Reproducing the Universe

Abstract How did officers of the imperial court conceptualize the relationship between built ritual spaces and particular spheres of the cosmos? I read court debates on official cults as maps of the cosmos itself to describe the parameters of how Confucian officers understood the esoteric operations of the cosmos and how particular kinds of intentional human actions affect those operations through ritual interventions in the built environs of altars and temples. I argue that Confucian officers understood cult rites and the ritual spaces where they were conducted not as metaphorical representations of cosmic reality but rather as existing on the same ontological plane as the cosmos itself. Court liturgies thus had to match the ebb and flow of the cosmos to set into motion particular kinds of cosmic dynamics distinctive to each sphere; celestial bodies moving through Vaulted Firmament at Round Terrace or the Dao itself as transmitted along lineages of sages and worthies enshrined in Confucius Temples. Court discussions in the Song and Ming construed Round Terrace as a microcosm of Vaulted Firmament, such that the court’s liturgy seated gods as celestial bodies at altar niches throughout Round Terrace according to the hierarchy that existed in the natural universe, and that correct rites facilitated the gods’ access to cult feastings to produce auspicious effects that benefited all under Heaven. Also, court debates on Libation rites at Confucius Temple feasted the sages, worthies, and scholars according to a genealogy of the Dao’s transmission that was irreducibly linear.