Ying Sui — New Year Welcoming Sacrifice in Ancient China 迎岁
Paul PengYing Sui (迎岁, Yíng Suì, lit. "Welcoming the Year") is the ancient Chinese sacrifice marking the transition from the old year to the new, performed at the ancestral temple. The Chuxue Ji (初学记), a Tang dynasty encyclopedia, records Emperor Taizong of Tang performing the Ying Sui ceremony at the Grand Temple — closing the old year's ritual cycle and opening the new under ancestral blessing. In the Zhengyi tradition, this threshold rite continues in the year-end and new-year grand offerings that mark the Taoist liturgical calendar.
Ying Sui (迎岁, Yíng Suì, lit. "Welcoming the Year") is a seasonal sacrifice marking the transition from the old year to the new, performed at the ancestral temple. The term is recorded in the Chuxue Ji (初学记, "Records for Beginning Students"), a Tang dynasty encyclopedia compiled by Xu Jian (徐坚) and others. Ying Sui belongs to the category of temporal transition rites (时序祭), marking the passage from one year to the next. It differs from the annual seasonal cycle (四系) by its focus on the year-end threshold rather than the regular seasonal rhythm — the Ying Sui is the ritual hinge between one year and the next.
The Chuxue Ji (初学记) records:
"Welcome the year at the Grand Temple."
The Chuxue Ji records Emperor Taizong of Tang (唐太宗, reign 626–649 CE) performing the Ying Sui ceremony, demonstrating the rite's continuation from the Zhou dynasty through the Tang period. The Grand Temple (太庙, Tài Miào) was the imperial ancestral temple — the ritual center of the dynasty — where the year-end sacrifice was performed to close the old year's ritual cycle and open the new under ancestral blessing.
In the Zhengyi tradition, Ying Sui continues in the year-end and new-year ceremonies that mark the Taoist liturgical calendar. The annual grand offering (年醮, nián jiào) serves the same function as the classical Ying Sui: closing the old year's spiritual accounts and opening the new year under divine protection. The Taoist understanding of time and cosmic cycles provides the framework within which the Ying Sui operates — the year is not merely a calendar unit but a complete cycle of cosmic energy that must be ritually closed and opened.
The history of Taoist fasting and offering rites traces how the Ying Sui's year-transition logic was absorbed into the Taoist liturgical framework. The Five Elements (五行) cycle governs the year's ritual structure: each year is associated with a specific elemental phase, and the Ying Sui sacrifice formally closes one elemental year and opens the next, ensuring the smooth transition of cosmic energies across the temporal threshold.
