Zhaomu from the Three Kingdoms to the Close of Qing

74 Chapter 4

Chapter 4 Zhaomu from the Three Kingdoms to the Close of Qing

Attention and even respect for the concept of zhaomu persisted long after Han times. A newly established royal or imperial house faced the need to settle the arrangements for the burial of kings or emperors in such a way that they dis- played a direct link with a predecessor. They must also assert the legitimacy of rendering due service to the ancestors of the new monarch; and we are already familiar with some of the problems that could be entailed. As against the move in Eastern Han to set up collective services there was a call to have a full com- plement of seven shrines, and a ban on exceeding seven, thereby conforming with the traditional account of the kings of Zhou. If services were to be paid to ancestors of several generations, an emperor of a newly founded dynasty would need to pay these to some of his forebears who had not actually held that title, and, if so, to confer it upon them posthumously. Alternatively it might be advisable to claim a direct descent from a well-established monarch of the past and to exclude from the line those of his successors who had reigned with a marked lack of distinction or success. There was a need to show how the proposed arrangements accorded with the principles of zhaomu; and perhaps to gloss over an uncomfortable truth that the maintenance of seven shrines might not actually fit the passage of seven generations; and there remained the question of how to determine the way in which services to successive brothers could be handled. There was also the question of whether it was fitting to go to the expense of setting up seven separate shrines or whether it was sufficient to have no more than one, such as the shrine devoted to the founder, or the Ming tang, with perhaps seven separate chambers within it.1 Along with this differ- ence there ran the distinction between the services that were held individually and those that were collective. These differences persisted among the regimes that followed Han.

1 We have no definite information about the situation, size or shape of these shi 室. For the shi that were part of the palaces, see a fragment of a lost work by Zhu Xi 朱熹, entitled Zhu zi Yi li shi gong 朱子儀禮釋宮, collected by Jiang Yong 江永 in Xiang dang tu kao 鄉黨圖考 (1774; reprinted from the original blocks, 1816).4.2b. Morohashi 5867.48 describes jia shi 夾室 as chambers at each side of a hall (tang 堂) where the tablets of the family shrines were pre- served, being moved there when the line of succession had died out, zhao tablets in the eastern and mu tablets in the western chamber.

Zhaomu features no more than once, and at long remove, in the history of the Three Kingdoms and it would have been difficult for any of the kings to main- tain that they were adhering to its principles. In 254 Sun Liang 孫亮, second ruler of Wu, set up a shrine for Sun Quan 孫權. Thereafter no services were rendered to ancestors of the house of Sun, and as Fang Xuanling 房玄齡 (578– 648) compiler of the Jin shu remarks, the sequence of zhaomu was left in abeyance.2 For Wei, services to Cao Cao 曹操 were instituted and a chamber of rest and shrine were dedicated to his consort, the mother of Mingdi, in 267.3 In Shu-Han, Liu Bei 劉備 set up services to Gao Huangdi of Han and his successors, to be held at the xia 祫 ceremonies.4 It might have been expected that these would have been in accordance with zhaomu, but this is not mentioned. Pei Songzhi 裴松之 (died 451) raises the question, commenting on the diffi- culty in identifying a clear line of descent for Liu Bei, who traced his ancestry back to Han Jingdi.5 The treatise on li in the Jin shu records various practices that were adopted by the kings, or emperors, of Wei 魏 to serve their ancestors, including some that did not entirely accord with li.6 In 237 a group of officials, unnamed, proposed the institution of seven shrines for that house. It was suggested that two such shrines or dedicated sites (tiao 祧) should be set to the north of the one dedicated to Taizu 太祖, i.e., Cao Cao 曹操, the one on the left to Wendi (Cao Pi 曹丕) and that on the right in preparation for Mingdi (Cao Huo 曹壑). These were to be identified as zhao and mu respectively, and they were never to be dismantled. The remaining four shrines that were to come were to be removed in turn when their lines of descent had died out (qin jin 親盡). b Western and Eastern Jin

In 265 Sima Yan 司馬炎, newly established as emperor of Western Jin, later to be entitled Wudi, conferred posthumously the titles of Xuan Huangdi 宣皇帝

2 Jin shu 27, p. 815; Song shu 33, p. 951. This is not mentioned in San guo zhi (Wu) 48, pp. 1151–2. See also Song shu 16, p. 445. 3 San guo zhi (Wei) 3, p. 92. 4 San guo zhi (Shu) 32, p. 890. 5 San guo zhi (Shu) 32, p. 890 note 1. 6 Jin shu 19, p. 601.