出土简牍所见“祭祀”与“祷祠”

Sacrifice and Praying as Seen on the Unearthed Bamboo Slips

传世文献中,关于祭、祀、祷、祠、祭祀、祷祠等用语和礼法,都有明确规定。祭祀是正祭,为四时常祭;而祷祠则是"非常之祭",即散祭,是因事起祭的临时行为。祭祀的规格高于祷祠。祷是为了解除灾难,它在祠之前举行,而祠则在得偿所愿之后举行,是对祷的还愿之祭。楚简所见的宗教活动中,有固定的"祭祀"行为,而不仅仅只有"祷祠"。楚简中的"内斋"和"野斋",与儒家祭礼中的"致斋"和"散斋"可以对应。所以,将楚地出土的这类简牍命名为"卜筮祭祷简"比较合适。通过楚简、秦简和汉简中关于祭祀、祷祠的用词频率统计,可以分析出,秦人的"祠"就是礼制中的祭祀。此前学者将秦人的"祠"与"祭"对立起来,并由之引申出秦人重实用、重政治,楚人重巫鬼、重祭祀的结论,并无根据。

Classical documents have confirmed that, in ancient China, different speeches and rites were used for different kinds of sacrificing and praying. As a fixed ceremony, jisi, or sacrificing, was held on the set dates of the year, while daoci, or praying, was a provisional activity, often held for a special event. Dao prayers were used to ask gods and spirits for the resolution of a misfortune, and ci prayers were used to thank gods and spirits after one＇s wish was realized. The bamboo slips of Chu had recorded fixed sacrifice ceremonies in addition to temporary daoci praying activities. Its recording of fasting corresponds to the fasting in the Confucian sacrifices. In this sense, these bamboo ships of Chu can be properly named as ＂ divination and sacrifice bamboo scripts＂. With a comparative study of the frequency of the words ＂sacrifice＂ and ＂ daoci praying＂ appearing in bamboo slips of Chu, Qin and Han respectively, we can conclude that for the people of Qin, ci praying was practically ji sacrifice, contrary to the previous view that ci was different from ji, which was based on no evidence.