Royal Canon of Tsinh

The Royal Canon of Tsinh is a list of Tsinh rulers to whom supplication was paid regularly. While the canon first appears in historical works dating to the late 4th century and contains 43 members, a version revised based on the contents of the Springs and Autumns of Six States has put the figure at 70; their lifetimes are estimated to range from the 8th or 9th centuries BCE down to the point the canon was set to writing.

Contents

#											Weeks
1	Kerap	Qrut	Prang	Neting	Met	Keq	Kerang	Sin	Nem	Ghwiq	N/A
2	Prang I	1
3	Qrut I	Neting Brilliant	(missing)	(missing)	(missing)	(missing)	(missing)	(missing)
4	Neting I	Kerap Ancestor	Keq Ancestor	(missing)	(missing)	(perhaps missing)	(perhaps missing)	(missing)
5	Qrut II	Kerang I	Ting Face	Nem II Great	(missing)	(perhaps missing)	(missing)	(perhaps missing)
6	Kerap II	Neting II	Prang III	Sin I	Nem III	Keq II	Met Heir	(missing)	(missing)
7	Sin Later	Prang IV	Qrut III	(missing)	(missing)	(missing)
8	Kerang Later	Neting III	(missing)	Ghwiq Heir	(missing)	(missing)
9	Kerap III	Keq III	Prang V	Qrut Heir	Kerang Great
10	Qrut IV	Prang VI Prince	Sin III	Prang VII Lesser
11	Qrut IV Defender	Neting IV	Met Middle	Sin Younger	Kerang III	Qrut V
12	Sin IV Outsider	Qrut VI Outsider	Kerap V	Neting V
13	Kerang III
12	Qrut V	Kerang IV
13	Prang Outsider	Kerap VI
14	Neting Glorious	Nem IV	Keq IV
15	Prang VIII Southerner
16	Kerang V
17	Sin	Kerap
18	Neting
19	Prang
20	Sin V
21	Qrut
22	Qrut
23	Qrut

Source and reconstruction

The earliest complete texts that mention the Royal Canon are histories that date to the late 4th century, which often contain the phrase "the ruler will now worship from Prang I, then Qrut the Brilliant and Nem I, then..." (公祀自先祖丙、次光乙、先祖壬、次…) Sometimes this phrase is state in full, down to the predecessor of the ruler who ordered the worship ceremonies. Other times, only Prang I is mentioned and then the total number of names "the ruler will worship from Prang I, then the 25 ancestors" (公祀自先祖丙其廿祖又九祖). It seems succeeding rulers always appended their immediate predecessors to this list, which grew to 31 ancestors by the time the last ruler was written of. It was therefore called the Royal Canon (公表) under the assumption it represented an exhaustive list of all former rulers from whom the current claimed descent.

The historians who lived during the Tsinh hegemony and late antiquity seemed to have little doubt this list represents an unbroken line of ancestors from Prang I to the current ruler. In the 18th century, with the Springs and Autumns gaining scholarly attention, it was discovered that more archaic versions of the Royal Canon could be reconstructed based on a chronologized listing of recorded sacrifices, as they were recorded one by one instead of given in a single statement. Contrary to all expectation, the archaic Royal Canon was not shorter than the one used in the hegemonic period but longer. There were names that had been omitted by the Classical historians. Published in his treatise in 1791, Baronet Pem's thesis has been called the discovery of the millennium in the study of Themiclesian history and the first meaningful step in understanding the Archaic Period.

Between 1810 and 1850, historians worked out a more consistent chronologization of the records in the Springs and Autumns, placing events in strict chronological order. Combined with the earlier knowledge that worship of a particular figure was always done on a day of the ten-day week that corresponded with his Ordinal Name, numerous gaps in the Canon sacrifices were found, i.e. the next figure was not always worshipped on the next permissible day. These gaps are too consistent to be considered accidents occasioned by natural disasters or other business of state. For example, there was always a 2-week gap between the known members of cycles 3/4, a 4-week gap between 4/5, and a 3-week gap between 5/6 and 7/8.

The prevailing assumption is that these gaps must have been occupied by figures to whom worship was withheld but still remembered. Given the constraint of ten rulers (never repeating in their Ordinal Names) in a single cycle and the length of the gaps, a further group of figures can be hypothesized and estimated. In combination with those who were still worshipped during the Archaic Period, the full Royal Canon down to the time of Prince Qhwang (皇中兄, r. 171 – 185) can be measured to between 73 and 81 names, consisting of the 25 who were worshipped during his lifetime, 32 worshipped during the Archaic Period, and another 16 to 24 whose presence was felt as gaps in the schedule during the Archaic Period.

Analysis

The orthodox position on the Canon in Themiclesian historiography is to read it as a list of successive rulers, if not specifically as a sequence of father-son successions. This was maintained in the educational establishment as late as the 1945, by which time the analysis had been thoroughly discredited in academic circles.

The foremost argument against this analysis is that nothing in the Canon itself actually says so—it is a sequence of individuals to whom supplication is offered but does not define their biological relationship. Sources providing that the final members of the Canon are father-son successions are external to the Canon, and the more reliable early historians do state biological relationships when such are known and otherwise remain silent. Thus, in the 1700s, more learned individuals have accepted that beyond the last nine cycles (which contain only one member each with the exception of cycle 16, which has two members) biological relationships are not necessarily that between fathers and sons. However, in this period, the main alternative theory is that the Canon represents a successive list of kings who may be siblings or cousins.

As the 19th century progressed, more doubts surfaced regarding the interpretation of the Canon as a list of successive rulers, and these doubts are often connected with the length of the Canon and the external chronology of the Meng settlement of Themiclesia. Containing 90 names with Cycle 1 counted, and 80 without, "cramming" these names into the period in which Meng settlement can be archaeologically confirmed results in average reigns of less than 10 years, which is very short compared with both later history and foreign royal dynasties operating on primogeniture or agnatic seniority principles. The brevity of reigns only becomes more remarkable when known reigns of later members of the Canon (who can be confirmed as successive rulers) are taken into account. Even if the argument that persons had shorter average lifespans is admitted, the general brevity of these reigns is difficult to reconcile with the norm.

The current thinking is that the criterion for being added to the Canon during the period corresponding to the final cycles was indeed to have ruled as a king, which is a hereditary office. But this criterion likely did not exist as such in the earlier period, as the idea of kingship may not have yet existed, even though a Canon for sacerdotal purpose did. Thus the Canon had transformed from a sacerdotal list into a royal genealogy, and its earlier nature is yet to be described.

Cycle 1

The first cycle, which has ten members in sequence of the Heavenly Stems, is usually considered mythical as their behaviour is fundamentally different from that in other cycles and quite transparent. Nevertheless, their inclusion in the Canon cannot have been recent and is likely to be ancient as well.

Cycle 2

As it contains but a single individual, Prang I, the second cycle is considered an anomaly.

See also

• Themiclesia