li

li, Confucian concept often rendered as “ritual,” “proper conduct,” or “propriety.” Originally li denoted court rites performed to sustain social and cosmic order. Confucians, however, reinterpreted it to mean formal social roles and institutions that, in their view, the ancients had abstracted from cosmic models to order communal life. From customary patterns, li came to mean conventional norms, yielding a new concept of an internalized code of civility that defined proper human conduct. It is this concept that is both celebrated throughout the early corpus of Confucian literature and codified in the Confucian classic called the Liji (“Record of Rites”). Transcending mere politeness or convention, li is central to Confucian human-centred religiousness. A derivative of natural order, li retains a cosmic role in its enchantment of human experience by harmonizing it with nature.