Kong Family Inner Court Life

Author: Kong Fanyin, Kong Xiangling
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2002-01-01
Features: "The Life in the Kong Family's Inner Residence" is a sequel to "Observations of the Duke Yansheng's Mansion." "Observations of the Duke Yansheng's Mansion" primarily describes the overall organization and framework of the Kong Family Mansion, with little focus on the inner residence life. "The Life in the Kong Family's Inner Residence" mainly covers the daily life within the mansion, from welcoming the emperor, receiving imperial decrees, and attending to imperial errands to mundane activities such as hair washing, face washing, sleeping, feeding dogs, feeding cats, and raising birds. However, due to the long history of the Kong Family Mansion, its extensive affairs, and its deep-rooted traditions, over two thousand years of accumulated daily details are too numerous to be fully documented. Therefore, it is necessary to categorize and summarize them in a sequel to gain a comprehensive understanding of the Kong Family Mansion. Both "The Life in the Kong Family's Inner Residence" and "Observations of the Duke Yansheng's Mansion" objectively and scientifically record various aspects of life in the Kong Family Mansion from the perspective of dialectical materialism and historical materialism. The major historical facts are compiled based on "Records of the Grand Historian," "The Spring and Autumn Commentary of Gongyang," "The Spring and Autumn Commentary of Guliang," "The Qufu County Gazetteer," "The Comprehensive Records of the Kong Ancestral Court," "The Records of Qili," "The Examination of Qili Documents," "Selected Archives of the Kong Family Mansion," "The Genealogy of Confucius," as well as the stone inscriptions in the Confucius Temple and the Kong Family Mansion.