Double Sacrifice

During East Han Dynasty, the back walls of stone shrines, which spread in nowadays southeast Shandong Province, always depict a kind of low-relief well known as "Lou Ge Bai Ye Tu (Offering in a Two-storied Building)", which also holds the central location of another real-life offering ritual. This phenomenon—"Double Offerings"—is the present study's object. Why the offering must be doubled, and how these two offerings could be connected are the questions focused throughout this treatise. In Part I, the ritual in "Lou Ge Bai Ye Tu" is identified as Temple offering ceremony, therefore, the phenomenon "Double Offerings" could be clarified as "a picture of temple offering ceremony placed in the center of a cemetery offering ritual". In Part II, this phenomenon is placed in a historical context known as "From Temple to Tomb", in which the study pays a special attention to the transition of temple regulation, as well as temple regulation's relationship with regime system, and its relationship with political contention in East Han Dynasty. Based on these analyzes, it believes that tomb and temple present complete different symbolizations in East Han Dynasty. In Part III, to clarify the ideology foundation of the transition from a real-life temple ceremony into a picture based temple ceremony, study in this part focus on the transformation from sacrifice ceremony to the idea of "Li". Based on this study, relationship between "the picture based temple ceremony" and "the real-life based cemetery ritual" could be recognized. In short, the phenomenon "Double Offerings" is an illustration of the idea "Li" in East Han Dynasty. Throughout the whole work, the central line is temple's development and evolvement; by analyzing temple architecture's typology, temple regulation and temple ceremony, studies of image, history and idea are connected. From this thorough view--the development "From Temple to Tomb", a receptive mechanism of Chinese early carvings can be explicated.