佛祖統紀 44.52

44.52

'Since the time of Zhenzong, the suburban sacrifice has been held once every three years; there must first be services at the Jingling Palace, and offerings must be presented throughout the Grand Temple, before sacrificing to Heaven and Earth. Now the deliberators wish to sacrifice to Heaven on the winter solstice and to Earth on the summer solstice, presumably taking this to be following the Rites of Zhou. In antiquity, in a single year there were three sacrifices to Heaven, one offering to the Deity in the Hall of Light, five welcomings of the seasonal qi in the four seasons, two sacrifices to Earth, and four offerings in the ancestral temple. All these fifteen were personally sacrificed by the Son of Heaven. Today the suburban sacrifice is held once in three years; before the suburban sacrifice there is a sacrifice at the Grand Temple, and after the suburban sacrifice an amnesty is proclaimed, lavish rewards are granted to the armies, civil and military officials all receive protection privileges, and relatives, grand councilors, and the hundreds of officials all receive gifts. None of these follows the Rites of Zhou. If none of these is altered, yet regarding the Earthly Deity alone it is said that it is not according to the Rites of Zhou and ought not to be sacrificed to jointly—why should that be? The ancestral emperors of our dynasty reverently exalted the sacrifices, and Confucian ministers and ritual officials investigated what to reduce and what to augment; it was not that they did not know that personally sacrificing at both the Round Mound and the Square Pool would be correct, but simply that because it could not be carried out under current circumstances, they weighed antiquity and the present, according with classical ritual above and matching contemporary suitability below. If the suburban sacrifice were held twice in a single year, the military and the state would once again suffer the burden of onerous labor and expense' (Dongpo ji).