Up till now the academic world has produced few written results in study of the Sui Dynasty’s system of ladiesinwaiting. An exploratory analysis of the arrangement and evolution of this system by investigating related biographies and accounts, and of other affairs and activities the Sui’s ladiesinwaiting participated in by analyzing materials recorded in stone tablets reveals a system of ladiesinwaiting with six ministries and six departments. It is thought that the system of six ministries might have led to the “Six Ministries in the middle Palace” in the North Zhou Dynasty, which was to be further completed in the Sui Dynasty. Besides, by briefly combing out the Sui Dynasty’s distinctive system of ladiesinwaiting’s official costumes, the study decides that the system of official costumes helped to bridge the evolution between the North Qi and the North Zhou and the Tang dynasty and exhibited the distinctive elements of the Sui’s system of official costumes.

the Sui Dynasty; the system of ladiesinwaiting; the Book of Sui; epitaphs