Abstract:
It was a ceremonial criterion in the old and middle ages of China to set up the golden cock, and down to the Tang and the Song Dynasty the golden cock was the established symbol of imperial pardoning. The ceremony of pardoning of the golden cock started approximately in the State of Liang enthroned by the Lu family, which was generated from the conceptions in Five Xing that “the Gua of Xun stands for the cock,” and that “Xun indicates that the ruler should act to the sign of Shen”. Besides a series of complex forms of ceremonies and music, the golden cock involved not only ceremonial functions but also contained some original political and cultural significance. Since the South Song Dynasty, the golden cock continued to be a sign to avoid evil, but its function as “the symbol of imperial pardoning” got gradually lost. This case of the golden cock showed a characteristic of the ceremonial criteria in the ola and middle ages of China that those criteria beyond the three formal ceremonies tended to be variable.
