礼书“五爵”的称谓原理:容量化器名

The Principle of Naming Five Wine Vessels by Volume in the Ritual Books

《仪礼》所见饮酒器有爵、觚、觯、角、散五名,可称"五爵"."五爵"袭用了商与西周的爵、觚、觯、角、斝之名,实际已是容量概念了.礼家称其容量分别是一、二、三、四、五升,共五等,还有一个"凡诸觞皆形同,升数则异"的旧说."凡诸觞皆形同"之说,可以在战国宴乐图中得到印证."五爵"皆为筒形.它们容量有别,而器形无异.礼书"五爵"的称谓原理,可概括为"容量化器名".这种酒器命名策略服务于"以小为贵"原则,令尊者使用容量较小的酒器、卑者使用容量较大的酒器,以此标识身份高下、强化等级秩序.这就构成了一种绝无仅有的奇特等级酒器礼制.

According to Observances and Rituals (《仪礼》),there are five appellations for wine vessels,which are respectively Jue(爵),Gu(觚),Zhi(觯),Jiao(角),and San(散).Scholars of Han Ying school argued that the volumes of these five kinds of containers had five classes and ranged from one litre to five litres.Thus,the five wine vessels,which followed the names of Jue(爵),Gu(觚),Zhi(觯),Jiao(角),and San(散)in the Shang and Western Zhou dynasties,had essentially turned into the concepts of volume in the period of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty.The ancient ritual specialists argued that“the five wine vessels are different in volume but same in shape”.The principle of naming the five wine vessels in ritual books can be concluded as“naming by volume”.Such a nomenclature served for the idea“the smaller, the more honorable”,which means the noble used the smaller ones while the humble used the bigger ones.This practice was used to distinguish people’s social status and strengthen the hierarchical order.It constituted a unique hierarchical etiquette system of wine vessels.