Three Years: One Rule, Several Calculations

The Jinshu's chapter on rites opens its section on mourning with a definition, and two sentences later takes it back. 'From the Son of Heaven down to the commoner, body and hair, skin and flesh are received from father and mother; the principle is the same and the feeling is equal; to nourish them in life and mourn them in death — therefore the three years' mourning is the universal rule of the world' (自天子至於庶人，身體髮膚，受之父母，其理既均，其情亦等，生則養，死則哀，故曰三年之喪，天下之達禮者也). Then: 'but since Emperor Wen of Han reformed the mourning rules, later ages followed him, and the three-year rite was no longer practised' (然自漢文革喪禮之制，後代遵之，無復三年之禮). Two sentences, and the chapter has already told you what it will be about.

A Rule and a Fact

What Wen of Han did survives in the Tongdian: 'let the officials and people of the realm, when the order arrives, come and wail three days and then all put off mourning… the dress: coarse red fifteen days, finer red fourteen, fine cloth seven, then off' (服大紅十五日，小紅十四日，纖七日，釋服). Ying Shao read it as 'thirty-six days in all — this is exchanging days for months' (凡三十六日而釋服矣，此以日易月也). The Tang commentator Yan Shigu, annotating the Han shu, refused the reading: 'this mourning system Wen himself invented, taking nothing from the Zhou rites — how is it exchanging days for months? Three years' mourning is really twenty-seven months; where is the text for thirty-six months?' (文帝自率己意創而為之，非有取於周禮也…三年之喪，其實二十七月，豈有三十六月之文). Both readings are printed here; neither is chosen.

The Jinshu then shows how the rule fell out of use at the top. Cao Cao's deathbed order: 'the realm is not yet at peace; the old ways cannot be followed. Of the officials who should attend, let them wail fifteen times; when the burial is done, mourning ends. Those commanding troops are not to leave their posts' (天下尚未安定，未得遵古…葬畢便除). He died on a gengzi day of the first month, was coffined the next day, and was buried that same month on a dingmao day — 'not a month passed' (是為不逾月也). The Jin founder followed Han and Wei: 'after the burial he ended mourning, yet still wore a dark robe and plain cap, had his seat lowered and his meals reduced' (既葬除喪，然猶深衣素冠，降席撤膳).

The Emperor Who Did Not Want to Stop

In the fourth year of Taishi the empress dowager died, and the emperor tried to keep the three years. 'The three years' mourning is the universal rule; I have received a lifetime's love and have no years to repay it — how can I, at the burial, go straight to good fortune? My heart cannot bear it' (夫三年之喪，天下之達禮也。受終身之愛，而無數年之報，奈何葬而便即吉，情所不忍也). The officials answered with the state: 'now the horses of war are not dispersed and the king's business is heavy… the rite of liang'an has long since fallen out of use' (諒闇之禮，自遠代而廢矣). The emperor held out; 'the ministers pressed him again, and he wept for a long time before he consented' (群臣又固請，帝流涕久之乃許).

What the chapter records is the consent, not a judgement of the emperor's feeling: it does not call him filial, it says he agreed. And what the state gave different people was different. The edict of the first year of Taishi: 'officers of the second rank and below who meet with three years' mourning may go home and complete their quiet; commoners are exempted from corvée' (諸將吏二千石已下遭三年喪者，聽歸終寧。庶人復除徭役). That is the arithmetic the chapter keeps repeating: one rule, and a different calculation for each rank.

The Crown Prince's Thirty-Six Days

In the tenth year of Taishi the empress died, and the question became the heir's. The erudite Zhang Jing argued from the Han precedent: 'Emperor Wen made a temporary rule of thirty-six days' dress, exchanging days for months; the way rises and falls, and the rites cannot be kept whole; the crown prince too should cut off feeling and put off mourning' (孝文權制三十六日之服，以日易月…皇太子亦宜割情除服).

The erudite Chen Kui argued from the son: 'the three years' mourning is what a son does to the utmost for himself; therefore the sages made the rite reach from top to bottom. Under the present system, officers who meet with a parent's death are all given leave of twenty-five months… the crown prince should not put it off' (三年之喪，人子所以自盡…皆假寧二十五月…宜其不除). Two parties, two grounds: precedent and state business on one side, the son's own feeling on the other.

Du Yu's Compromise

The secretary Du Yu put a third position. 'In antiquity the three years' mourning of the Son of Heaven and the feudal lords began the same as the highest grade; after the burial the mourning dress ended, they dwelt in liang'an, and the heart mourned to the end of the term — not the same rite as officers and commoners' (古者天子諸侯三年之喪始同齊斬，既葬除喪服，諒闇以居，心喪終制，不與士庶同禮). For the crown prince: 'he shares one body with the honoured; he should return to the ancient rule — at the end of the wailing, put off the hemp, and finish the term in liang'an' (卒哭除衰麻，以諒闇終制).

The outcome is recorded in two steps. The ministry of rites first followed Zhang Jing, and the crown prince 'put off mourning with the rest according to the rule' (皇太子亦從制俱釋服); then, on Du Yu's argument, 'the crown prince, by the ruling on reduced mourning, put off the hemp according to the state's rule and finished in liang'an' (從國制除衰麻，諒闇終制). The short party won the dress; Du Yu won the heart. Nothing is said about what the crown prince himself thought.

What the Debate Was Not

This is history, not a ritual code. The Jinshu is a Tang compilation, and this chapter narrates what courtiers said and what emperors decided; it does not lay down a rule for the realm. The Tongdian is a Tang compendium, and where it quotes Han learning it marks the disagreement: Ying Shao's thirty-six days and Yan Shigu's refusal stand side by side. Neither page says the debate was settled as a statute, or that anyone outside the court changed his mourning because of it, or what the mourning periods of the realm were after the argument.

Nor is there a count. Nobody counts how many officials went home, how many commoners were exempted, or how long the exemptions lasted; the edicts are quoted, not audited. The chapter gives a definition, a fact that contradicts it, a court quarrel and a compromise — and the compromise is the only thing that looks like an answer: the hemp comes off, the heart keeps the term. Whether that was practised, the pages do not say. The chapter's last word on the subject is the compromise sentence.

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