Conclusion

Abstract

Each of the competing social imaginaries held differing visions of how society ought to be constructed, and where a particular individual desired to be situated within that imagined world. In a world where ritual occupied one of the core elements constituting the social and political fabric of society, death rituals served, not only as a means of effectively displaying existing power relations, but also as a tool for practitioners to construct power and status through its performance. Through debates concerning imperial rituals, scholar-officials were able to limit the monarchical power to a certain extent during Renzong’s era. Amid ebbs and flows of shift in political power within factions among scholar-officials, continuing legal disputes on the performance of proper death rituals in turn fostered a revival of Confucianism.