cítáng 祠堂

Note

Citang is a type of building for performing sacrificial rituals to family ancestors, well-known people, religious figures, and nature spirits in traditional China. Citang 祠堂 is a compound word, in which ci means “sacrifice” and can be used as a verb, while tang is a noun indicating a type of building. The term citang as a whole means “a building used for worship” and was first found in the Han shu 漢書 (Ban 1962, 2948; 3085). 6

The range of the meanings for citang is closely related to the changes in the rituals performed inside them, which can be roughly divided into three stages.

In the standard histories from the Han dynasty, the term citang usually referred to a shrine built at a tomb, which was used to worship the deceased during funeral rituals (Yang 2007; Wu 1995, 110-111). The stone shrine on Mount Xiaotang (Xiaotang shici 孝堂山石祠) in Shandong province is one of the most representative existing Han dynasty tomb shrines. Citang were also constructed apart from the tomb for deceased famous figures to be worshiped by people outside the family. This could be considered as the precedent of the citang as a memorial temple. Construction of such kinds of citang could be political.In the historical sources from the Tang dynasty, citang usually refers to temples dedicated to historical figures. They were constructed at the tomb, the residence of the figures, or other meaningful places related to their lives. 7

During the Tang dynasty the construction of citang for ancestors was restricted to the nobility through sumptuary laws (Zhao 2008). Thus, on the one hand, from the Tang and Song Dynasties, the term citang continued to be used to refer to a temple for worshiping and paying tribute to nature spirits as well as deified historical figures. On the other hand, Zhu Xi (1130-1200) in his Family Rituals (Jiali 家禮) proposed a citang system for all family members, regardless of noble status, to commemorate and pay tribute to their ancestors. But the citang was no longer part of funerary rites, as had been the practice in the Han dynasty. The citang system proposed by Zhu Xi had far-reaching effects, which influenced the definition of the term from that point onward (Chen 2021; Wang 2022).8

The practice of using citang as an ancestral hall for clans (zongci 宗祠) began in the Yuan dynasty (Liu 2018). This practice continued through the Qing dynasty, especially in southern China (Pan 2001, 153-157). Among the clan ancestral halls built after the mid-Ming period, those in the Huizhou region are prominent examples. 9

祠堂是中國古代用于祭祀家族先祖、名人先贤、与自然神祇的房屋建築。祠堂是一個複合詞，“祠”最初的含義為“祭祀”，可做動詞使用，而“堂”為名詞表示房屋。祠堂一詞作為整體表示“用於祭祀的房屋”，最早見於《漢書》（班 1962，2948；3085）。 6

“祠堂”一詞的含義的演變與祭祀禮儀的演變密切相關，可以大致分為三個階段。在漢代“祠堂”主要指建於墓所的墓祠，用於祭祀死者（杨 2007），是喪葬禮儀的一部分（Wu 1995, 110-111）。孝堂山石祠是現存漢代墓祠的代表之一。在漢代也存在由於條件限制建立在墓所以外，用於祭祀死去的名人功臣的祠堂 (《漢書·循吏傳》)。這類祠堂既為家族親屬之外的人提供祭祀場所，也具備一定的政治意義，可以視作後世祭祀名人先賢的專祠的前身。7

“祠堂”一詞在唐代多指代祭祀名人先賢的專祠。這些祠堂通常建於所祭祀名人的墓所、故居或其他有特殊意義的地點, 用來表達崇敬與追思。祭祀祖先则有家廟制度，受到國家法令約束，僅限於官僚貴族（赵 2008）。10

自唐宋至明清，一方面，“祠堂”始终是用于祭祀神祇和名人先贤的场所。

另一方面，朱熹《家禮》提出適用于所有人，而並非僅限於貴族的，用于祭祖的祠堂制度。但“祠堂”已經沒有漢代時喪葬禮儀的含義。（陳 2021；王 2022）朱熹《家禮》提出的祠堂對後世影響深遠，也影響了“祠堂”一詞的涵義。元代出现了独立的祭及始祖的大宗祠，在南方的浙、赣、闽、皖南等地均形成風俗（刘 2018）。11

明代中期以后的家族祠堂包括了祭祀祖先、聚集宗族、舉行家庭禮儀、進行族內教化和管理等多種功能（潘 2001， 153-157）。徽州地区是突出的例證之一。 12