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Dr. I. James McMullen of Pembroke College, Oxford University gave a lecture titled "Sacrifices to Confucius in Edo Japan" on Thursday, Sept. 8, at Hamilton. A leader in the field of Edo Period Japanese Confucian studies, Dr. McMullen recently returned from a year in Japan researching the "Sekiten" ("Shidian" in Chinese) ritual, associated with Japanese Confucian practices.

After an introduction by Hamilton Professor of History Thomas Wilson, Dr. McMullen began by citing the longstanding existence of the ritual in East Asia, including its presence in Japan since as early as the 8th century CE. He then noted that though the Sekiten ritual was performed widely in the Edo Period (17th-19th c.), albeit in an altered form, it has all but died out in modern times. Dr. McMullen observed that research on Tokugawa Confucian practice has often focused on the ritual's role in Japanese educational history, ignoring its original significance as a religious ceremony.

He proceeded to address the nature of the ritual in China, where Confucianism began and developed before its eventual transmission to other lands. According to Dr. McMullen, in China the ceremony was an inescapable social element, regarded as a central cultural concept. He distinguished it from practices such as rites of passage and petitions for worldly benefits, defining it as an act of homage and veneration to Confucius. The ritual offered sustenance to the spirit of Confucius, whose teachings have shaped Chinese notions of social hierarchy and morality for many centuries.

McMullen then described the ritual in its grandest form in the Tang Dynasty (618-907CE), which involved the participation of the Emperor, offerings of animal sacrifice and libation and invocations of gratitude to Confucius. The Ming Dynasty (1368-1644CE) saw alterations to the ceremony, and even the rise of a private, more devotional worship tradition that was more modest in size, he said.

Moving to the Edo Period, McMullen explained that Japanese Confucians had already practiced the ancient ceremony since the Nara and Heian Periods (ca.8th-12th c.), and so the more modern version both reflected older traditions of worship and tailored the ceremony to address modern concerns. Whereas Heian leaders made the ritual an aspect of government administration and had detailed provisions for the rite in cities and outlying provinces, the Edo Period (Tokugawa) regime saw less extensive implementation of the ritual. Confucianism's civil and cultural concerns resonated little with the Tokugawa government, which was a feudal military institution.

In fact, interest in Confucianism was revived mainly to educate the bureaucracy and instill in them an ethical code of conduct, meant to combat the pervasive moral laxity among leadership at the time. However, the lack of true personal belief in Confucianism by those who reintroduced it to Japanese society ultimately limited the effectiveness of its implementation.

McMullen attributed the extent to which Confucian practice penetrated into Japanese culture in earlier times to the eagerness with which the Japanese had once adopted Chinese cultural characteristics. In the Heian Period, for example, the Imperial Court modeled itself on Chinese custom, and so thoroughly applied Chinese practices such as Confucianism within their own society. The fundamental difference between the courtly government from such times and the Edo military society thus meant that members of Edo society, such as the samurai class, felt no particular affinity with Confucian thought or ceremony.

McMullen did, however, distinguish between two phases of Confucianism in Edo Japan. He explained that the first (1600-1780) saw few feudal domains practicing Sekiten, with schools run by commoners and ritual observances vulnerable to the whim of fickle local rulers who occasionally neglected the ritual entirely for years. He suggested that the commoners saw the rite as a means of empowerment from their low social status, refuting the notion that Edo Confucianism was chiefly political tool used to maintain the status quo. In the second phase after 1780, there was an explosion in education and proliferation of schools, which established Sekiten as a far more common rite and began the pervasive Confucian practice for which the Edo Period is recognized. However, McMullen noted the dominant Edo tendency to abbreviate the ceremony; while diffusion increased, intensity and strict adherence diminished, and observance became perfunctory and diluted with nativist aspects. This tendency resulted in part from the cultural and political reluctance to adopt wholeheartedly a practice that was now regarded as foreign.

McMullen then summarized his talk by saying that Confucianism and the Sekiten ritual in Japan was not a stable observance due to its culturally alien nature by the Edo Period. Afterwards he entertained questions from the audience.

This event was sponsored by the Edwin Lee Fund and the Office of the President and hosted by the Program in Asian Studies.

-- by Greg Gencarello '06

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