Compiled by the great Neo-Confucian philosopher Chu Hsi (1130-1200), the Family Rituals is a manual for the private performance of the standard Chinese family rituals: initiations, weddings, funerals, and sacrifices to ancestral spirits. This translation makes the work, which is the most important text of its kind in the last thousand years of Chinese history, fully accessible to scholars and students in a wide range of fields. The militantly Confucian Family Rituals was designed to combat the practices of Buddhist and other non-Confucian rites, and it was quickly recognized...