an upper part meaning a utensil with two strings of jade in it and a lower part meaning the stool on which the utensil was placed for sacrifice-offering ceremony.So the character“rites”indicated the ceremony of ancestor-worshipping or god-worshipping，whereas the jade inside the utensil was the oblation for ancestors or god.“Music”，also a pictographic character，referred to a musical instrument which was used in accompanying the sacrifice-offering ceremony.The“music”included not only the musical instruments，but also dancing and singing，as“music”was a general term for all the ancient arts.

The legendary king，Yu the Great，ushered in the epoch of“family dynasty” by his own“father-to-son”succession of the throne，and his son，King Qi，thus became the founding king of the Xia Dynasty.With the“father-to-son”succession of the throne within a family characterized by“everyone loves only his kinsfolk”，the system of rites had gradually been made to regulate and adjust all human relationships，and become well established in the Shang Dynasty，which could be supported by the archeological findings and historical recordings of this specific dynasty appeared in Sima Qian’s“Records of the Grand Historian”.In the succeeding Zhou Dynasty，two remarkable personages，the Duke of the Zhou and Confucius，had finally brought the ancient system of rites to perfection in forms and contents，through their ingenious conceptions and innovations，investing the rites with rich moral and human connotations.

After the death of the founding King of the Zhou Dynasty，King Wu，his son known as King Cheng，still a child，ascended the throne with the Duke of the Zhou as his regent.

Duke of the Zhou had devoted himself to the systematic construction of rites by systematic improvement on the previous rite and music systems，elevated them to the historical institutional plane and endowed them with profound ethical and moral meanings，for regulating and disciplining the social behaviours of the people.Confucius，however，was born into an age beset with“general decay of rite and music systems”，and considered it his own responsibility to set right the things，to inherit，compile，elevate and disseminate the culture and spirit of traditional rites and music，and make them serve the purpose of cultivating people in their moral and ethical awareness in a subtle and imperceptible way.

qingquang

See author's posts