**3. Sincere Writings, Emotions, Oblations, and the Completion of Human-Spirit Communication at Sacrificial Rituals**

Later, the constituent *yan*-word was added to *cheng*1 to become *cheng*2, whose early implication was still closely connected to sacrificial rituals. In the *Records of Ritual*, *cheng*2 refers in most cases to the Confucian moral concept of sincerity, but some references still retain its early religious-ritual implications. For example:

As for invocation, sacrifice, and oblation for the spirits and gods, it would lack sincerity and solemnity if these were held without observing the ritual. ⾐⾝⽰, ㎖公⾎, 䶎н䃐н㦺.

To exhaust the root and understand the change, this is the genuine state of music; to present the sincere and remove the artificial, this is the principle of ritual. Ritual and music imitate the genuine condition of heaven and earth, attain the virtue of the spirits, and make the spirits of the high and the low descend and rise. マᵜ⸕䆺, ′ѻᛵҏ; 㪇䃐৫, ѻ㏃ҏ. ′ڙཙൠѻᛵ, 䚄⾎᰾ѻᗧ, 䱽㠸клѻ⾎. (Zheng and Kong 2000, 1. 17a, 38. 1301a)

To illumine sincerity for sacrifice. ㎌䃐ԕ⾝⽰. (Wang 1983, 7.120)

All these cases show that *cheng*2 carried on *cheng*1s relationship with sacrificial rituals, while it further developed additional meanings such as the importance of sincerity in invoking the gods and spirits to descend in order to complete the rituals.

The rich religious-ritual implications of *cheng* can additionally be examined from the four layers of writings, emotions, materials, and completion of the human-spirit communication, elaborated as follows.
