slightly attenuated version, wang-yiieh , occurs in these inscriptions, while nine inscriptions reduce the phrase to a simple yu e h .
It is evident from item a, b of the t s 1e-ming group, and j' of the ts'e-hsi group that two steps were involved in the process of bestowing the decree. First, an historiographer would receive the
21
document containing the Royal Decree from the K i n g . The King would call forth a second historiographer; then follows the combination t s 'e-ming which is translated as "read out the Decree to ....". In the more complete wording, the characters wang-jo-yüeh "the King has spoken [i.e. committed to record in the Royal Decree] to
22
this effect:" appear; then follows the actual content of the Royal Decree which as we shall note in the next section is often very severely attenuated too.
It is interesting to observe something of the effect of textual abbreviation in two of the longer inscriptions, namely, the Lai
A/1 :6 9 .4]. In the Lai Fang-Yi the following wording may be observed: [ins. A/3:106.2] and the Ch'u Kuei
placed before the passage incorporating the Royal Decree text conferring a post on the investee, Lai, may be regarded partly as abbreviation of the normal and complete wording:
jJL.
[X]. j£_
JJ
l ; and partly as a form of textual abberration where the phrase "ts'e-ming" has been misplaced. As to the latter sentence: , which is placed much later in the text of the Royal Decree and prior to the King's conferring on the investee a concurrent officeV J\i
Shirakawa (Tsüshaku, 101 :307) has taken it to be a redundant sentence, in view of a similar instance in the ShihChiu Kuei
.
S. 109.1] :^
^ ?&>
^
CD-\Jj_
J^p- • Actually, the Shih Chiu Kuei is only one of several examples that might be cited in this connection (c f . Shih Tui Kuei (2) [ ins . 89.2 (v.b) (l.b)], Chiu Kuei^
[ins. S.104.1]); Shirakawa's observation is surely acceptable. Whereas in the Ch'u K u e i , the usual wording of wang-hu as well as wang-jo-yiieh are omitted. It is more interesting to note that even the sentence order is reversed: the phrase incorporating the Royal Decree is placed after the items of award (instead of before the award as shown in the greater majority of cases). This order, of course, may indicate that "advance payment" was made for the required service
(see note 32 below).
From the above study, it is evident that the granting of the Royal Decree would have been carried out in the following way: an historiographer would receive the document containing the Royal Decree from the King, the King would then call forth a second historiographer to read out the Decree to the investee. Four parties were thus directly involved in this stage of the ceremony: the King, two historiographers, and the investee. The full wording of this section
of inscription texts may be reconstructed with reference to Table 10 as :
.... The Shih-officer A received the Document containing the Royal Decree [from the King]; the King called forth the Shih- of f icer B to read out the Decree to C: "The King has spoken to this effect: ...."
Then continues the text of the Decree which is generally presented only in part because of space considerations in the inscription area.
Curtailment of textual content is no less a characteristic in the present part of the investiture ceremony inscription text than it is elsewhere amongst this group of comparatively detailed inscriptions. As we shall observe later (Section 8), sentences were even more severely pruned in the group of 43 highly abbreviated inscriptions. Sometimes, even the entire sentence describing the procedures of the granting of the award might have been omittedI
Royal commands issued to the investees during the course of the ceremony and read out to the investee by the Royal historiographer on behalf of the King (or on rare occasions by the King) were of two kinds: (a) Those concerned with Royal affairs, and such decrees formed the majority of which we presently have recorded; and (b) occasional instances of Royal commands requiring the investees to undertake duties in the Princely States. Of the former we may note here the following features:
(1) Appointment to Cooperative Posts :
An officer of the Royal Court might on occasions be required by the King to serve as an assistant to another officer: in the third year of Hsiao Wang's reign, as recorded in the Shih Ch'en Ting i?*]7 [ins. T. 100.3] , the Shih-of f ic e r , Ch'en, was commanded to assist the Shih-officer, Su, in the administration of various personnel, the hsiao- c h 1e n , the shan-fu, the shou- . , and the kuan-ch'üan along with the Cheng people and their shan-fu, and kuan-shou-yu
(
%]a\3L , ^
^CZ1 ^
^ K ./_This Shih-officer , Su, continued to
serve in the Royal Court during Yih Wang's reign, when he was transferred to a new office as the Minister of Law, as recorded in the Nan Chi Ting ^ [ins. 53.3]. The Ting inscription records that an officer, Nan Chi, received an order from the King to assist Su
(in this inscription he is referred to as Po Su Fu) in his new post ( ($] SC ) * Nan Chi was awarded an orange coloured fu-apron, a black coat with embroidered edging, and a banner with bells.
