摘要
The French sinologist, H. Maspero, in his La Chine Antique (Chapitre IV, Le Cycle Annuel Des Fetes Religieuses), is of the opinion that in ancient China, before the Chou dynasty, the harvest festival Ta-tsa (大蜡) or Pa-tsa (八蜡) had nothing to do with the then new-year's-eve festival. He says that the date of the festival Ta-tsa was not originally in the last month of the year, but the tenth of the agricultural calendar 1. When the Chou dynasty had been founded this calendar was changed. The eleventh month of the old calendar became the first month of the official calendar of the Chou dynasty; and the tenth the twelfth. As such, the date of the new-year's-eve festival of the Chou was actually moved two months forward while the date of the Ta-tsa kept unchanged. So, these two festivals were held in the same month, the twelfth month of the new calendar, and from thenceforth they were confounded in one. Consequently, according to Maspero, the harvest festival Ta-tsa and the new-year's-eve festival are two festivities, different both in date and in origin.
There are several other sinologists who, before or after Maspero, pay much attention to this festival, and each has an idea somewhat similar to his. The most distinguished one is M. Granet. In his Fetes et Chansons anciennes de la Chine (English translation by E. D. Edwards, London, 1932) he gives many pages (pp. 166-180, The Seasonal Rhythm) to the discussion of this festival. "Are they (the festivals of ancient China) connected with the cycle of agriculture?" He asks himself, and then answers "Judging by their uniformity, it would hardly seem that some are festivals connected with sowing, for example, and other with harvesting, or with tillage, or with weaving. The theory that they are dependent upon the rhythm of peasant life is more plausible." He further points out, taking the Pa-tsa as example, "The
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(1) He means the first month of winter of the so-called Hsia calendar (夏曆). But I do not think that this calendar actually existed before the Chou dynasty.
Yueh Ling (月令) refers this festival to the tenth month, and to the midst of a group of ceremonies which is clearly the most important mentioned by this text. The Chiao T'e Sheng (郊特牲) refers it to the twelfth month, and describes it by itself. The dates differ. The festival described by the Yueh Ling is assigned to the first month of winter, that is to say, the end of the agricultural year; the other is referred to the twelfth month, the end of the civil year. Native scholars say that the date of the festival was changed in the Ch'in dynasty (秦代), to which period they attribute the Yueh Ling. The cosmological principles adopted by this dynasty resulted in the coincidence of the agricultural year and the civil year, and the festival was moved forward and placed in the tenth month (which in the new calendar became the twelfth month), that it might always indicate the close of the civil year. But would not the original time of a festival of general thanksgiving be after the harvest? As a matter of fact-and this decides the question-the Shih Ching (詩經), like the Yueh Ling, assigns it to the tenth month. This, then, is the old date which was later set back. At first the festival marked the close of the actual year, the end of the cycle of production, and, later, that of the civil year, the arbitrary conclusion of the astronomic cycle." He adds "This complex, lively, dramatic festival, which seems at first to be connected with the harvest and the chase, has two main features upon which I propose to lay stress. This is a concluding festival, it is a festival of thanksgiving." Maspero, as well as Granet, takes it for granted that the La of the Yueh Ling and the Ta-tsa of the Chiao T'e Sheng refer to the same one festival, that is to say, this festival may be called either Ta-tsa or La. But, of the date, the former has a view quite different from the latter's. Maspero's La Chine Antique was published much later than Granet's Fetes et Chansons anciennes de la Chine. Whether the former's theory is nearer to the truth or not? Whether both of theirs are of the same value or not?
By an analysis of the documents of the Chou dynasty, I find that the harvest festival of this dynasty consists of the following ceremonies:
1. offering to the Holy Granary of the king,
2. offering to the Supreme Being,
3. offering to the Four Directions,
4. first offering of rice to ancestors,
5. praying for a good harvest of the coming year,
6. offering to the god of earth and the gods of gates of villages
and towns, and
7. Tsa: this one was subdivided into two parts
(a) Ta-tsa or Pa-tsa
(b) La.
Of the ceremonies listed above the Tsa was the greatest one and the date of which was most closely related to the ancient calendar. The philological meaning of the word Tsa (蜡), in my opinion, may have nothing to do with the significance of this festival. Of course, the harvest festival of ancient China like any other ancient people's, had the significance of thanksgiving. But, from another point of view, we find that the festival Tsa, at the same time, had the meaning of "seeing something ending off". When the date came all of the vassals must send envoys to the court and present gifts to the son of heaven. In the celebration, every kind of the harvest of the year was gathered for offering (and also domestic animals were offered). It had all the characteristics of an orgy, and the people of the whole country were as if mad. As a matter of fact, the rites were divided into two parts, either of which was celebrated separately. The first part called Ta-tsa or Pa-tsa (see Chiao T'e Sheng), was mainly directed to Sien Seh (先嗇) and Ssu She (司嗇)1, at the same time to Tigers and Cats, because the former eat wild-boars and the latter field-mice, and it included offerings to the soil, the field-ridges, the pools, the irrigation ditches and the field-huts built for the agriculture officials. The second part called La (臘) (see Yueh Ling, the tenth month), was mainly addressed to the ancestors, at the same time to the five spirits (五祀). Of these two parts, the first in which the king was the officiator was celebrated officially and publicly in the fields and was meant for the whole country; the second was performed privately by people of the same clan in the ancestral temple. The difference of the objects of worship and that of the places of celebration are the most important data from which we can see that the Ta-tsa and the La were two separate ceremonies.
