Overview
Key data
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Nature | A chapter of the Book of Rites, a Confucian classic |
| Form | By the twelve months; each with stars, seasonal signs, orders and sacrifices |
| Core structure | From the first month of spring to the last month of winter, each with what should be done |
| Related | Of one origin with the twelve纪 of the Lüshi Chunqiu and the “Seasonal Ordinances” of the Huainanzi |
Form and contents
The text proceeds by month. Each chapter opens with the stars (as “in the first month of spring the sun is in Yingshi; at dusk Shen culminates; at dawn Wei culminates”),
then the seasonal signs, then where the Son of Heaven dwells, what he wears and eats, and then the month’s orders and sacrifices.
The whole sets out seasons, human affairs and ritual in layers — the complete presentation at the institutional level of “heaven and man responding to one another.”
Seasons and government orders
Its purport is to govern according to the season: spring government in spring, summer government in summer.
Where a month’s orders are out of season, the calamity is noted.
This turned the seasons from a natural into a political order, with consequences of great reach.
Its place in the history of the calendar
Though not a calendrical treatise, the “Monthly Ordinances” is the key text by which the calendar entered institutional life.
The monthly and seasonal sections attached to later almanacs derive largely from it.
Compared with the “Explanation of the Seasonal Instructions”: the “Monthly Ordinances” is framed by months, the “Explanation” by solar terms —
one coarser, one finer, both retained.
On the same name
⚠ Cai Yong’s Yueling Zhangju is a commentary on the “Monthly Ordinances,” not the text itself; the two must not be conflated.
Compiled and arranged by Chujia Kuang.