Whether the Gods Are There: Two Answers, from Ji Liang and Confucius

Chu's King Wu invaded Sui. Sui sent its Young Master to settle terms; the Chu men feigned weakness, and when the Young Master came back he asked to pursue them. The king had even broken up his own camp so that the Sui men would see weakness (王毀軍而納少師). The lord of Sui was about to agree, and Ji Liang stopped him: 天方授楚，楚之羸，其誘我也，君何急焉？ — heaven is with Chu for now, and Chu's weakness is bait; why hurry? He added: 臣聞小之能敵大也，小道大淫.

What the Way Is: Loyal to the People, in Good Faith with the Spirits

Ji Liang defines the Way first: 所謂道，忠於民而信於神也；上思利民，忠也；祝史正辭，信也 — loyalty to the people and good faith towards the spirits; to think of benefitting the people is loyalty, and for the invocator and scribe to speak correctly is good faith. (祝史 is generally read as the officers of prayer and record.) Two things, then: what the ruler does for his people, and what the priest and the scribe say to the spirits. Then the present state: 今民餒而君逞欲，祝史矯舉以祭，臣不知其可也 — the people are hungry and the lord indulges his desires, and the invocator and scribe make false claims in the sacrifice; 矯舉 is generally read as claiming merit falsely.

The Lord's Case: Fat Victims and Full Grain

The lord objects: 吾牲牷肥腯，粢盛豐備，何則不信？ — my victims are whole and fat, my grain vessels full and complete; how is that not good faith? (牲牷肥腯 is generally read as the victims whole and fat; 粢盛, the millet in the vessels.) Ji Liang answers with the sentence the article turns on: 夫民，神之主也。是以聖王先成民，而後致力於神 — the people are the master of the spirits; therefore the sage kings first completed the people and afterwards put their strength into the spirits. He does not deny the spirits: 於是乎民和而神降之福, that the people are in harmony and the spirits send blessing, is his own sentence.

Three Sacrificial Formulae, Translated into the People

Then he does something unusual: the words spoken to the spirits at the sacrifice are taken one by one and re-explained. The first, 奉牲以告曰『博碩肥腯』 — presenting the victim, one says 'broad, large, fat, full'. The words sound like a description of the animal; Ji Liang reads them as a report on the people: 謂民力之普存也, it means the people's strength is everywhere preserved.

The second, 奉盛以告曰『絜粢豐盛』 — presenting the grain vessel, one says 'clean grain, full and abundant': 謂其三時不害，而民和年豐也, the three seasons were not harmed and the people are in harmony and the year abundant. The third, 奉酒醴以告曰『嘉栗旨酒』 — presenting the wine, one says 'fine, pure, sweet wine': 謂其上下皆有嘉德，而無違心也, high and low all have fine virtue and no contrary hearts. Three formulae, translated into three things about the people.

He even takes 'fragrance' apart: 所謂馨香，無讒慝也 — what is called fragrance is having no slander or evil. Thus 務其三時，脩其五教，親其九族，以致其禋祀 — attend to the three seasons, cultivate the five teachings, keep close the nine kindred, and so bring the sacrifice. The page gives only the names; the three seasons are generally spring, summer and autumn, and the page does not list the five teachings or the nine kindred, so none is supplied here.

The conclusion: 於是乎民和而神降之福，故動則有成。今民各有心，而鬼神乏主，君雖獨豐，其何福之有？ — now the people each have their own hearts, the ghosts and spirits have no master; though the lord alone be abundant, what blessing can there be? 隨侯懼而脩政，楚不敢伐 — the lord of Sui was frightened, reformed his government, and Chu did not attack.

The Other Page: The Side You Cannot See

In the Zhongyong there is a passage of a different kind: not a record but an argument. 子曰：鬼神之爲德，其盛矣乎！視之而弗見，聽之而弗聞，體物而不可遺 — how abundant is the virtue of the ghosts and spirits! You look and do not see them, you listen and do not hear them, yet they embody things and cannot be left out. Nothing here says the spirits can be seen; the passage says only 'as if'. The page does not gloss 體物而不可遺; it is generally read as giving all things their form and leaving nothing out, and it is not translated further here.

Then 使天下之人齊明盛服，以承祭祀，洋洋乎如在其上，如在其左右 — they make everyone in the world fast and purify and wear full dress to undertake the sacrifices, and there they are, overflowing, as if above one, as if at one's left and right. 齊明盛服 is left as four characters, not expanded into a ceremony. The Odes are quoted: 神之格思，不可度思！矧可射思！ — the coming of the spirits cannot be measured, how much less can one tire of them (射 is generally read as tiring of them). It closes: 夫微之顯，誠之不可揜，如此夫！

The Dead as the Living: A Way of Treating Them

In another passage on the same page, the subject is how the dead are treated: 事死如事生，事亡如事存，孝之至也 — to serve the dead as one serves the living, the departed as one serves the present: this is the utmost of filial piety. It is a way of treating them, not a belief that the dead are still alive: the words are about conduct, not about the state of the dead. The sentences around it are all about the order and ritual of the ancestral temple; only this line is quoted, and the context is not.

Put together: Ji Liang argues an order — the people first, the spirits after, and the spirits only have a master through the people; Confucius argues a continuity — the dead as the living, the departed as the present, and the unseen side is joined by 誠, sincerity (誠之不可揜, sincerity cannot be concealed). Neither passage proves that the spirits exist: Ji Liang says the spirits send blessing, Confucius says they are 'as if above one'. One argues for completing the people first, one for not lying to them. What the two share is that the unseen side is reached through something a person does.

The two pages also differ in kind: one is a record with an argument inside it, the other is argument throughout; each quotation keeps its own page's characters (the Zuo zhuan has 脩 and 絜粢, the Zhongyong 齊明 and 揜). Boundaries: the Shang high god asks who sends blessing and calamity; the rain prayer is one concrete ritual; the suburban sacrifice is the state's sacrifice to heaven, its place and frequency — this article describes no ritual at all.

Related reading：The Shang High God: Who Sends Fortune and Calamity · Running to a Funeral: The Road After the News Arrives · Praying for Rain: Dong Zhongshu's Rite and Wang Chong's Doubt