But, how do we know that the Ta-tsa and the La bore a common name, the Tsa? How do we know that the La is a part of the Tsa? The first paragraph of the Li Yun (禮運) offers us a clear evidence which keys up to both of these questions. It tells us that in the state of Lu (魯國), when the ceremony of the Tsa was going to be held, Confucius, being an official of the Lu, was invited as a guest to participate the celebration of the rites. The text shows clearly that the ceremony was held in the ancestral temple. According to the traditional interpretation, the Tsa described by the Li Yun refers to the ceremony of La; and there has never been an objection ever since. The author of the Li Yun, however, neither called this ceremony La nor Ta-tsa, but "Tsa".
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(1) According to the comments of Cheng, Sien Seh is Shen Nung (神農), and Ssu Seh is Hou
Chi (后稷)
Now, since the Tsa contained two parts of ceremonies, would it be true that the festival Tsa of the Chou dynasty was a compound of the harvest festival and the new-year's-eve festival? The following paragraphs will offer an answer.
The original date of the harvest festival of ancient China is a rather interesting theme. But, the problem of the ancient calendar systems complicates the matter. Since the later stage of the Chou dynasty, there has existed a theory for interpreting the differences between the calendars then used. It is the so-called San Chen Lun (三正輪), upon which Maspero's theory is based. The theory says that in ancient times when a new dynasty was founded the calendar used by the overturned dynasty must be changed. The selection of the first month of the new calendar was the first thing of all. Accordingly, the month orders of the old and the new were different. The orthodox scholars believe that this was a fact which took place when the Yin dynasty was founded, and also the Chou dynasty. The following is a comparative table of the month orders of the three dynasties.
Table 1.
┌─────────────┬─────────────────────────┐
│ Solar data │ * ** │
│ Common order │ │
│ month orders ├─────────────────────────┤
│calendars of │ A B C D E F G H I J K L │
├─────────────┼─────────────────────────┤
│ Hsia │ 11 12 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 │
├─────────────┼─────────────────────────┤
│ Yin │ 12 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 │
├─────────────┼─────────────────────────┤
│ Chou │ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 │
└─────────────┴─────────────────────────┘
* winter solstice
** summer solstice
In this table, the English letters A, B, C,……L are a substitution of the Chinese characters 子 (Tsu), 丑 (Ch'ou), 寅 (Yin), ……亥 (Hai) (the Twelve Branches, 十二地支). "A" stands for "Tsu", "B" for "Ch'ou", "C" for "Yin", ……and "L" for "Hai". In the Chinese historical documents, this order from A to L is called Yueh Chien (月建, literally, month establishment). Instead of the ordinal numerals, each lunar month (excepting an intercalary month) is given a letter for its special calling and this letter is common for these three calendars. So, it is a common order. The letter goes one after another and correspondently one by one to the turn of lunar month. For example, month A is the first month of the Chou calendar, at the same time it refers to the twelfth month of the Yin and the eleventh month of the Hsia calendars: they all termed it "month A", and so on. The month A, the month B…… (in Chinese they are termed 建子之月, 建丑之月) are the technical terms of the San Chen Lun. How many calendar systems existed in the Chou dynasty is one thing; the truth of this theory is another. In my opinion, it only has a hypothetical value, although the common order is convenient for reference. In the following discussion, when I say month A or month B…… I mean the common order.
Again, let us identify the calendars which Maspero, Granet and that which the present writer cites.
Table 2.
┌─────────────┬─────────────┬───────────┐
│ The present writer │ Maspero │ Granet │
├─────────────┼─────────────┼───────────┤
│ Chou calendar │ offical calendar of │ │
│ │ the Chou dynasty │ │
├─────────────┼─────────────┼───────────┤
│ Hsia calendar │ agricultural calendar │ civil year │
└─────────────┴─────────────┼───────────┤
│ agricultural year* │
└───────────┘
* It had ten months only, from month C to month L.
Now let us turn to the problem of the date. It is known from the Chiao T'e Sheng that the date of Ta-tsa was in the twelfth month of the Chou calendar; and from the Tso-Chuan (左傳) (the fifth year of Duke His ─僖公五年), we know that the festival La was in the same month. But, according to the Yueh Ling, the date of the latter was not in the twelfth month, but the tenth. If we read the first table again, we must see the reason why the date differs. Probably, from the Ch'un Chiu period to the overturn of the Chou dynasty, the Chou and the so-called Hsia calendars were contemporaneously in use; and later on, the latter prevailed, though not officially, against the former. The author of the Yueh Ling was affected by the Hsia calendar. Therefore, he transcribed the date of the festival La (actually, not only the La but also some other seasonal festivities of the Chou dynasty) from the Chou calender into the Hsia calendar; while the author of the Tso Chuan did not (sometimes, he used other calendar). So, the time of La, either described by the Yueh Ling or by the Tso Chuan,
was unitary, that is to say, both of these two books refer it to the same month, namely, the month L.
