Historical Studies (Chinese Edition)

No.6, 2017

 

Shaping Orthodoxy: Construction of the Imperial Ancestral Temple System in the Northern Wei (Abstract)

 

Zhao Yonglei

 

As a historical episode in the shaping of Chinese orthodoxy, the construction of the Northern Wei imperial ancestral temple presents quite a complex picture: it involved the Tuoba vs Han issue, the disputed legitimacy of the Northern and Southern dynasties, imperial power, and other factors. In the early Northern Wei, sacrifices to the ancestors generally took place at the East Temple, until Emperor Xiaowen changed the system to give prominence to the position of the imperial ancestral temple. This marks a historic change in the Northern Wei system: a shift from a blend of Han Chinese and tribal Tuoba practice toward a system dominated by what was Chinese. The process went through two stages: the formation of the Seven Temples of the Son of Heaven before Emperor Xiaowen, and the establishment of the imperial ancestral temple system during his reign. In middle antiquity, the construction of such systems was based on the canonical theories of Zheng Xuan and Wang Su. The ancestral temple system in the two Jin dynasties and the Southern dynasties had adopted Wang Su’s theories, while the Imperial Ancestral Temple built by Emperor Daowu, with its separate temples for his predecessors, had clear signs of classical ornamentation and Zheng Xuan’s teachings. In terms of choice of theory, subsequent system construction tended to move from a combination of Zheng and Wang’s theories to complete adherence to those of Zheng. By the time of Emperor Xiaoming, the ancestral temple system was relatively complete. The Northern Wei believed itself to be the inheritor of the Western Jin, but the construction of its imperial ancestral temple reveals that it was contending with the Eastern Jin and Southern Dynasties for the palm of orthodoxy.