As far as Sui-Tang Chang'an is concerned, both the Sui and the Tang dynasties built their Ancestral Temples and State Temple in conformity with the principle in the Kao gongji.
Now we may conclude:
1) The Former Han dynasty, where a multiple ancestral temple system was in use, never followed the Kao gong ji principle. This may have been due to the unavailability of either the Li ji (the Book o f Rites edited by Dai Sheng) which was rediscovered by Liu Xiang during the latter part of the Former Han dynasty or the Kao gongji itself, which was made known even later by Liu Xin.85 Both contain a passage about the relative position of the ritual centres.
2) Upon founding the Later Han dynasty, emperor Guangwu ordered the building of the State Temple west of the Ancestral Temple. This coincides with the Kao gong ji prescription. But the State Temple was moved to somewhere else by the same emperor. This may be connected with the fact that Later Han scholars Ma Rong, He Xiu86 and others interpret the relative position of ritual centres with great flexibility, all of which suggests that the Kao gong ji principle on ritual centres was at this stage far from being institutionalized.
3) Cao Cao and the Cao Wei dynasty may have built their ritual centres in accord with the Kao gong ji respectively in the northern city of Ye and Luoyang, but we have no detailed historical record. The Western Jin dynasty, however, probably met the Kao gong ji requirement, notably because its succeeding government, the Eastern Jin did so. It is understood the Eastern Jin court brought with it an predominantly Western Jin culture to the south, so that the position of ritual centres may not have been an exception.
4) As to the later capitals, Pingcheng, Northern Wei Luoyang, the southern city of Ye and Sui-Tang Chang'an, they all obeyed the Kao gong ji principle in building ritual centres. During this period, the institution was firmly established. The institutionalization of the principle may go further back to the Western Jin or Cao Wei dynasties. The only exception in this period is the Northern Zhou dynasty.
85
86
official, regarded the story about removal o f the Former Qin temple as unreliable. Emperor Xuanzong was in favour o f Yao Chong's suggestion and ordered the rebuilding o f the new Ancestral Temple. (See, Tang
hui yao 12/29217/352-3; Tong jia n 211/6725-26.) I f f§ M
2 Early Influence: Palace & Market
Palace and M arket
The palace should be in front, the market in the rear.
The Kao gong ji 87
Palace
Several aspects in palace structure are of great interest to us: 1) The location of the palace relative to other structures. 2) The number of palace precincts.
3) The separation of the palace city from the Imperial city.
Information in primary sources about palace structures in the pre-Qin period is extremely scanty. Fortunately, archaeologists have uncovered a number of Warring States cities. Thanks to the better preservation of rammed earth and roof tiles it is much easier to define palace areas than other functioning parts of a city.
The palace structure varied from one city to another. It has been confirmed that Linzi of Qi, Xiadu of Yan, and Jinan of Chu all had a single-palace structure. Each one of them situated its palace in a way different from any others.
In Qi Linzi, the palace area was enclosed in the southwestern comer. Yan Xiadu consisted of eastern and western cities. The palace area was in the northern part of the eastern city. Zheng Xinzheng which was also divided into eastern and western cities had the palace in the north of the western city. Chu Jinan, the most regularly shaped rectangular city of them all, assigned the palace to the southeast.
Although an inner city was discovered at the centre of Anyi of Wei, it cannot be readily identified as the palace for lack of such structural remains as rammed earth. Handan of Zhao^S was similar in structure to Qi Linzi in that it had its palace area in the southwestern part of the city. But the resemblance ends there. Zhao Handan's palace area was completely separate from the greater city, and consisted of three smaller cities, each of which had its own palace structure. Houma of Jin,89 which flourished towards the end of the Spring and Autumn period, was similar to the triple palace city of Handan, both in morphology and in size. Palace structures were found at the centre of the northern and eastern cities of Houma of Jin.90
87. 88*
89 9° ’
Zhou li 41/24-25.
Xin Zhongguo /272-27Ö. Komai Kazuchika, relying on documentary sources and early archaeological
investigations attempts to deomens träte the compliance o f Warring States cities with the Kao gong j i in 44