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Tsinghua University

China’s Ancient Ritual Civilization | 中国古代礼义文明

Tsinghua University via edX

Overview

This course will tell you the reason why ritual is the core of Chinese culture, in contrast with western culture.

You will be introduced to relevant ritual classical books, which will help you to understand how people behaved in ancient China.

You will also learn about the rituals behind ancient Chinese adult rites, wedding ceremonies, sacrifice ceremonies, and more.

Join us to start your ancient Chinese ritual journey.

China is a land of etiquette that has been passed down for thousands of years, and its teachings have spread overseas. According to legend, during the Yin and Zhou Dynasties more than 3,000 years ago, Duke Zhou made rituals and music and put forward the program of ritual rule. Later, through the promotion and improvement of Confucius and the Seventy-year-old scholars, as well as Mencius, Xunzi and others, the civilization of ritual and music became the core of Confucian culture. After the Western Han Dynasty, as the theoretical form of ritual and music culture and the source of the ancient ritual system, "Rituals", "Zhou Rites", and "Book of Rites" were successively included in the academic circles. It goes without saying that the foundation of rituals has a profound impact on Chinese culture and history. With the formation of the Confucian cultural circle in East Asia, ritual and music culture has naturally become an important feature of Eastern civilization. There is no doubt that to understand traditional Chinese culture, one must understand Chinese etiquette culture.

This course teaches students the basic framework of ancient Chinese etiquette civilization and the process of establishing traditional Chinese etiquette concepts through a large number of literature materials in a simple and easy-to-understand manner. It cultivates students' humanistic qualities, establishes good ethics, and guides them to practice traditional Chinese etiquette in their lives.

Taught by

Lin Peng

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