An investee who at an early stage was ordered to serve as an assistant in a particular office in the Royal Court, might later on, be promoted by the King to take full charge of that office. On both occasions, an investiture ceremony would be held to formalize the matter. For example, the Shih-officer, T u i , was commanded by the King to assist Shih Ho Fu in the administration of the Tsou-ma-officers of the left and the right, and those of the Five Towns of the Royal Domain, as recorded in the Shih Tui Kuei (1) (-')
[ins. 89.2 (v.a) (l.a)] ( ^ &
& A j h
/3*-
% ). The decree was promulgated in the course of an investiture ceremony held in the K'ang Temple in Chou in the first year of the reign. In the Shih Tui Kuei ( 2 ) ^IrpC
^ [ins. 89.2 (v.b) (1. b ) ] , the former duties of the Shih-officer, Tui, as an assistant to Shih Ho Fu are mentioned, then follows the text of the Royal Decree (dated in the King's third year of reign) which states: "Now, I confirm [you in] your [appointment by Royal] Decree, and command that you administer concurrently the Tsou-ma-officers [of the left and the right]( £ £
^
6«; 1$ &.
&
.j.^
)• This is in effect, a promotion from the former post of "assistant". Similarly, Mien, who was ordered to assist Chou Shih in the administration of the Royal forests as recorded in the Mien Kuei '^7^ [ins. T*64_._3] : ->££.7^
was later promoted to the post of ssu-t'u, as recorded in the Mien Fu (Hu,) ) [ins. T. 44.3] ^ and was commanded "to administer the forest, ponds and pastures of the Royal Cheng
territory" ( Ü]£] ^ ) S
^ Ssu-t1 u was not the only post Mien had received during his career in the Royal administration; later he was given the post
-77 y-
On each occasion, an investiture ceremony was held to formalize the Royal Decree. Such promotions or transferences of office took place sometimes during the course of two different reigns. In the Mu Kuei [ i ns. S. 223.1 ] of Kung Wang's time it is recorded that Mu was given the post of ssu-shih by a former King and now, the present King had occasion to change the appointment and decreed that Mu be placed in charge of the pai-liao "the hundred fellow officers"; the title of the new post is not, however, recorded (
j L
^
J]<C) -dr
y'k'S
) •26
(2) Appointment to Independent Posts:
In most cases, however, the investees were independently appointed to specific posts either in the two capitals of Western Chou or in the territories directly under Royal suzerainty. In the Shih Shih Kuei (1) 'fycb C"') [in s * A/1 ;9 7 .2] , the office of ta-tso was bestowed on the Shih-officer, Shih, by the King; Shih was commanded to govern and administer the Shih-shih-officers of the left and the right of the Feng territory ( \ (?] -J
). Similarly, the investee might be put in charge of captive peoples quartered in towns ( ) in the Royal Domain such as those enumerated in the Hsün Kuei . A / 1:131.1] : "Now I command you to govern and administer the yi-jen: firstly the Tiger-janissaries and lastly the Yung menials; the Hsi-men Yi-barbarians, the Ch'in Yi-barbarians, the Ching Yi-barbarians, the Ch'üan Yi-barbarians, the shih-ling-ts 1e-hsi n , the ....-hua Yi-barbarians, the Yu-.... Yi-barbarians, the Yu Yi-barbarians, the c h 'eng-chou-tsou-ya and the Shu(?)-ch'in people - the people who have submitted and the Yi-barbarians who have been subjugated ( ^