Liji (禮記)

The Liji (Book of Rites, 禮記) is a Confucian classical text dealing with ritual propriety (lǐ, 禮) — its philosophical foundations, its specific prescriptions, and its embedding in social and political life. It is one of the Five Classics of the Confucian canon, alongside the Yijing, Shijing, Shujing, and Chunqiu.

The work's textual provenance is genuinely complex. The received text of forty-nine chapters (sometimes sixty-three, depending on the recension) is a Han-dynasty (1st c. BCE) compilation drawing on earlier ritual materials whose individual histories are not always recoverable. Some chapters are attributed to specific Confucian figures — chapters such as Da Xue and Zhong Yong are traditionally ascribed to Zengzi and Zisi (Confucius's grandson) respectively, though the attributions are themselves contested. Other chapters are anonymous, compiled from Warring States and early Han ritual writings of various origins. The compiler typically named is Dai Sheng (戴聖), whose recension became canonical as the Xiao Dai Liji (Smaller Dai Book of Rites); an earlier recension by Dai De (Dai Sheng's uncle) survives partially and differs from the received text.

For the Death region, the Liji is the principal Confucian source for the ritual handling of death — funerary rites, mourning grades and durations, the structure of ancestor observances. The architecture engages one passage from the Tan Gong (檀弓) chapter, which records discussions of mourning practice often through brief exchanges and observations.

Notes

The provenance complexity matters operationally for what citations to a Liji passage actually point to. A reference to Liji, Tan Gong I.32 (or whatever section number) implies that the chapter and its sectioning are stable across editions — they are not always. Different editions and different translators use different sectioning conventions. The architecture's citations specify both chapter and section in the convention of the cited translation; readers tracing back to other editions may find the section numbering varies.

The Liji's relation to canonical Confucian thought is itself layered. The text is canonical in the Confucian tradition but is composite, mixing philosophical reflection (notably Da Xue and Zhong Yong, later extracted into the Four Books) with ritual prescription that may date from various periods and reflect varying practices. Engagement with any single Liji passage benefits from awareness that the text is a compilation rather than a single composition.