| Abstract |
The Funeral Rituals of Tang Dezong and Shunzong was composed by Pei Jin, an Assistant Minister of the Court of Imperial Sacrifices at the beginning of the reign of Tang Xianzong. However, this work had been lost and seldom been mentioned in other literatures. Therefore this paper focuses on recovering the structure of this book and explaining the background of its composition by comparing with The Annotation of the Funeral Ritual of Tang Daizong, whose compiler was Yan Zhenqing. This paper states that The Annotation of the Funeral Ritual of Tang Daizong was the result of reconstructing the Kaiyuan Rites in early 780s so as to reclaim the greatness of the Tang Dynasty. In contrast, The Funeral Rituals of Tang Dezong and Shunzong mirrored the new political culture and academic trends of the early 9th century. The two books, both followed Confucian rules, jointly offered very practical and standard models for the imperial funeral rituals of middle period China. |
