object of all the ceremonies is to bring down the spirits from above, even their ancestors[1]; serving (also) to rectify the relations between ruler and ministers; to maintain the generous feeling between father and son, and the harmony between elder and younger brother; to adjust the relations between high and low; and to give their proper places to husband and wife. The whole may be said to secure the blessing of Heaven.
11. They proceed to their invocations, using in each the appropriate terms. The dark-coloured liquor is employed in (every) sacrifice. The blood with the hair and feathers (of the victim) is presented. The flesh, uncooked, is set forth on the stands[2]. The bones with the flesh on them are sodden; and rush mats and coarse cloth are placed underneath and over the vases and cups. The robes of dyed silk are put on. The must and clarified liquor are presented. The flesh, roasted and grilled, is brought forward[3]. The ruler and his wife take alternate parts in presenting these offerings, all being done to please the souls of the departed, and constituting a union (of the living) with the
disembodied and unseen.
- ↑ Dr. Medhurst rendered this—"to bring down the Shǎns of the upper world, together with the manes of their first ancestors." In giving to the two phrases one and the same reference I am following Ying-tâ and others.
- ↑ The last three observances were in imitation of what was done in the earliest antiquity.
- ↑ In these six things the ways of "middle antiquity" were observed. The whole paragraph is descriptive of a sacrifice in the ancestral temple under Kâu, where an effort was made to reproduce all sacrificial customs from the earliest times.
B b 2
