Zi Zhang asked, "Can you know the tenth life?" ”
Zi Yue: "Yin is due to Xia Li, and the profit and loss can be known." Zhou is due to the courtesy, and the profit and loss can be known. It may be followed by the Zhou Dynasty, although it is known for hundreds of lifetimes. ”
Translations
Zi Zhang asked, "Can the etiquette system of the next ten generations be predicted?" ”
Confucius said: "The Shang Dynasty inherited the ritual system of the Xia Dynasty, and it can be known that there were new additions or abolitions on its basis; the Zhou Dynasty followed the ritual system of the Shang Dynasty, and it can be known that there were new additions or abolitions on its basis." If there are replacements for the Zhou Dynasty, even after hundreds of generations, they can predict the evolution of their ritual system. ”
unscramble
There was no fundamental change in the socio-political model of the Xia, Shang, and Three Dynasties, and it was a period of initiation, development, and perfection of the ritual system. Yu, Tang, Wen, Wu, Chengwang, and Zhou Gong were all the creators or revisionists of the rites. Since the socio-political model of the three generations is similar, the ritual system of the previous dynasty is applicable to the later dynasties in the main body, and the rulers of the new dynasty only need to make some partial revisions according to the situation of social development. After successive revisions, the etiquette system of the Western Zhou Dynasty has been perfected. "Analects of the Eight Nobles": "Zhou Jian was in the second generation, depressed and wenzai! I'm from Week. Confucius was quite appreciative of the construction of the ritual system in the Western Zhou.
Society is developing and changing, so the etiquette system must also be adjusted with social changes. A new dynasty often has to follow the pre-dynastic etiquette system first, and then make local increases and losses. Dynasties can be turned upside down, but the ritual system cannot be reborn, so Confucius is very confident to say that "although a hundred generations can know it."
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