Even if the so-called Hsia calendar were of great antiquity, would the people of the Chou deem their harvest festival to be originally in the tenth month of this calendar? This is an important problem which the present writer wishes to discuss.
Further studies lead us to see not only the festival La's exact date, but also its originality. In the T'ien Kuan Shu of the Shih Chi (史記天官書), there is a paragraph sufficient to prove that the date of La, in the Chou dynasty, was on the last day of the calendar year of this dynasty. Therefore, this festival was, then, also the new-year's-eve festival. (The time of Ta-tsa was, no doubt, before the La). It is the same paragraph which tells us that the date of this festival was, later on, moved two months backward, that is to say, from the last day of the month L to the last day of the month B. Thus, it became the new-year's-eve festival of the Hsia calendar. This change did not take place in the Han, but in the Ch'in dynasty because the latter (or their ancestor) adopted the calendar system of Hsia, and the Han
followed it with a little modification.
It was almost in the same period (Ch'in and Han dynasties) that the festival Tsa changed greatly for another time.
(1) The term Ta-tsa suddenly disappeared from all books of this period. In the 31th year of Shih Huang Ti of Ch'in, the term La was changed, and the festival was called Chia P'in (嘉平). While the Han dynasty had been founded the term La was adopted again; and parts of the rites of Ta-tsa were held under the name of La. Since then, the month B has been called the month La (臘月) up to the present time.
(2) In the earlier stage of Wu Ti of Han, a thanksgiving festival of harvest might not be held sometimes in spite of having a good harvest.
The festival La, however, had never been neglected.
(3) In the later stage of Wu Ti of Han, the definite date of the festival La was changed. The festival was held on the third Hsu day after the winter solstice (冬至後三戌)1. It was said that if the day did not fall in the month B the celebration must be postponed twelve days after. So, the date is definitely in the month B though it never falls on the last day of it.
These changes indicate that the festival La divorced from the harvest festival as well as the new-year's-eve festival. Why was these happen? I am of the opinion that it is because the date of La was too far from the harvest season. After the date of La was changed indefinitely, something else happened. The same folklores of the new-year's-day of the Chou calendar 2 also prevailed on the new-year's-day of the Hsia calendar 3 and on the day after the La. What does this suggest?
The changes of this festival and its related folklores show that the original time of harvest festival of ancient China was closely related to the division of calendrical year. At which date the harvest festival was celebrated before Chou dynasty is yet unknown to us; however, the philological study of the word nien (年) leads us to the belief that, in the Yin dynasty, the month in which the last ceremony of harvest festival was ended marked the close of the year, and this month must not be far from the harvest season. According to the interpretation of Prof. Tung Tso-pin, the character for nien, in its ancient pictographic form □, is composed of two parts. The upper part represents a sheaf of corn. The lower part is a man. So, it means originally "harvest". In the earlier Oracle Bone inscriptions of the Yin dynasty, the marginal or transferred meaning of "a year" was gradually added to this character. As such, it was occasionaly used as a sign of the unit of time-counting on the Oracle Bones. During the period of the last two kings of this dynasty, the word szu (祀, literally, to sacrifice), instead of nien, was used as the unit of time-counting of regnal year, and that means the cycle of worshipping 4. Why did they adopt such a cycle as the unit of time-counting? The truth is yet unknown to us. But, that the ceremony of harvest festival ended this cycle is more plausible. While the Chou dynasty was founded the word nine (年), instead of szu, was adopted again. If we remember that the date of the last ceremony of harvest festival of this dynasty was on the new-year's-eve day and the word nien means originally harvest we cannot but believe that the harvest festival, since the known history of China, marked the close of the year. This offers the proof of my theory: in the most ancient times, the calendrical-year's-cycle originated in, and was transformed from the agricultural cycle; and the new-year's-eve festival from the harvest festival. This transition is not only found in ancient China but also in ancient Egypt and, moreover, can be observed among the present Taiwan aborigines and some other primitive peoples.
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(1) About 25-36 days after the winter solstice.
(2) The day on which the winter solstice falls is the standard new-year's-day of this calendar.
(3) The day on which the Li Ch'un (立春, a solar term, literally, the begining of spring) falls is the standard new-year's-day of this calendar. This day is definitely 46 days after the winter solstice.
(4) The calendar of this dynasty, which was ordered out of the Oracle Bones, contains twelve lunar months.
As a conclusion, I should remind the reader of three questions upon which the present writer proposes to lay stress. Would the harvest festival and the new-year's-eve festival of ancient China be different both in date and in origin; and, later on, they were confounded in one? Would the people of the Chou, or even of the Yin, deem their harvest festival to be originally in the tenth month of the so-called Hsia calendar, or of any other calendar? And would the so-called San Chen Lun be true? My answers are in the negative.