Book of Etiquette and Ceremonial

The Book of Etiquette and Ceremonial was compiled before the Qin dynasty, and is an assemblage of the ritual codes and ceremonial norms of the Zhou nobility. Originally titled the Book of Rites, and also known as the Canon of Rites and the Rites of the Gentleman-Officers, it was revered in the Han dynasty as one of the Five Classics. The full work comprises seventeen chapters, divided into the following sections: the Capping Rite, the Marriage Rite, Mourning Garments, the Mourning Rite of the Gentlemen-Officer, the Eve-of-Burial Rite, the Post-Burial Offering Rite, the Special Sacrifice Feast Rite, the Lesser Sacrifice Feast Rite, the Steward's Withdrawal, the Village Wine Drinking Rite, the Village Archery Rite, the Banquet Rite, the Grand Archery Ceremony, the Reception Rite, the Duke's Feast for Nobles, the Audience Rite, and the Transmission of Mourning Garments. Its subjects encompass the ceremonial forms and procedural steps of capping, marriage, mourning, sacrifice, archery, defense, court audience, and diplomatic reception, extending also to the arrangement of vessels and implements and the gradations of dress, with much detail recorded on the proper deportment of advance, withdrawal, salutation, and deference. In the early Han, Gaotang Sheng transmitted seventeen chapters as the New Text recension. When King Gong of Lu demolished the residence of Confucius, fifty-six chapters of an Old Text Book of Rites were discovered, seventeen of which accorded with the New Text, while the rest were all lost. The Han scholar Zheng Xuan combined the New and Old Text recensions and composed the Annotations on the Book of Etiquette and Ceremonial, which became the established text transmitted to posterity. In the Tang, Jia Gongyan composed a subcommentary based on Zheng Xuan's annotations, and the work was incorporated into the official academies and listed among the Three Rites.