From Local Worthy to Temple Exemplar: Yang Shi’s Enshrinement and the Ritual Making of Cheng–Zhu Orthodoxy
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Studies of Yang Shi’s enshrinement in 1495 have traced the earlier petitions and examined how changing Ming criteria for admission to the Confucian temple shaped the outcome. This article asks a different question: how did a disputed intellectual genealogy acquire binding ritual authority? Reading local gazetteers, academy records, court chronicles, memorials and genealogical writings together, it argues that Yang’s canonization unfolded through a hierarchy of ritual recognition. Academy and local-worthy worship made him a durable regional exemplar; the court’s rejection of empire-wide enshrinement in 1465 nevertheless authorized a local shrine and thereby created an intermediate ritual status; later advocates recast him from an imperfect exegete into an indispensable transmitter and defender of the Way. Imperial enshrinement did not simply acknowledge an already settled Cheng–Zhu succession. It standardized one contested genealogy across state schools and made that genealogy publicly performable. Yang’s case thus shows how ritual hierarchy constituted Confucian orthodoxy through continuing sacrificial relations between living communities and exemplary predecessors.
Source: Religions
DOI: 10.3390/rel17101222
Author: Chaomin Zhang
Institution: Minzu University of China
Language: English
Subfield: History
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $2,172
OpenAlex ID: W7222971530