140 A CASE OP RITUALISM 



service, making a second sacrifice to Heaven and taking the 

 Duke of Chou as associate. He was not entitled to this, 

 being only the brother of a king. Apart from every other 

 consideration of illegality, do you think that the Duke, the 

 man most punctilious in the use of rites, would not feel the 

 ridiculous position in which Lu had placed him, as he stood 

 in the honoured list of divine associates. There would he be 

 in the presence of Shang Ti, Hou Chi, T'ai Wang,* Wang 

 Chit. — kingly ancestors and founders of the house of Chou. 

 Duke Chou would be unwilling to stand in their midst. He 

 would hide his face from the shame of it. It would be un- 

 usual, unbecoming, blasphemously wrong, and so no blessing 

 could be expected from the happy ceremony. As the saying is 

 'when no change is presumptuously made from the constant 

 practice descending from the oldest times between the prayer 

 and blessing (at the beginning of the sacrifice) and the bene- 

 diction (at the end of it), we have what might be called a 

 great and happy service. ' At the beginnning of the worship 

 the invocator used the words of the host (Chu) to address the 

 Spirit and the sacrifice ended. The Spirits' promise was 

 made (by the priest) in the language of the Spirit and the 

 blessing was given to the host. To-day with the feudal 

 lords aping the king's sacrifices the service is offered not 

 according to the old practices and so the essential idea of 

 loyalty, filiality, gratitude is subverted. The differentiation 

 in names and ranks will produce elements of confusion and 

 change and the fundamental distinction in human relation- 

 ships and spiritual life will be lost. In short the efficacy is 

 lost where the ceremonies are disturbed, and ancient prac- 

 tices altered." Such was the great argument. 



We come now to a review of the question by Ma Tuan 

 Lin, J the great scholar of a.d. the twelfth century. 



He first takes the disquisition of Lin Shao Ying who 

 ridicules the Three Bocks, compiled by Tso, Kung and Ku, 

 because they pass over without much notice the vital thing, 

 discussing only minor points in great detail. Ma agrees with 

 Lin in his criticism, but nevertheless points out that he too 

 has been misled by the Han writers. These held that the 

 illegal sacrifices of Lu did not originate with the bestowal of 

 honours on the Duke of Chow by Ch' eng Wang, but that the 

 privilege was bestowed by some later king of Chow on Lu. 

 Ma further refuses to accept the explanation of Dr. Chiang 

 that it arose from a request made by Duke Hui of Lu. 

 He regards this view as most unnatural. Inasmuch as Lu 

 was a state of great moral standing and self-respect it is 



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